Question
Are some carbohydrate foods healthier
than others?
Answer
The short answer is yes, but remember you still have to watch the amount of
carbohydrate you eat.
Otherwise, the healthiest
carbohydrates are those that give you the most nutrition per portion and have
very little processing done to them. In
other words, if you aren’t trying to eat as much, you want what you do eat to be nutritious, satisfying,
and hopefully taste good. Winter squash
(like butternut), tubers (like sweet potatoes), legumes (like pinto beans), and
whole fruits are generally “healthier” carbohydrate choices. Real whole grains
(like whole oats or barley) can safely be incorporated in by some people with
diabetes, but other people might still notice a sharp increase in the blood
glucose levels with grains of any type.
Always use your blood glucose meter to determine both what and how much
of these foods are safe for you personally.
Anyway, these “healthier” carbohydrates, for the most part, are
considered such because they contain vitamins and minerals, and fiber. So, if your doctor has ever told you to eat brown rice instead of white, etc., your doctor was "probably" trying to get you to include higher fiber carbohydrate selections.
Some of these “healthier carbohydrate
foods” are beneficial because they contain something called “resistant starch.”
Resistant starch is not digested by the body, meaning that it won’t convert to
blood glucose, meaning that you can eat a more satisfying portion while still
eating less carbohydrate. Some people even find that if they include a good
source of resistant starch at the first meal of the day they can fewer have
spikes in blood glucose during the day. (In a later blog post we will discuss
meal timing and frequency of meals.) For
more about resistant starch, which foods contain it, and how to incorporate it
into your diet, go to this link: (https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/9-foods-high-in-resistant-starch#section1)
One of my favorite ways to include resistant starch is cooked and cooled
potatoes. Roast a pan of potatoes the night
before (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/18324/roast-potatoes/),
cool them in a safe manner, and toss them with scrambled eggs and vegetables
the next morning.
Many types of bread, pasta, baked
goods, fruit juices, cereals (even the ones labeled “made with whole grain),
etc. have had most of the nutrition stripped from them and are not very
satisfying in small amounts. As stated
before, there aren’t too many people who really want to eat “just a small
amount” of pasta or “a few” tortilla chips.
Most people will feel more satisfied if they have chewier, higher fiber,
higher resistant starch forms of carbohydrate. I should also give a warning
here that even though you might need more fiber and more resistant starch in
your diet, start small and build up gradually. If you don’t, like many of my
patients found out the hard way, you might get bloating, gas, hard stools,
etc. Start low, go slow, and drink
plenty of non caloric fluids! I also cannot emphasize enough that you need to evaluate all these foods against your own blood glucose meter as much as possible. Some people will find very little different between brown rice and white rice and/or whole grain bread or white bread, for example. You will also find that it is best to stick with foods that have "naturally" occurring fiber instead of the added type as the added fibers usually have very little impact on blood glucose control.
Speaking of, sweets and soft drinks
are traditionally called “empty calories.”
They will raise the blood glucose levels and provide calories but not do
anything beneficial for your body.
That’s why letting go of the sweets and soft drinks is the first step
for a lot of people in reducing their carb intake (it just shouldn’t be the
only step!)
*Please note that I have avoided the use of
“complex” and “simple” carbohydrates. Those terms describe the chemical configuration
(i.e. how the molecules are strung together) of a carbohydrate but do not
actually say anything about the nutrient density or the impact on the blood
glucose levels. For example, pasta has a
more “complex” configuration that table sugar (sucrose), but white flour pasta
is not really more nutritious, nor does it have a different impact on the blood
glucose levels. I have written about this before here: http://skepticrd.blogspot.com/2013/04/chemistry-is-complex.html
Think about what
kind of carbohydrates you are choosing, and tomorrow we will talk about how to
count them!
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