Here is something we definitely can't afford. National dietary policy including agriculture subsidies, manufacturing regulation and professional guidance is not working.

• America is getting fatter and dangerously so
• 20 million Americans suffer from diabetes and this number may increase to 50 million within 20 years if we keep getting fatter
• Cardiovascular disease, cancer and other ailments are worsened by obesity
  
• Most of the fattening of the country is fueled by sugar, highly refined flour, corn syrup and other simple carbohydrates. Some people think inactivity and fat consumption are equally responsible but the carb effect is greater than all others combined (citation needed)
  
• Carbs are found in sodas, snacks, fries, chips, bread, breakfast cereals and bars,  baked desserts, ice cream ...you know all the stuff that tastes good, satisfies quickly and is easy to prepare and eat on the run
  
• Sugar, potato, wheat, and especially corn farmers wield power in the political lobbies.
• The so called balanced American diet contains too many refined simple carbohydrates
• Too many good foods contain simple carbohydrate additives that make them bad
• Sports drinks are loaded with sugar. So if you exercise then drink a Gatorade to cool off you may end up gaining weight. Gatorade was developed at the University of Florida to help footballs players work through the exhaution of two a day workouts in the heat and humidity of Gainsville. If you excercise that hard and are trying to build muscle you'll need a sports drink. Otherwise water is a better choice.
  
• High fructose corn syrup, popular in manufactured foods, is the latest culprit
  
• Invented by the Japanese in the 1970's, Americans now consume 60 pounds per year of HFCS (just about half of our total sugar consumption)
  
• HFCS is consumed at a lower rate in Japan and generally not at all in Europe.
• You'll find it in sodas, bread, cereals, snack bars, cookies, cakes almost every manufactured food because its cheaper than sugar
  
• Really unfortunate is the fact that beer has the same carbohydrate kick as a soda. You'll have to drink vodka instead.
  
• Low carb diets focus on the role of insulin in sweeping sugars out of the bloodstream and storing them in the cells as fat
  
• Efforts to identify the problem and propose low carb alternatives are ridiculed by well meaning conservative scientist because the low carb diets challenge the assumption that ingesting fat is not as bad as ingesting sugars that we use to make fat in our cells
  
• Government could be helpful or just get out of the way but instead they continue to provide advocacy for the vested farming interests
• Subsidies for crops
• An FDA locked into an obsolete and unbalanced food pyramid
  
• Even the diabetes association has been slow to understand the role of carbs in a healthy diet
  

Think for a moment about how many of these foods have only been introduced to our diets in the last century and only since recently have they gained widespread use. They are not part of a traditional diet.  People ate meat, fish, dairy, vegetables, and coarse bread made from stone ground wheat. They didn't start getting fat until they started eating baked goods made from highly refined flour with lots of sugar. Sodas, cakes and cookies used to be rare, expensive and saved for parties and celebrations. The consumption of manufactured food was unknown.