Carbohydrate: the ultimate hunter 108 conditions have no obvious warning symptoms. They develop with few outward signs that they have begun their inexorable journey towards causing premature death. Carbohydrate comes in so many forms that most of us find it difficult to keep up and separate the bad from the not so bad, and these from the good. Of the four food groups carbohydrate is the one that comes in the greatest number of guises. Its ability to disguise and camouflage itself is part of what makes it such a lethal hunter. But what really makes carbohydrate such a powerful hunter is its allies. In the late 1980s, when the US Surgeon General told the world to eat less fat because it was bad for you, the food manufacturing giants realized they were sitting on a marketing bonanza. They had just been handed two weapons of nuclear capacity: the phrases‘ low fat’ and‘ doctors recommend …’. After a while they could drop the‘ doctors recommend …’ endorsement because soon everyone came to know that the authorities, when it came to our health, were all in agreement that fat was the problem. Soon‘ low fat’ came to embody both concepts – making them two of the most incredibly powerful words in modern marketing. If you don’ t believe me walk around your nearest supermarket and count the number of times you read those two little three letter words … I am particularly tickled by the way food manufacturers label food as low fat that that is naturally low fat! Salsa is a great example – it is made from capsicum, tomato and onion. As I take a break from writing this book, I am about to prepare some wholemeal spaghetti with tomato based pasta sauce for lunch. I find myself somewhat disturbed to read on the packet that it is 97 % fat free. What concerns me is this 3 % fat! What kind of fat is it? Is it saturated fat that has been added or is it natural fat from the spaghetti tree – which I’ m guessing must be polyunsaturated and good for you? But the‘ low fat’ Oscar goes to the manufacturer of a bag of candy snakes that labeled the contents has having‘ no fat’. Very true, there is simply no room for fat in pure sugar!