Man cannot live on bread alone. Wanna bet?

My 15-year-old nephew was absorbing the bread with his eyes, nose, and mouth. Stopping to breathe, he said, “This bread is immaculate.”

It wasn’t his Catholic school education speaking. It was the purity of the love for carbohydrates. What it is about bread, pasta, and crackers? Why does the body crave them like other essentials such as water, sleep, and sex?

I am a carbohydrate lover. My idea of swimming with the fishes involves taking a carton of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish into the tub with me. As long as you keep the bubbles at your feet there is very little soapy flavor involved.

Fresh bread? The French have it right. Who needs a plastic bag? There will be nothing left to store.

Before I joined Weight Watchers, I went on a low-carbohydrate diet. If I remember accurately, it limited my daily carbohydrate intake to three daily servings and one of them was a protein bar. I was dizzy and light headed before noon, crawling to the vending machine for a bag of pretzels.

Carbs are our country's claim to fame, commanding the second line of America the Beautiful: O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain…” The only reason the skies got first billing is that the sun is needed to grow the wheat.

And now wheat it is. It wasn’t always an easy transition, but we are now a whole grain family. When we started buying whole wheat bread, I had to offer my PB&J eating children a soft, white alternative. But now, three years later, I am proud to report my children are exclusively eating wheat and whole grain breads by choice. And they survived. They can pass for healthy, shallow teenagers in any mall in the nation without a trace of patchouli, tofu, or gauze.

It was an uphill battle for a while. Let’s face it, while I grew up wearing bread bags inside my galoshes, I can’t get my own children to even eat the heal of a loaf of bread. Do you know my grandparents would have done for the end piece of bread? Besides stack wood to warm the bathtub, which was a bucket used to make dandelion wine placed in the center of the kitchen and filled with recycled water and used by all five members of the family…it’s hard to say. After all, only one of them could leave the house at a time because they shared the same pair of shoes. But I'm sure they would have walked five miles uphill in the snow for a crusty bread end.

In my weight loss journey, I’ve discovered many wonderful new carbohydrates-—all of which are whole grain--couscous, polenta, quinoa, barley, and bulgar to name a few. The kids loved the couscous the first time I served it and didn’t hesitate to eat polenta. The quinoa passed for couscous so that wasn’t a struggle. They didn’t even spot the barley and bulgar I slip into soups and chili.

The most popular carb in my house, however, is probably roasted sweet potatoes. With some olive oil, garlic, and fresh rosemary tossed onto peeled and sliced strips cooked in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes, we go wild, eating these sweet potato style fries warm or cold.

I don’t live on bread alone. But I don’t think I could live without it. I don’t believe carbs are evil. I too think they are inherently immaculate.