The Carbohydrate wars, Part 1

I knew less of diets than many newbie soldiers knew of war before the balloon went up. But like many a poorly trained solider I quickly found myself stuck in no-man’s land watching with a horrid fascination as the flaming posts whizzed overhead striking trolls and innocent bystanders alike. On one side of the line are the traditionalists, led by the American Diabetes Association which itself advocates a forty-five to sixty-five percent carbohydrate diet. Meanwhile we have Dr. Bernstein and his acolytes in a headlong, pell-mell rush for a diabetic low carb diet which is currently ranked #6 on diabetes books with Amazon dot com. His reviewers have peppered the reviews with phrases like, “this book will save your life.”

Opening a second front in this open multi-directional war are the ‘low-glycemic’ warriors whose bible is Dr. Jennie Brand-Miller’s The New Glucose Revolution. To whom the kind of carb is more important than the number, except when it’s not. Regardless, they wound-up coming down squarely and decisively between the other two camps… For the most part. Meanwhile, the Joslin center has its own diet book out with an emphasis on low fat, high fiber, moderate protein, carbs… what about carbs… Oh some meals are high and others low. Lovely.

Now I’m a guy who is willing to embrace uncertainty, as a racer I once actually saw an old shoe give two drivers completely opposite pieces of advice on how to handle the same kind of car in same corner, and be right both times. I often call it fuzziness, a lack of clarity that depends on there being more factors than human beings can take into account. And if anything appears to be fuzzy its diet.

It is, sadly, all too likely that our systems are complex enough that no two of us are going to react the same way to the same diet. Anecdotal evidence, which I can only come by for me by trying one side or the other, appears to be the only way out of this morass. So I’m going to study one, then pick one, and try a heavy dose of monitoring my BG levels, and if it doesn't work I'll just try another, because if I just keep sitting out here without picking a side I’m gonna get creamed.