[...] Bagel, toast, muffin, English muffin: giant balls of “carbs”, i.e. chewy, crunchy sugar. Did you know that bread—even “heart-healthy” whole-wheat bread—has the same glycemic index as Skittles? [...]

Is it really the case that hunter gatherers can be so easily claimed as a behavioral bench mark for human eating behavior.

I also must applaud Cornelius's excellent point, that there were unrecognized seasonal aspects to be yet to be factored in.

I recollect that the northern European Vikings, who at the beginning of the last ice age, having earlier colonized Greenland, simply died out by not recognizing the futility of trying to 'gather' in continuous snow and ice…whereas the indigenous Inuit, who for thousands of years in the sub arctic didn't gather at all, but Lived almost exclusively on seal meat ( which interestingly also protected them from scurvy).

Surely, there are such serious genetic differences between all of us. Where say today a descendant of such an Inuit living in London, who still has a natural advantage of an ability to live in a severe cold climate surely is also likely to have also a genetic predilection and thus even a real NEED to 'gather ye rosebuds while ye may' in times of food abundance? As Cornelius's quibbles rightly pointed out

[...] crude construction.  Bread is always a hot topic.  Want to learn more?  Check out this website: http://www.gnolls.org/905/mechanisms-of-sugar-addiction-or-why-youre-addicted-to-bread/  And as always, if you like what you see here, check out the shop [...]

[...] Sugar Addiction: Or Why You Are Addicted To Bread [...]

[...] Mechanisms of Sugar Addiction: Or, Why You’re Addicted To Bread (Updated) [...]

Firs,t let me make clear that I'm not a 'shill' for Big Bread (or Big Wheat, or Big Agra): I am of the view that wheat is to be avoided to the extent possible - the 'complex' carbs in it aren't complex once they hit the mouth; the protein in it is both hostile to human gut lining AND addictive (the gluteorphins and gliadorphins); and WGA (wheat germ agglutenin) - the lectin in wheat - is an endocrine disaster.

OK... that said:

I wish people would stop using GI - it's the equivalent of using BMI (which is an idiotic portmanteau statistic that is meaningless the moment anybody does any resistance training whatsoever).

The GI of white bread is higher than that of Skittles (and of table sugar), however white bread only contains 51g of carbohydrate per 100g whereas Skittles contain 91g/100g - and furthermore, the fact that the carbs in Skittles are 50% fructose brings into play al lthe bad things about fructose (in the absence of VitC and fibre) that folks like Gary Taubes and Robert Lustig have made clear.

GI is based on a 'dose' of the relevant food that contains 50g of carbohydrate: the fact that bread is 51/91sts as carb-dense as SKittles, means that a serve of bread 91/51sts the size of the equivalent-GI serve of Skittles.

Glycemic LOAD for a specific serve size is a far more relevant measure. That's the GI of the food, multiplied by the carbs per unit weight of the food, times the weight of the serve.

Srsly... get yourself a blood glucose meter, and measure your blood glucose at 20-min intervals after eating a serve of bread and a serve of skittles: there is NO COMPARISON.

Bread is still REALLY bad for you though: check out the YouTube vids that detail how the well-meaning developement of high-yield semi-dwarf strains of wheat b yBorlaug in the 950s has had disastros consequences for humans. Modern wheat is almost the epitome of a 'designer diabesogenic' - AND it's addictive.

And who the hell eats Skittles anyhow? Anybody who lets their kid have them is committing child abuse (almost as much as people who religiously-indoctrinate their kids).