Eating As Many Carbs As The USDA Recommends Is Absurd

The longer I have been writing at this blog, the clearer it has become who the champions of low-carb are in the media and who are not. One such standard bearer for the low-carb cause is the Low-Carb Host for BellaOnline.com named Lisa Shea.

I previously blogged about one of her recent articles and even got a very kind reply from her about it.

Here latest column challenges the amount of carbs the government recommends for healthy living and comes up with some startling statistics if you were to follow their guidelines.

Acknowledging that people who are livin' la vida low-carb are eating less than 80g of carbs per day, Shea also noted that the USDA recommends that 45 percent of your calories should come from carbs. Using their own numbers, a person eating just 2,400 calories in a day (and this is likely a very low number for most low-carbers although most of us aren't counting calories) would have to consume a whopping 270g of carbs per day!

Are you serious?! I should reveal that this also includes fiber and sugar alcohols, which normally are not included in the "net" carbs, as well as sugar and starches. But still, 270g of carbs every single day! WOW! I could not imagine. When I was losing weight, I probably didn't eat that many carbs in a WEEK!

Shea provides a sample menu and struggles to get to 76.5g of carbs with even a few low-carb no-no's such as bread and oatmeal thrown into the mix. She concludes that the only way she could even get close to the USDA recommendation is by eating "really nasty food," which I assume she is referring to sodas, potato chips and candy, among other things.

Instead of blindly eating these foods to make up the carb deficit, Shea said you should "eat natural food" such a vegetables so you will get the nutrients your body needs. The government is, in essence, asking people to load up on sugar instead and this is not a good idea.

She makes ones statement that stuck with me long after reading the article: "(T)o force yourself to eat EXTRA carbs [as recommended by the USDA] - including eating junk carbs - just to meet an artificial line is nonsensical."

While I am sure those government nutritionists were only trying to be helpful with their suggestions for good nutrition, I think they grossly missed the mark by expecting people to eat as many carbs in a day as they do. Even the 2000-calorie meal plan from Seattle Sutton's Healthy Eating that I recently blogged about included an eye-popping 274g of carbs in it. This just goes to show you that even people who are dieting on a low-fat/low-calorie approach can be overloading their bodies with way too many carbs. This is not a healthy way to eat at all.

Thanks again to Lisa Shea for pointing out the absurdity of the government dietary recommendations. When will they ever learn?