The American body is in trouble. Unprecedented numbers of us suffer from
obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other debilitating illnesses. The
root cause is a once-revolutionary idea that seemed to offer so much
promise, but instead has become the cause of a global health crisis:
processed foods. Over the past seventy-five years, a number of factors
aligned to create a reality in which processed carbohydrates became our
main food source. In Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs, bestselling author and
former FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler explains how the quest to feed
a nation resulted in a population that is increasingly suffering from
obesity and chronic disease and offers a solution for changing course.
For decades, no one questioned the effects of these processed
carbohydrates. The focus was on fertile grassland, ideal for growing
vast amounts of wheat and corn; an industrial infrastructure perfect for
refining those grains into starch; a food production behemoth that turns
refined grains into affordable, appealing, and ever-present food items,
from pizza to burritos to bagels; and an efficient distribution network
that ensures consumption by Americans nationwide.
But during those same decades, our bodies quietly contended with the
metabolic chaos caused by consuming rapidly absorbable starch. Slowly
but surely, these effects accumulated and became disastrous, leading to
the public health crisis in which we find ourselves today.
In Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs, Kessler explains how eating refined grains
such as wheat, corn, and rice leads to a cascade of hormonal and
metabolic issues that make it very easy to gain weight and nearly
impossible to lose it. Worse still is how excess weight creates a very
real link to diabetes, heart disease, cognitive decline, and a host of
cancers.
We can no longer afford to dismiss the consequences of eating food that
is designed to be rapidly absorbed as sugar in our bodies. Informed by
cutting-edge research as well as Dr. Kessler's own personal quest to
manage his weight, Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs reveals in illuminating
detail how we got to this critical turning point in our health as a
nation--and outlines a plan for eliminating heart disease, allowing us
to, finally, regain control of our health.
