The Atlantic

The Danger of Fast Carbs

Processed carbohydrates have become a staple of the American diet, and the consequences are wreaking havoc on our bodies.
Source: Chaloner Woods / Getty

I stood in the supermarket a couple of years ago examining the Nutrition Facts label on a box of breakfast cereal and realized that it did not tell me all I needed to know about what was inside. In 1992, when I was the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, I helped design the now-ubiquitous food label. I believe it has made an important contribution to public health. Given the limits of our knowledge when we introduced it in 1994, we could not have done it differently. But it is no longer enough.

[Read: More than half of what Americans eat]

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