Could you tell me why rice and beans are problematic? The studies I know are typically in favor of these kinds of food. Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. Is this some kind of carb-phobia?
Also, in the west, a lot of the culture of preparing these foods (such as fermenting or vigorous soaking) is bypassed.
> Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people.
That data suffers from the usual issues related to nutritional studies. Consuming beans in place of donuts may be a good predictor of health, that doesn't mean that beans themselves are healthy relative to other healthy foods.
I don't know if poor Americans are doomed to diabetes, but it is certainly orders of magnitude easier for the poor to eat poorly compared to the rich. Boosting morale in the poor is difficult without cheap fatty/sweet food and drugs, other poor people have nearly nothing else to get by excessive stressors except exercise. Running a perfectly clean life is admirable and very difficult with limited resources, social standing and spare time.
(1)https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-link...
Rice in itself is a healthy food, especially when it is brown. I read a study some years ago where a doctor even cured mild forms of diabetes with high loads of rice instead of junk food. Don‘t have a link handy though.
Americans are not doomed to diabetes. Diabetes T2 is one of the easiest diseases to prevent. Vegans for example have 60-70% less diabetes according to observational studies like Adventist Health II.