Feeding Humans: Essential Food

Everyone has heard at some point that there are essential nutrients humans need to consume to survive. Essential vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, etc. Interestingly enough, there are no essential carbohydrates. This seems counter intuitive considering the information given to the public through things like the food pyramid, educational curriculum, and medical literature from the past few decades. Most people aged 40 and under don't have any pretext for what existed in the realm of food and health information before the food pyramid and the USDA. And, the majority of Americans under the age of 40 are either obese or metabolically abnormal.

Approx. 40% of Americans under age 40 are obese. Approx. 25% of normal weight individuals have metabolic syndrome. And yet over 60% of American consumers claim to actively try to eat healthy, most, if not all the time. So does this mean that at least 20% of these claims are just lies? I wouldn't be so sure. If we're told that the vast majority of our diet should be carbs and fiber, as evidenced by the food pyramid, then when we eat primarily carbs and fiber, it seems natural to believe that we are engaging in the pursuit of proper eating habits. But the fact is, there is an overlap in the data that shows something isn't quite adding up.

The human body does not need a single carbohydrate to function. Dietary carbohydrates are processed by the body into glucose, and the strict function of dietary carbohydrates is to provide glucose for the body. However, the human body literally creates all of the glucose that it needs, on its own, without any dietary carbohydrates. So why is it that we see the USDA prescribing carbs as the vast majority of the recommended human diet, when it isn't even required? And on the contrary, the very top half of the food pyramid, otherwise known as the foods to either avoid or consume with scarcity, includes meat, eggs, and fats, which, happen to include every single essential nutrient required by the human body. Now regardless of why on earth the food pyramid model is designed the way it is, one must ask themselves, is it actually right?

There are 9 essential amino acids, 2 essential fatty acids, 13 vitamins, and 16 minerals that the body needs to survive and otherwise thrive. Eating beef, by itself, will provide all of them. There is not a single carbohydrate in any form, fruit, grain, plant leaf, etc, that can provide all of them. In fact, most carb based diets, such as a vegan diet, are unable to provide all essential nutrients without supplementation, regardless of prolonged adaptation, unlike carnivore. Not to mention, there is not a single plant, grain, fruit, or any form of natural dietary carbohydrate, that is non allergenic. Meaning, humans can be allergic to literally any carb. And again, on the contrary, red meat allergy is one of the rarest conditions naturally occurring in humans, being essentially non existent in the human race, at scale. By rights, red meat should be the single most recommended health food on the planet. I think, at the very least, we should probably get the food pyramid swapped around a bit. Food for thought, literally.