Just What is this Mess?

For the last two years, my life has been given over to the study or use of carbohydrates in some form. After earning my M.S. in Food Science & Technology, I made the decision to turn my back on the academic study of food science. Academia is sick, people. Sick, sick, sick. It needs to crumble and die via όλεθρος before it can become well.

Nonetheless, I find myself with a great many thoughts still rumbling around in my head on the subject of carbohydrates in food, their metabolism and use in the human creature. I have seen just what we are calling food these days, what the industry says that it does, and what it more probably actually does. I have seen science chase after new fashions rise up and fall, contributed to reviews on the “hot topics”, and found that the memory of the field often doesn't go back beyond a decade, nor is the heterodox voice suffered for long. And so good men keep silent and are thought wise.

And yet my thoughts are not all bitter. Some are sweet and tasty, like a gluten-free sticky bun. Contrary to the opinions the Atkins and Low-Carb and Paleo faddists, all playing variations on the same tired motif, carbohydrate foods have sustained man throughout his recorded history, and there is much to be gained from their study. The baker’s art is ancient and not exhausted even to this day, and with the advent of gluten-free foods, we have even more frontiers to explore in food science.

Thus, I come to you, dear reader, with this blog. I have had the uncomfortable experience of the scales falling from my eyes through my studies, but I cannot divorce myself from the field that I loved enough to pursue a graduate education in. I might be embittered, but I have knowledge that can serve my fellow man and help him to better understand his staff of life. I know how it can harm, and how it can heal.

So, have a helping of my thoughts. Just be forewarned: they tend to stick to themselves like sushi rice. Good luck trying to pull them apart.