About ten millenia ago, something happened in modern Southeastern Turkey that would change the world permanently. We do not actually know what exactly it is, but we know that a temple built in a place now called Gobeklitepe by hunter-gatherers is the place where we have the first evidence of wheat cultivation. My favorite hypothesis is the foragers saw the wheat seeds growing in the toilet and then started cultivating it, eating shit if you want to call it that.

Similar events happened in different places around the globe where agriculture was independently invented but this is how the ancestors of the modern Western people invented it. It also transformed the daily life of an average man and the whole fabric of society. They cultivated it into a superfood that could be stored for months that did not require undertaking any danger and packed a huge amount of calories which meant people would not have to periodically go hungry. This also meant lots of more kids who could also work in cultivation and in return get even more food.

The old foragers either found themselves adopting this new way of life, getting succumbed to overpopulation or turning into pastoralist raiders that ended up wiping out or taking over the peaceful farming societies. We are the cultural descendants of those raiders, and the prevailing languages and cultures of today are the legacy of those pastoralist, militarized nomads.

There was also something wrong with a peasant's diet. He could eat all of his caloric requirement using one or two kinds of food cultivated but unless he could keep constantly trading which was not always possible, he had to eat only wheat or an equivalent caloric filler. This meant tons of diseases and a reduced life expectancy for a person who survived his childhood.

Today wheat is still a huge staple even if it is leaving some of its share to foods like rice and corn. It is really easy to shape, is relatively cheap, can be made into desserts, pastries, bread, anything. Cupcakes, birthday cakes, honey wheat bread, donuts, bagels, pizza, buns...

It is totally filler food. There is nothing associated with it that is not fattening and unhealthy. Even whole wheat is not healthy but just a palate substitute for regular bread, to fulfill its role without the massive carbohydrate intake.

Corn and rice are even worse. They have a lower amount of proteins and fiber and higher amounts of starches. Starches get broken into simple sugars almost immediately after they enter a person's mouth by an enzyme called alpha-amylase. Means both these and their products are literally just sugar.

And sugars get in the bloodstream in mere minutes, cause an insulin spike which is why people tend to feel sleepy after eating a huge McLandwhale meal. It drives the metabolic rate down and yes, the testerone down, which immobilizes the consumer long enough to store it so that he can survive the next spell of hunger and carry on to make more babies. Except, that does not make sense in today's world. And even though an average Westerner has constant access to such foods, his body is not used to this fact and can and will use every insulin spike to store more fat for the 'inevitable' hunger spell that never comes, leaving us with a 2/3 fat population.

That is why starchy carbs are bad. They are cheap, pack a huge caloric intake without the necessary protein intake (they can not be created only from sugars, consuming protein is the only way we can get the nitrogen required for amino-acid building) or the slowly-digested potent energy intake of fats.

It is really hard to avoid sugar nowadays. It is used as filler in everything, even in protein powders, peanut butter etc. This is all the more a good to reason to avoid pastries. You know they are bad quality food, you will also notice you might be literally addicted to them as you will possibly occasionally crave burgers or pizza or donuts and maybe end up 'cheating'. Still, if you are eating pastries on a regular basis, you are quite possibly driving your performance down and suppressing your potential for another slice of pizza.