My struggle filled relationship with carbohydrates

Carbs are my life. I could eat just carbs for every meal for the rest of my life and be happy. I didn’t even know that eating too many carbs was supposedly unhealthy for you until I was talking about dieting with one of my high school friends, who said that she was trying to cut out as many carbs as possible in her meals. It was a rude awakening for me, completely cementing the fact that absolutely everything I ever like eating is somehow unhealthy. 

Shortly after that, I started seeing “Low-Carb Diet” videos recommended to me everywhere on YouTube, further ruining my mood, because they were a reminder to me that corporations were spying on my private conversations. 

And the more I clicked on these videos, the more my feed started to be filled with these fad diet videos. One of these diets, the “keto” diet, involves eating lots of fats, “adequate” amounts of protein and few carbs. 

Personally, the diet doesn’t even make sense to me because it’s strange that fats are actually more beneficial to losing weight than carbs are. I’ve tried to read about the science of it, but it still didn’t click. I was in too much denial about the unhealthiness of carbs, and it’s not like science ever made sense for me after ninth grade biology anyway. (For that matter, it’s not like any STEM field makes sense to me anyway.)

Obviously, not all carbs are “bad” for you: After all, fruits have carbs. However, when I’m talking about being a carb-lover, I’m talking about grains: bread, pasta and rice. I could straight up eat an entire bowl of just rice if you give it a little bit of salt and pepper — no need for meat or vegetables. 

The same goes for pasta. However, I’ve also discovered that nut butter goes well with rice. I’ve even tried sunflower seed butter with rice, with great success. Then again, I can also eat nut butter by itself. I often eat peanut or almond butter from the jar with a spoon at home when I’m bored.

While I might need a sprinkling of condiments to go with my pasta and rice, though, I can definitely eat bread 100 percent by itself. I’m talking even a plain slice of white bread. A baguette can serve as breakfast by itself for me. Last semester, I slept over at a friend’s apartment and started eating a baguette with her boyfriend for breakfast. He got some olive oil to dip his bread in, which I also partook in, but I could’ve eaten it alone.

The texture and fluffiness of bread is what I especially love. Unlike pasta and rice, I can just tear a loaf of bread however I want. I can get a small piece, a large piece or whatever. 

Meanwhile, pasta and rice are already in certain shapes. It’s an oddly specific thing to like about food, but tearing into a loaf of bread gives me a great feeling. Maybe it’s got to do with the inner savage and violent tendencies in me that have to be satisfied. Do I take out my anger and stress on my food? Honestly, the more I think about it, I probably do. I like digging my spoon into hardened ice cream. It actually annoys me when it’s too creamy and soft and easy to scoop. I even use a fork to eat my ice cream with sometimes, even when I have spoons available to me. 

Eating carbs is generally full of adventure for me. I also love crackers and cereal. Munching on crunchy items really makes me feel like I’m doing something even when it’s something as simple as snacking. 

This is also why I don’t even mind when my bread is hard. It’ll be bad for me when I am older and my teeth are weaker, but I love having to exert some energy with each bite. This eating habit of mine is also probably why I tend to grind my teeth so much. It actually got to the point where I developed some minor jaw issues because I was unconsciously grinding my teeth in my sleep. Why? The orthodontist told me it was probably due to stress. More specifically, though, it’s probably because I was eating bread in my dreams. 

I’m never going to give up carbs.