The truth – How to eat for health and/or weight loss Lesson #2. Carbohydrates Part 1– it’s the type of carbs that counts

Image from docsthoughts.com

If you’re just picking up this thread, you may like to go back and have a look at the first post in the series about protein. Not only will it be helpful but it’ll also explain the premise behind this series of articles. In a nutshell however, this is the truth about how to eat for health and weightloss. It’s the information you need to know to make informed decisions. It’s a lifestyle, not a fad. This particular subject can be a little confusing, so bear with me, I’ll try to constantly tie it together as we go. As always, if you have any questions you can leave a comment or find me on facebook at First Be Healthy.

Carbohydrates

Where on earth do I start with carbs? It seems everyone is on some sort of plan that revolves around altering their carbohydrate intake in some way, and yet many of us aren’t even aware of what a carbohydrate actually is. So lets just clarify that from the get go. Foods that contain carbohydrates include

Bread                                                   lollies                                       bagel

Rice                                                     chocolates                                waffles

Pasta                                                    sugar                                        beans

Almost all vegetables                            dried fruit                                  lentils

Fruits                                                    muffins                                     sports drinks  

Biscuits                                                spaghetti                                    ice cream

Fruit and vegie juices                            pancakes                                  quinoa

Buckwheat                                           dairy has carbohydrates            soft drink

The list of food that contains carbs is a long one. Why then, do we suggest you eat a piece of fruit over pancakes? Or half a plate of vegies instead of half a plate of rice?

Rules of the Game - Rule 2 Its all to do with the type of carbohydrate.

Sugars

There are many types of sugar present in the food that we eat, some of the better known sugars include

Image from cba.ca

-     glucose is the sugar that is the preferred energy source of our bodies, it is a simple, easy to utilise sugar. Think of it like one little magnetic bead.

-         fruit contains a sugar known as fructose. Fructose must be broken down in the liver before it can be used by the body. It requires processing.

-         Lactose is a sugar present in dairy. There is a decent percent of the population who are lactose intolerant and unable to process this sugar.

Table sugar is known as sucrose. Sucrose it is a mixture of the easily assimilated glucose, and fructose that must be processed by the liver.

Today, we’re going to focus on glucose and fructose, and sucrose which is a combination of the two.

Starch

When we talk about carbohydrates in foods we’re not just talking about ‘sugar’, there is another type of carbohydrate known as starch. Starch is a carb found in plant foods, it is how plants store their energy. What is starch? Starch is nothing but a string of little glucose molecules stuck together, think a string of magnetic beads.. Remembering that glucose is an easily utilised sugar for the body. What do you think starch is? Yep, just a lot more easily digested sugar. If you pull a string of magnetic beads apart, you have a whole lot of single magnetic beads.

What foods contain starch? Primarily grains contain starch, but there are also starchy vegetables like potatoes.

Does that mean that all grains and starchy vegetables are bad for us? We’ll get to that.

What happens when we eat sugar?

Our bodies need carbohydrates, particularly glucose, to function. It is required for our energy, our brain uses glucose, it is the fuel from which our body likes to run. That is the reason we feel like crap when we totally eliminate carbohydrates from our diet. Our mood slumps, we get fuzzy headed and we can’t think properly. We are running short on fuel.

When we eat foods that contain glucose, like table sugar and processed starchy grain foods like white bread (starch breaks down to glucose), our bodies quickly take that glucose and absorb it rapidly. We now have glucose running wild through the blood stream. You may have heard the term ‘high blood sugar’. You now have more sugar in the blood stream than is ideal for general health. Your body will have to rectify this by releasing insulin, a hormone that regulates our blood sugar, dragging the sugar from the blood stream and into cells to be stored for later use.

If we look at a teaspoon of table sugar, which remember is half glucose and half fructose, only half that teaspoon of sugar is glucose, right?

What happens when we eat starch?

image from bigfatcook.com

If we look at a slice of white bread, all of the carbohydrate (starch) in that bread is glucose. Remember starch is that big string of glucose magnets. When we eat the white bread, all at once we’re flooded with glucose molecules that need to be used. So what happens to all that glucose? Where does it go? It too goes straight into the blood stream, insulin is released and drags the glucose into cells for storage.

