Both philosophies omit a key nonmedical fact helping to explain why Americans eat the way they do. The gurus don't sufficiently appreciate that I wouldn't have eaten all those doughnuts, french fries and popcorn if the stuff weren't so cheap and available. Supermarkets keep consumption stoked. Every workplace, moreover, employs at least one or two dear souls who regularly furnish pastry or candy. The dear souls are thoughtful, but their generosity doesn't cost much.
Food is absurdly, ridiculously inexpensive, by historical measure.
Sadly, scrounging remains a daily nightmare in developing countries like India, and in Africa and rural China. Today's industrial world, by contrast, stages an endless debate over how to limit caloric intake. Meanwhile, carbohydrates, the stuff of life, become even cheaper as a matter of policy and, therefore, a bigger worry. Billions will push more wheat for bagels on to the market, as well as more sugar for frosting. If the commodities market were operating without government stimulus, farmers surely wouldn't plant as many crops and surpluses would shrink.