High Carb - Cinnamon Rolls
For decades we've been told that to stay healthy and slim we should eat a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet. We've been brainwashed into thinking that (all) fats are bad and carbohydrates are good. But now, with obesity at an all-time high and the number of people with diabetes soaring, it's become apparent that this approach doesn't work. The irony is that the high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet is one of the major reasons why more people are overweight than ever before.
About Nutrients
At the most general level there are three basic kinds of nutrients – proteins, carbohydrates and fats. While proteins and fats are digested relatively slowly, carbohydrates digest and are absorbed quickly, releasing a surge of glucose into the bloodstream. This sudden rise in blood sugar triggers the release of the hormone insulin, whose job it is to lower the blood sugar level. The insulin works to lower blood sugar by removing it from the bloodstream and storing it as body fat. The resulting drop in blood sugar can trigger feelings of hunger, sleepiness or low energy, which many people respond to by consuming more carbohydrates. Which the body turns into more body fat. And so continues the vicious cycle that is almost guaranteed to contribute to weight gain.
Now I'm not advocating a high-fat diet here. Research into the nature of dietary fats and their effect on our health since the inception of the high-carb, low-fat diet was introduced has shown that the dietary fat issue is more complex than was originally thought. In fact, some fats are good for your health – essential even. It's not so easy as thinking all fats are bad… some fats are essential for good health, some are good for us, some are bad and some are really bad for our health. And if you haven't updated your information on dietary fats for some time, the good and the bad may not be what you think they are. But really, this is just a disclaimer, the whole dietary fats story is one for another article. Let's focus on carbohydrates for now.
All carbohydrates are converted to glucose in the body. And while a small amount of glucose in the bloodstream is essential for healthy brain functioning and energy, eating a diet high in carbohydrates can easily push the blood glucose over the limit, thus triggering the insulin response which ultimately converts that excess glucose into body fat. But this doesn't automatically mean that all carbohydrates are bad. While there are definitely some “bad” carbohydrates that don't offer much in the way of nutritional benefits, there are other carbohydrates that contain many nutrients and fiber that's essential for good health.
What Is The Glycemic Index
The glycemic index measures how much your blood glucose rises after eating a particular food and ranks these foods from 0 to 100 based on the results. You can find a listing of foods and their glycemic index in the database at http://www.glycemicindex.com.
Foods with a glycemic value of 70 or above have a high GI (glycemic index), these foods will cause a rapid increase in blood glucose and insulin levels. Foods that fall between 56 and 69 have a medium GI, and will cause a moderate rise in blood glucose and insulin levels. Anything with a GI of 55 or less will produce only a small rise in blood glucose and insulin, so these are the foods you want to strive to eat more of, while reducing your intake of high GI foods.
How Can A Low GI Diet Help?
A low GI diet can help to control your weight by controlling your hunger. Remember, it's the sudden rise and fall of blood sugar that makes you crave more carbohydrates. If you can interrupt that cycle, many of your food cravings will disappear.
Processed foods, like white flour, pasta, white rice, and processed cereals rank high on the glycemic index. Since most of the nutrition and fiber have been processed out of these foods they contribute little in the way of nutritional benefits, and the high glucose hit they provide will be turned into body fat, so they are best avoided.
There are however, some high or medium GI foods that are healthy and contain important nutrients essential to a healthy diet. The trick here is to moderate your intake of these foods as well as combine them with low GI foods so that the overall result is on the lower end of the scale. As well as listing the GI of individual foods, the database at http://www.glycemicindex.com also includes some common combinations of foods. If you look up the individual components to see what GI they have and compare that to the combined GI, you'll start to get a feel for how different foods can influence the total GI of a meal.
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Great post! I think more and more people are waking up to the idea that whole foods, unprocessed fats and oils, and red meat (non factory farmed) are not the problem… it’s the starches and the SUGAR that’s packing on the pounds by turning us into eating machines! The scientific evidence backing the evils of saturated fats, the virtues of low cholesterol, and the effectiveness of a high carb low fat diet in reducing weight or preventing artherosclerosis is shaky at best (check out Good Calories, Bad Calories by Taubes). I’ve eaten low carb for a year and a half, and have never felt better, or more in-control of my health, than I am now. Your grandmother was right. Use real butter, eat your green veggies, and cut back on the sweets!
