Good and bad carbohydrates: myth about carbohydrates
The key to a diet is not to avoid carbohydrates themselves, but to distinguish between good and bad carbohydrates. Good carbohydrate intake is essential for health.
This article focuses on carbohydrate superstitions. You may have heard a lot of saying that carbohydrates filled with delicious food that cannot be rejected are the enemy of diet and are the source of various diseases such as cancer, neurological diseases, and heart failure.
Among the articles on the Internet, there are many opinions that carbohydrates are the main culprit in making the body fat and harming health. On the other hand, experts such as dietitians say that carbohydrates cannot be left out of the best healthy diet.
Which one is right? In fact, carbohydrates can be divided into good and bad. Let's dig into the truth about carbohydrates now .
Superstition analysis of carbohydrates
Myth number one: carbohydrates make you fat
When you eat carbohydrates, your body breaks it down into several types of sugar, one of which is glucose. When carbohydrate intake increases blood glucose levels, the pancreas begins to release more insulin.
Insulin accelerates the process by which cells absorb glucose and turn it into energy. At the same time, it is also involved in fat accumulation, which is why carbohydrates are said to be bad.
But not all carbohydrates are the same. For example, 1 apple and 1 donut each contain 25 grams of carbohydrate. Of course, donuts are the ones that rapidly increase blood sugar levels in the body .
This is because apples contain 4.4g of fiber, which plays a role in delaying blood glucose absorption, whereas donuts contain only 0.8g. So, if you eat apples, you feel full longer, which is why you can say that apples have good carbohydrates.
In other words, the body reacts differently depending on what kind and nature of carbohydrates you eat .
Myth #2: a diet rich in carbohydrates is unnatural for humans
Behind the negative opinion about carbohydrates lies the fact that by nature, humans ate very little carbohydrates . However, if you look closely, you can see that the amount of carbohydrate intake differs depending on the latitude where you live.
The Inuit, for example, lived in an environment where food such as fruit was not available, so their carbohydrate intake was naturally low. However , carbohydrates were consumed on the fly through whale skin, walrus liver, berries, dried fruits , tubers, and seaweed.
In other words, in ancient society, carbohydrate intake differed according to the degree to which carbohydrates were easily available in different cultures , but all good carbohydrates were consumed without excluding them.
Myth #3: To lose weight, you have to go on a ketogenic diet
Many people think that the less carbohydrates you eat, the faster you lose weight. Of course, switching from a high-carb diet to a low-carb diet will certainly make losing body fat easier.
However, eating less carbohydrates doesn't necessarily mean you lose weight faster.
For some people, a ketogenic diet is a great way to lose weight by reducing your total caloric intake , because you eat more foods rich in fiber and protein, or less food overall .
On the other hand, for some people, the effect of losing weight due to the action of hormones such as cortisol, which is secreted when carbohydrates are insufficient, is insignificant.
Cortisol secretion is an extremely natural phenomenon, but it can have negative health effects if:
- If you have adrenal fatigue syndrome
- Not getting enough sunlight
- When stress builds up
- If you are unable to sleep regularly and enough
As you can see from the example above, abruptly reducing only carbohydrate intake without a quality diet and a healthy lifestyle cannot guarantee the effect of losing weight quickly.
Read More: Best Sources of Carbohydrates to Lose Weight Healthyly
Myth #4: eating little carbohydrates is not harmful to your health
Some people fit a low-carb diet well, while others have adverse effects.
During pregnancy, for example, it is important to consume enough good carbohydrates for the development of the fetus' brain . In addition, eating less carbohydrates naturally increases protein intake, and if this exceeds 25% of total caloric intake, there is a risk of low birth weight and infant mortality.
In the case of athletes, excessively reducing carbohydrate intake may cause problems such as poor athletic performance and weight gain, as well as take longer to recover after training.
Also, insulin levels drop when carbohydrate intake decreases due to a low-carb diet. In the case of hypothyroidism patients, the process of changing the inactive hormone T4 to the active hormone T3 does not occur properly. As a result, symptoms of hypothyroidism may develop suddenly.
In addition, a low-carb diet can cause various problems, ranging from obesity to skin diseases, as the intestinal flora balance is disrupted.
Myth #5: a low-carb diet is harmful and ineffective
In the following cases, it is possible that excessive intake of refined carbohydrates is the cause, so a diet with reduced bad carbohydrates can be expected to have a strong therapeutic effect.
- Overweight
- Type 1 and type 2 diabetes
- Metabolic syndrome
- Polycystic ovary syndrome
- Traumatic brain injury
- epilepsy
- Alzheimer's
- Parkinson's disease
- Anxiety disorder
- depression
Read more: Reducing carbohydrate intake is important to reduce size
As we've seen so far, not all carbohydrates are bad. It is important to know how to reduce bad carbohydrate intake and include good carbohydrates in your diet .
If necessary, consult your doctor to make an ideal diet for you.
