What's wrong with today's diet?Today's Western diet is the product of industrialisation based on inventions ranging from Jethro Tull's seed drill (in 1701) to the high speed steel roller mills for milling cereals (in the nineteenth century) and advances in processing food to give it a longer shelf life. The benefits are many. We have a plentiful, relatively cheap, palatable (some would say too palatable) and safe food supply. Gone are the days of monotonous fare, gaps in the food supply, weevil-infested and adulterated food. Long gone are widespread vitamin deficiencies such as scurvy and pellagra. Today's food manufacturers work hard to bring us irresistible products that meet the demands of both gourmands and health conscious consumers. Many of the new foods are still based on our staple cereals—wheat, maize, oats—but the original grain has been ground down to produce fine flours with small particle size that produces the best quality breads, cakes, biscuits, breakfast cereals and extruded snack foods. Cereal chemists and bakers know that the finest particle size flour produces the most palatable and shelf-stable end product. But this striving for excellence in one area has resulted in unforeseen problems in another. Today's staple carbohydrate foods, including ordinary bread, are quickly digested and absorbed. The resulting effect on blood sugar levels has created a problem for many of us. *6\33\4* «Generic Medications» |