Great article is right! I am so excited to find your blog! You are so similar to my ideals. Thanks for stopping by my blog and checking it out. I have recently been factoring in the GI lately too. My 24 year old son, who is really into nutrition introduced me to it. I’m going to put your blog in my blog roll.
Dana Zia
http://danazia.wordpress.com/
Thanks Dana! I love your blog too, you’ve got some great, well-researched articles.
Thanks Nathan! It’s great to see you blogging about your experience in real-time too.
Absolutely ridiculous.. Just look at Asians – they eat white rice 3 meals a day and when did they get fat? When they started eating a western diet. Full of what?? Fat. I implore you to find overweight individuals getting most of their calories from a starch or fruit based low fat diet. Did you ever consider that 50% of the calories in your “high carb cinnamon roll” come from fat?
Maybe the culprit for obesity is not any of the 3 macronutrients. What I see the Western diet is full of is wheat (as opposed to rice), and GMO wheat at that. It’s full of refined sugar. It’s also full of toxins in processed foods and natural whole foods that have been poisoned with pesticides. The safest place for the body to store the toxins that it is too overwhelmed to eliminate is in fat. As I find out more about the connection between high glycemic index foods and insulin and fat the more I can see that we put on fat when we eat refined sugar. I know for me personally wheat irritates and inflames my digestive tract, and causes bloat. I also know from experimenting with my own diet that the more denatured, processed, and real nutrient devoid foods I eat the more food I crave. My body knows it’s starving, not getting the micro-nutrients and phyto-nutrients it requires, so I overeat. When I eat a diet high in raw, organic (and grown in nutrient-rich soil), nutrient-dense vegetables, nuts and seeds, fermented foods, good fats like coconut oil, and a bit of fruit I eat much less. My body is getting the nutrients it needs and requires less. I slim down, have lots of energy and start looking younger.
This is nonsense. The China Study conclusively shows that a high carb low fat diet of whole plant foods (not refined) is the healthiest diet on the planet and the populations that have followed it have been very healthy and not overweight. There is no myth and the Western diet has never been low fat – fat consumption has been increasing.
You may lose some weight on other diets but if you want to stay healthy AND lose weight read the China Study by T. Colin Campbell which is based on decades of research.
While The China Study is a significant body of research I have heard people dispute the assumptions drawn from it, and they have research to back up their claims too. There is also research that the healthiest and most long-lived people in the world are all on calorie-restricted diets compared to the Western standard. I know that in my personal experience, for my body, I do NOT lose weight on a high carb diet. I lose weight, look better and feel great on a raw food diet which is low carb by nature, at least the way I eat, mostly vegetables and sprouts, some nuts, coconut and olive oil, a bit of fruit and even at times raw organic milk.
The body naturally stores fat, and when you deprive it of carbs, there is no choice but to start using the fat as energy. It takes more energy to break this type of nutrient down in the body. Fruit carbohydrates are monosaccharides, which are readily available energy to the body, and do not get stored. The brain runs on carbs. Carbohydrates are water soluble (the body is mostly made up of water), and fats are not. Fats are for long-term energy storage. Carbs are essential to healthy functioning of the body.
I agree totally with eating to suit your own body, but when you’re too concerned with “losing weight”, it gets to be a bit mucky. There are people who have lost weight eating Twinkies for days. Is that healthy? Many would say no.
While a “high carb” diet may be too extreme for some people, a “low carb” diet can do much damage. Eat what makes you feel the best, and know how the body functions on what you are feeding it. Eat to be healthy, and your ideal weight will come along with health. While that may not be a size 2, be willing to accept that maybe a size 6 is your optimal weight. Everyone is different.
Love and Light.
🙂
Yeah sure my skinny 92 pounds high carb low fat ass agrees…..