So whether we eat glucose in junk foods, lollies etc, table sugar in our coffee and deserts, or processed grain foods like white bread, the end result is the same. Glucose entering our blood stream, increasing our blood sugar. Insulin must be released to bring our blood sugar down to healthier levels, and so the excess glucose gets stored in our cells.

What is the difference in how the body uses fructose and glucose?

Lets think quickly about what happens to the fructose. The fructose is absorbed and sent straight to the liver for processing. It spends a while there, being converted into glucose, the preferred energy source, and only after this conversion, is it released into the bloodstream again to be used as energy.

Do you see the difference between fructose and glucose? Glucose goes straight in, wham. Starch is broken down into lots of little glucoses, and boom. Fructose however, it takes a little while longer to get out there into the playing field.

Now if we left it there, things could go a little pear shaped for us quite quickly. From this point it looks as though glucose is pretty ok, starch is awful and fructose is a winner, nice slow energy. That however is not correct.

Why is one type of carbohydrate better than another?

Table sugar is half fructose, so it releases more slowly into the body. You could easily summise therefore that as table sugar is the sugar present in soft drink, that soft drink is a good energy source. I hate to tell you this, but it is not a good energy source. When it comes to fructose, we are overloading ourselves with it. With all the table sugar that is added to our foods, we are consuming way too much. Our liver has to process it all and it isn’t ideal. Research is showing us daily that an over abundance of fructose is leading to obesity, high cholesterol and illnesses such as fatty liver.

So, a can of soft drink has around 38.9grams of sugar, making at least 19.45grams of that sugar fructose. True?

Image from 123rf.com

If we take a large apple, it has about 23grams sugar and 13grams of that sugar is fructose. How often have you heard me say ‘eat more fruit’? Constantly, and yet you will never here me say ‘have another can of soft drink’.

If fructose is a slower released energy source, why is it bad when its in soft drink, and ok when its in fruit? 

There are 2 reasons for that,

-         fruit is a whole nutritional package. There are vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, fibre and protein. The soft drink is water, some food colouring, some preservatives and table sugar. Fruit = healthful package. Soft drink = fat butt.

-         The second reason you would choose the fruit over the soft drink is a lovely little measurement called the glycaemic index.

Glycaemic index

So what is the glycaemic index?

The glycaemic index is a measure of how quickly blood sugar levels rise after we eat a certain type of food. Remember we eat a carbohydrate food, its digested and the glucose is absorbed into the blood stream.

Lets put that into context with regards to everything we’ve learnt about the sugars.

Glucose – we eat foods that have glucose, so table sugar (1/2 glucose, ½ fructose), the glucose part of the table sugar is absorbed quickly, and shoved straight into the blood stream. The level of glucose in our blood jumps up. Our blood sugar rises quickly. Glucose is a high glyceamic index food, because it causes that fast rise in blood sugar.

Starch – We eat the white bread, our body takes the starch and breaks it into smaller glucose bits, which get absorbed quickly into the blood stream. The blood sugar level jumps up even higher because there is more of it. Starch = glucose =  a high glycaemic index (GI) food because it causes a fast rise in our blood sugar levels.

Fructose – We ingest fructose, lets say in the form of table sugar. The glucose gets absorbed quickly, the fructose gets sent to the liver. It takes a bit longer but the fructose is finally converted into the more usable glucose. Inevitably, glucose is released into the blood stream, blood sugar levels rise. Fructose is a low GI food because of the length of time it takes to cause a rise in blood sugar.

If starch is a high GI food, why is wholegrain seedy bread ok but white bread is bad?

That has to do with what else is in the bread. You see its all about how quickly the sugar is absorbed. If we slow the emptying of the stomach into the intestine, we slow the rate that the sugars can be absorbed.

How do we slow the absorption of sugars into the body?

The only time you would tend to have a teaspoon of table sugar, or a teaspoon of fructose by itself is when you drink soft drink or juice, maybe tea or coffee, or in junk food like lollies. These are always high GI foods. Generally speaking, the rest of the time the sugars are always IN something. And what they are in, makes the world of difference. We can slow the absorption of glucose and fructose into the body by consuming them in foods that contain fibre, protein and fat, as happens to occur in the piece of fruit I mentioned earlier. These macronutrients take longer to digest, they slow the release of food from the stomach, and therefore drag out the amount of sugar being released into the blood stream. The less sugar going into the blood stream, the slower the rise in blood sugar, the lower the GI of the food.

