You travel along the path we call life, grow up and take for granted many things as gospel. Unfortunately there are some learnings related to diet that are so incorrect and can damage your health. It is like walking into a health trap set up for you by society at large. Family members and friends all believe in the same “truths” that you once believed. Here are some that I had to test and then was forced to change my stance on them.
Carbohydrates are good for you, until they are not
This is actually true, when you are young and your body can handle near anything. As you grow older your body changes and you can no longer handle a high amount of carbs. The result of unchecked carb consumption, over a long period of time, is increased weight, high blood sugar, increased insulin resistance, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease (non-alcoholic), Parkinson’s and other cognitive issues and what is termed as “metabolic syndrome”. All these symptoms are related. Prolonged high blood glucose levels result in type 2 diabetes and can damage multiple body organs and systems.
How will you know when your body cannot absorb as much carbs and sugar as you used to? You will need to do a blood glucose test. If after a meal your blood glucose level does not drop to safe levels with 2 hrs, then you know you have a problem.
When you eat enough protein or fats, there are hormonal signals that tell you that you’ve had enough to eat. You experience satiety and stop eating. There are no such hormonal control signals for carbs, which allows us to eat to our heart’s content, until your stomach is so full that you get the hint. These carbs are converted to glucose, which elevates your blood glucose level. Insulin becomes elevated, and when your body cannot absorb all the excess glucose, insulin tells the body to store all excess glucose as body fat. We then gain weight.
Just a side note that carbs as a macro-nutrient is not necessary and not essential for human life. The human body can use dietary proteins and fats to produce glucose in a process called gluconeogenesis. Therefore we are overly gorging ourselves on a food that makes us not only sick but one that we don’t need in the first place.
When you are young you can easily burn off glucose and this weight gain rather quickly, but as you age, this becomes much harder. We are seeing in the West an obesity epidemic that we cannot seem to control. Weight gain also increases your blood pressure.
Have too much glucose in your blood, over many years, leads to insulin resistance and then to type 2 diabetes.
Our Carboydrate-heavy Society Contributes to Obesity
For many people, we are eating an excessive amount of carbs that our bodies cannot handle. It is not surprising to understand why. It seems like the majority of TV commercials, fast food, grocery store ads, restaurant menus all promote high carbohydrate meals. It is easy to understand why: carbs are delicious, relatively inexpensive, and are in high demand. Society’s demand for carbs is being delivered, in spades, but this is negatively affecting our health.
Unfortunately it is quite difficult to not participate in this carb movement, as we are surrounded by carb messaging every which way we turn. Habits are formed when young and continue into middle age, where the problems begin.
Carbohydrates are Addictive: True
Regular eaters of high carb meals include just about everyone. We have grown up with this way of life.
Our bodies have two main fuel sources: carbohydrates and ketones. Carbs are most easily obtained by eating foods and quickly converted into glucose, our fuel source of preference. Once the body detects this fuel source it asks for more. When you don’t regularly eat carbs, such as skipping a meal, your body begins to have cravings or hunger pangs, a not so polite way of asking you for more carbs.
This is our carb addiction, which affect nearly everyone around you. There are alternative ways of living, which includes intermittent fasting and keto/carnivore (low carb) diets that rely more on animal proteins and fats. These are more slowly converted to ketones, which the body can also burn. Such processes are low in carbs and sugars, don’t cause an insulin spike, and also encourage the body to burn body fat as fuel, a critical point if you wish to lose weight (ideally body fat). Everyone has, at minimum, 10,000 calories of body fat that we can burn. When the body is trained to burn either glucose or ketones, called “metabolic flexibility”, you almost never feel hungry and the hunger pangs all disappear. I do admit that this is initially an odd feeling, but you get used to it.
When you eat carbs, insulin is produced, which promotes body fat storage of any excess glucose the body cannot immediately use. Body fat is created as a way to store energy for a rainy day, which, in our society never comes. Unfortunately you can almost never burn body fat if you continue to eat carbs because elevated insulin levels does not allow the body to do this, but only to store body fat. Over time we gain weight and become obese.
