The Truth About Carbs

Over the years there has been a craze over cutting out all carbohydrates, followed by the realization that this wasn't such a good idea. Here's a little (and very, very abridged) history on how all this happened:

Large numbers of people started cutting out fats from their diets to lose weight. So dieters' meals consisted of mostly carbohydrates and proteins. People would buy candy and cookies that were labeled low-fat or fat-free, but still contained a lot of refined carbohydrates. However, many people didn't lose that much weight. In fact, with the low-fat diet period came an increase in diabetes and heart disease, and even an increase in weight.

Then people realized that highly refined carbohydrates lead to extra release of insulin in the body, which indirectly lead to increased fat storage in the body, increased blood sugar, and diabetes cases.

This then led to diets such as Atkins, South Beach, etc. that aimed to drastically reduce (and for some, practically eliminate) the amount of carbohydrates in the diet. People did in face lose weight using these low-carb diets, but they are much less healthy. There are two reasons that these low-carb diets are so unhealthy:

(1) There are good carbs and bad carbs.

It's true, it is very important to minimize the amount of bad carbohydrates -- highly refined and processed carbs – in the diet. THESE are the carbohydrates that cause higher insulin levels, higher blood sugar, and lower HDL (good) cholesterol levels. These effects then directly contribute to the onset of diabetes and heart disease.

Examples of these carbohydrates include:
sodas
cake, brownies, cookies, pastries, etc.
pizza
potato products (baked potatoes, potato chips, french fries...)
rice
popcorn
white bread
beer

But there are also good carbohydrates. These are the intact and unprocessed carbohydrates, which are critical for maintaining good health. These are products containing whole grains and fiber. Eating more of these intact grains has shown in studies to reduce the chance of getting heart disease. When shopping for bread, cereals, and other food that do contain large amounts of carbohydrates, make sure that WHOLE GRAIN is the first word in the list of ingredients.

2. You need to eat fats

Because so many people were anti-fat, and then became anti-carb, the low-carb diets were interpreted by many to mean high-protein diets. But just eating protein isn't healthy – you also need to eat unsaturated fats to maintain heart health (See Eat Healthy Fats to Lose More Weight) and to lose weight. Studies have shown that people who eat more mono- and polyunsaturated fats and whole grain foods lose more weight and are healthier than those who do not follow this practice.