Revenge Of The Carnivores
June 10, 2004

It's a sad but true fact of human nature that we always look for someone else to blame for our troubles. It might be a rival clan, nation or ethnic group, a childhood trauma, or a Higher Authority. Maybe the Devil made you do it. Maybe Mercury is in retrograde. Whatever the problem, we can always wriggle off the hook by digging up a designated scapegoat or jonah or witch. This is especially true in an election year, when the us-vs-them frenzy is at its peak. No problem is so dire or complex that some convenient evildoer can't be found to take the rap.

Blame it on Canada. Blame it on the Bossa Nova. Put the blame on Mame. "It is the stars, the stars above us, govern our conditions," declares a character in Shakespeare's King Lear, to the great relief of all the Machiavellian schemers in the play. (Shakepeare does consider an alternative viewpoint in Julius Caesar when Cassius dares to suggest that "the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves," but that line of thinking only leads to mayhem.)

But now there's a scurrilous new witch-hunt abroad in the land, a scapegoat so downtrodden, so abject, and so unfairly maligned, that people of conscience cannot help but speak out in its defense.

I'm referring of course to carbs.

I love carbs. It's my favorite food group, right up there with sugar and alcohol. Cookies, muffins, biscuits, scones. Bread, in all its seductive and infinite variety. Noodles. Tortillas. Popcorn. Doughnuts. Even Lima beans. If it's starch-based, I am so there. And it distresses me to see my favorite culinary staple so demonized by protein Nazis tub-thumping for the current all-beef, all-the-time dietary craze.

It used to be artery-clogging animal products that were leading us en masse to an early grave. Born-again vegetarians recoiled at the mere sight of a burger. Their ears were offended by the crackle of bacon. The slightest whiff of sizzling steak gave them the vapors. Drinking a glass of milk was tantamount to injecting rat poison. But now, like Alice, we've entered a looking-glass world where meat, like greed, is good. It's what perennial dieters have always longed to hear. Don't worry about fat, grease, cholesterol; it's all part of the magic elixir, protein.

Now carbs are the culprit. As George Carlin once said about the seven most censorable words on television, it's carbs, so we're told, that will rot your mind, curve your spine, and lose the war for the Allies. And by carbs, we're not just talking Krispy Kremes. Legitimate high-fibre whole grains and cereals are also largely verboten. Potatoes are right off the list, of course, but so are other starchy vegetables like beans, peas and corn. Even fresh fruit is reviled for its demon sugar content. Bananas, grapes, pears—kiss 'em goodbye.

When bacon is considered healthier than bananas, there's something screwy going on. I chalk it up to the Revenge of the Carnivores. Like any oppressed group, meat-eaters can't wait to turn the tables on their former oppressors, and they're doing it with plenty of media savvy. Newly self-righteous carnivores demand to know where the evil carbs are lurking. At the supermarket, confused consumers (is there any other kind?) attempting to shop healthy are confronted with low-carb stickers plastered on everything from chips to wine to pizza dough. (Good grief, what's the point? If I want to decriminalize a pizza, I'll keep the carbs and skip the pepperoni.) The meat cultists are in charge now; get out of the way or be trampled in the bovine stampede. They're laughing all the way to cardiac arrest.

We're encouraged to belive that carbs alone are responsible for America's obesity epidemic; it's so much simpler that way. And as is so often the case with scapegoats, the fanatical zeal of those opposed to them is reaching outrageous extremes. Carbs are the new cigarettes. Supposedly health-conscious foodies stuffing themselvs with animal fat already shun carbs in public places. How long before offensive carb-eaters are ghettoized in roped-off sections of restaurants, if not tossed out altogether, or walled off in glass cages at airports? The bread and cereal aisles at the market will be locked to prevent access by impressionable minors, like cigarettes or spray paint. Snack-vending machines will be banned from public spaces. Any commuter caught furtively chewing on a bagel will be thrown off the train. Shunned carb-addicts will congregate in shame in illegal bakeries operated like the speakeasies and opium dens of old.

It's so much easier to demonize carbs than to face the real issue behind American obesity: we eat too much. What's more, kids play Game Boy instead of hopscotch or basketball, while adults who spend all day in sedentary jobs think watching TV is recreation. Exercise and eating less—of everything—are the only effective ways to diet, but nobody wants to hear that. We'd rather cling to the notion that something else must be held responsible for our fat-inducing lifestyle, some weapon of mass delusion that, if rooted out and eliminated, will bring about the magical miracle cure. The fault, dear consumer, is not in our carbs but in ourselves.