Food Manufacturers Produce Delicious Ultra-Processed Foods UPF
Because carbs are so delicious it is quite easy to tempt customers into buying more of them. Food manufacturers go one step further and invent ever more delicious carbs. In the West this has greatly contributed to the obesity epidemic, with unfortunate consequences.
I cannot really blame the food manufacturers. There is a need from consumers and they rush to fill this need. This is happening all over the world. Still, UPFs are a great contributor to the worldwide obesity epidemic. While these foods are popular and in demand, the fact that they damage so many people should be cause for concern.
Bread is a highly ultra-processed food that is high in carbs, often high in sugar, contains a huge number of additive and provides almost no fiber. Treat bread like a snack: sparingly and eaten only on occasion, and not daily
Low Fat Products reduces Body Fat: False
This is completely incorrect. Fat provides flavour. When you reduce fats you need something to add back flavour, or it will taste like cardboard. That additive is sugar and carbs. Protein and fats can be combined to create glucose, which is then burned for body fuel. Further, if you eat too much fat, your have hormones that will tell you to stop eating.
In summary, don’t be afraid of fat. Eating fat will not make you put on body fat. There is a digestive process that the dietary fat needs to go through, which transforms it to fuel. Fat also makes you feel fuller, more satiated, thereby reducing the amount of food you eat.
Natural Foods are not all Healthy: True
I thought that non-processed foods such as fruits and vegetables would all surely be healthy, but this is not the case.
Some fruits and veg contain high levels of sugar and carbs. It does not matter to your body if the sugar comes from natural fruit such as mango, pineapple or banana, or from a glazed donut, because both are not healthy for some people, and both are treated the same by the body. Fruit juices are also natural, but when broken down into a juice is very high in sugar and has the fiber broken down, so also not good. Potatoes and below ground vegetables are high in starches and therefore carbs, and will be stored as body fat for those that are insulin resistant.
The body cannot tell the difference between natural and ultra-processed foods, and digests them the same. If you metabolize sugar and carbs to body fat due to insulin resistance, either are not good for you.
Does your Gut need Fiber? Maybe not
It seems your gut does need fiber, but there are many ways to get fiber. Fiber from above ground vegetables such as zuchini/corgettes or eggplant is nutritious and has low starch and sugar. You can also get fiber from grains such as oats but it also comes packed with high carbs, which will spike your blood sugar and is therefore not good for you.
There are others who have irritable bowl syndrome IBS who cannot take any fiber, and do well and recover with none. Some doctors also say that fiber is unnecessary and for those with IBS can be debilitating. It seems like the need for dietary fiber is not as clear as possible.
I went low fiber and did not suffer at all.
Medical Community Does Not Protect the Public
The flip side of this is that the medical community, which includes doctors, does not warn the public against eating so many carbs, Instead they recommend taking drugs to increase our ability to digest carbs with fewer side effects. Unfortunately this is not working. Thus their complicity contributes to the obesity epidemic. Carbs are regularly recommended for all to eat on a daily basis, as part of a healthy diet. This is so wrong for many people.
Here in Ontario, Canada my doc will test for fasting glucose, but he claims will not test for insulin resistance. I can therefore never calculate my HOMA-IR score. While fasting glucose levels can be stable when I visit the doc’s office, my insulin level can be slowly increasing, predisposing me to type 2 diabetes.
Society Predisposes People to become Obese
It is unsurprising that a combination of all the above influences encourages people to over-eat carbs, which results in obesity, high blood pressure, insulin resistance and eventually, type 2 diabetes. The environment that society has created encourages this for all of us.
Yet all is not lost. If we go back to eating habits from before the 1960s, when obesity was quite rare, we can reverse our obesity epidemic. It does take a lot of radical thinking about food, how and when we eat, but it can be done.
Reduced eating of carbs can result in weight loss, reduced high blood pressure, lower A1C and type 2 diabetes. It is as simple as eating like how your grandmother used to eat. Not all progress is beneficial to society, and our carb addiction is one of them.
