What's In A Carb?

This morning at work I had a customer order a breakfast sandwich and ask what she could get it on that was “low carb”. Unfortunately, the honest answer was “not much”, but I did explain that we could always put her eggs and cheese just on a plate or in a bowl if she didn't want the bread. I also started to offer to add a few of the free extras people tend to like when they take that option – tomatoes or spinach, for example. Then I corrected myself, since I couldn't remember off the top of my head if spinach qualified as low carb. (Turns out it does at about 1g of carbs per cup of fresh spinach, if anybody cares.)

Corn. Grows above ground. Not low carb.

The woman looked at me, smiled cheerily, and said “Oh, it is. Everything that grows above ground is low carb.”

Umm.... say what now? 

(Picture here an absolutely blank stare, as I ran that sentence through my head six times in an effort to figure out if I misheard it, or possibly misunderstood what she was trying to say, before I resigned myself to the fact that she was completely serious.)

I politely finished cashing her out and (barely) resisted the urge to go bang my head against the nearest wall.

Obviously, she was repeating a rule of thumb given to her by someone (probably a professional) she trusted to know these things. And I concede I can sort of see what they were getting at… potatoes, carrots and other root vegetables tend to be much higher in carbs than your (above-ground) leafy greens.

But for Force sake!! Wheat grows above ground, and flour is (or should be) just ground wheat. Apples, bananas, corn, pumpkins – last I checked, they all grew above ground and are definitely not low in carbs!!

If you're on a 'trendy' low carb diet, it might not matter that much. But that kind of grossly inaccurate, misleading rule of thumb could practically kill someone who's trying to go low carb to control diabetes, epilepsy, or other medical conditions particularly sensitive to that. 

This is the level of common knowledge about our food supply and dietary practices that permeates the country, and yet you have to pay out of pocket for any and all education on the subject. Almost no insurance will pay for more than one or two sessions with a Registered Dietician, and then only if you have diabetes, essentially. It's positively appalling. 

Anyway, I'll stop ranting now, but please consider this your friendly neighborhood PSA that GROWING ABOVE GROUND DOES NOT MAKE SOMETHING LOW CARB.  Thank you.