i thought long and hard about where i should put this... so if anyone feels it needs to be moved to maybe the media section or the general section, please feel free to do so.
i've looked all over the foodtv.com and alton brown's website but there's no really good way to get this to him, so i thought i would share it with everyone here... if anyone's got suggestions or knows where to send fan mail, please let me know!
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Dear Alton;
I have been a fan of Good Eats for several years now, and I can happily say that your show is everything you had intended it to be: informative, innovative, and intelligently humorous. Thanks to your descriptions and detailed explanations of the chemical reactions that occur in cooking, I've learned more about how to handle, or not handle, food than from any other source.
I recently caught the episode titled "Power Trip" which looked at various health food bars and explained how to make them at home. I was very happy to see the explanation you gave on the different components of nutrition (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins), and how they affect the human body. You had indicated that high amounts of carbohydrates were fine for marathon runners or other endurance athletes but not for the everyday average person, and that fats were essential for the human body to function and not the horrible substance which should be avoided at all costs that it's been made out to be.
But then you said something that had me reaching for the remote, ready to swap your bespectacled face for anything else, even a giant purple dinosaur or four brightly-colored baby aliens. In describing one of the recipes, you said the bars would even be fine for people who'd joined a "low carb cult."
I don't know that words are sufficient to express how deeply offended I was. While many of us gladly adhere to low-carbing ideals and principles, even to the point of religious devotion, to call it a cult is demeaning and indicates blind fervor and unquestioning acceptance of the validity of anything claiming to be low-carb. Most of us who have adopted a low-carb lifestyle have done so for medical reasons. We deal with food addictions that hinder our ability to get proper nutrition, we have either shown the precursory signs of or have been diagnosed with diabetes, or we deal with gluten intolerances that make most readily-available processed foods impossible for us to eat. Those of us not faced with medical issues follow low-carbing for the other health benefits it gives us, such as increased metabolic efficiency, better cognitive functions since we don't deal with sugar crashes during the day, increased energy and stamina, and collectively we've lost more points on our cholesterol than the pounds lost from the entire cast of "The Biggest Loser". With all the other health benefits we've gained, simple weight loss is just a footnote in comparison.
The more research is done on the effects of a low-carb lifestyle, the more science is admitting that fats are indeed good for us, high amounts of processed carbohydrates are bad for us, and that sugar is effectively poisoning us. Those of us who low-carb primarily eat whole, fresh foods. We embrace vegetables and healthy fats like olive oil and butter. We revel in eggs, meats, and good cheeses. For the most part, we've stepped away from processed "frankenfoods" that provide little to no nutritional value.
The human body evolved to survive on a diet of protein and fats, with limited sources of complex carbohydrates and even fewer sources of simple carbohydrates. So please, don't call low-carbers a cult... just call us human.
Best regards;
Kaett von M.
an open letter to Alton Brown
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