If we look at our wholegrain, seedy bread, it has much more fibre, and the seeds and grains are visible, they require digestion. Seeds and grains contain fat and protein. If we look at our white bread, refined and processed, void of fibre, very little protein, and lower in fat. Whoops, quick digestion.

Can you see the difference?

 

Hopefully you’re still here and I havn’t confused the crap out of you. I tried my best to make it simple. I bet you’re wondering how on earth you’re supposed to use that information for health or weight loss?

The more sugar and processed starchy carbs we eat, the more our blood sugar rises. The higher our blood sugar, the more insulin needs to be released to bring our blood sugar back down to normal levels. Our bodies have a set level that works for our health and our ability to function. Our bodies are able to regulate this to keep us going. If however we are constantly bombarding our bodies with sugars, over time they get a bit tired, and struggle to handle the process of dealing with sugar. We end up with insulin resistance, or type 2 diabetes. Our cells struggle to deal with the amount of insulin required to take care of our high blood sugar.

When there is too much sugar in the blood stream, it needs to be removed. Insulin takes it and stores it in our cells for later use. Remember, sugar is energy. Lots of sugar storing in our cells over time means we are getting fatter. If we are not burning that energy, we are gaining weight.

Eating a diet high in sugar is also linked with a higher instance of heart disease and high cholesterol. Our whole bodies are affected.

The aim of the game is to maintain a steady blood sugar level. If we do this, very little excess energy is being stored, our bodies aren’t producing too much insulin to keep up with the sugar highs and everything runs smoothly.

How do we maintain a stable blood sugar?

Rules for eating carbohydrates for health and weight loss

1. Avoid processed and refined foods like our bread, soft drink and fruit juice examples. They are just sugars that will be released into the body. They contain very little if any nutritional value
2. Eat whole foods.
1. It helps to think about things in their natural state. For example, there is no bread tree. You don’t go out and get penne from the garden. There is no man in a cute hat in some exotic location harvesting fruit juice from his fruit juice tree. The bread and penne started as a grain that was harvested from a plant. The fruit juice was originally a fruit. Remember, things in their natural state have more fibre, protein and fat. They have nutrients that the final result could never have. 

                                                               i.      If you’re eating for weight loss, reduce the amount of carbohydrates from grains. You don’t need to eliminate them, just reduce them. Halve your portion size. Only eat one slice of bread instead of two. It’ll force your body to find energy from other sources, ie your booty.

2. Fruit is good. I enjoy 2 pieces a day. You don’t need to go overboard, it does contain fructose which is a sugar after all.

                                                               i.      Eat 2 pieces of fruit a day for good health.

                                                             ii.      If you are eating for weight loss, deliberately choose lower GI fruit, such  berries, apples, grapefruit and pears.

3. Vegetables are a low GI carbohydrate. Eat as many of them as you want for your carbs. Avoid potatoe. Potato is starch. Whether you’re eating for health or eating for weight loss, aim to eat as many vegies as possible. If youre eating for weight loss, try filling half your plate with vegies (lots of green would be good). You’ll never feel hungry if you focus on lots of vegetables.
2. Try to include a protein or fat food around the same time as your carbohydrate foods.
1. Try to have a protein serve at each meal (we looked at those in the last post)
2. Have nuts or seeds with a piece of fruit as a snack. Add them to your yoghurt.

Image from 365fitt.blogspot.com

So, to recap

-         Its all about the type of carbohydrates, we want the ones that maintain a stable blood sugar.

-         glucose and starch foods are released quickly into the body, they are best minimised.

-         choosing whole foods means they have fibre, protein and fat which lowers the GI

-         The gylcaemic index is a great way to tell whether a food is good for us. It measures how quickly a particular food causes our blood sugar to rise. The lower the GI of a food the better

-         For weight loss, we need to choose low GI carbohydrates, which will limit the amount of processed carbohydrate foods we eat

-         Vegies are a great source of carbohydrates that will keep us full and are great for our health and weight loss.

Hey you made it! I hope this helped. Next topic we’ll be tweaking carbohydrates a little further and looking at the glycaemic load, looking at different types of diets that manipulate carbohydrate intake, and tying your new found knowledge of protein and carbs together.

Chris