Recently I have been wondering how the American diet has evolved to what it is today.  Starting in the 1970's, the American Medical Association (AMA) advised people to eat carbohydrates and to avoid fat.   Americans became convinced that fat was the "primary nutrition evil in the American diet" (Taubes, 2002).  As an undergraduate nutrition major in the late 1980's, I remember being taught that fats were bad and carbohydrates were good.  We focused our consultation on fat consumption reduction.  An assessment by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) show that between 1970 and 2005, consumption of added sugar and sweetener increased 19 percent while corn sweetener consumption increased over 387 percent (Wells & Buzby, 2008).  A snapshot of the American diet by the Harvard Public Health Department shows that the average American eats thirty teaspoons of added sugars and sweeteners per day compared to the recommended eight teaspoons or less (2009).  Additionally, an average American eats 7.2 ounces of refined grains (simple carbohydrates) per day compared to the recommended three ounces of refined grains.  So it seems that Americans have done a good job of increasing carbohydrate consumption, but we are consuming the wrong type of carbohydrates.  All carbohydrates are not created equal.  Complex carbohydrates are those that are higher in fiber and do not cause a rapid increase in blood sugar when consumed.  Simple carbohydrates digest quickly and quickly increase our blood sugar.  Our focus needs to switch from consumption of carbohydrate in general to consumption of complex carbohydrate with a reduction in simple carbohydrate intake.  Examples of simple and complex carbohydrates are listed below.