Originally published September 27 2005
Guidelines for good carbs
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
While the body needs carbohydrates, it benefits mostly from "good" carbs, like those found in nuts and fruits, and when trying to replace the bad with the good, it is important to pay attention to glycemic index, nutrient density, fiber content and to look for foods that have not been over-processed.
I find this mildly irritating, because they often imply that low-carb diets are actually no-carb diets, with no-carbohydrate foods, no matter how good.
This is untrue; I know of no doctor nor diet guru who recommends a no-carb diet.
All insist that the carbs we do eat be good carbs, though how many grams of those carbs we can tolerate varies from person to person.
There are a number of factors I take into account when deciding whether to include a particular carbohydrate-containing food in my diet.
Closely tied to glycemic index, since fiber buffers the absorption of digestible carbohydrate, blunting the blood-sugar curve.
Processing reduces nutrient density and increases blood-sugar impact, especially with grains - whole-grain cold cereals tend to have a very high glycemic index, while coarsely ground whole-grain bread or steel-cut oats will have a gentler effect.
I'm convinced that we do better eating foods that have been in the human diet since time immemorial than we do eating foods that have only become part of our diet since the Agricultural Revolution 10,000 years ago.
Since the hunter-gatherer days, vegetables have been a huge part of the human diet, and are the best possible carb foods.
They are pretty much unprocessed, have a mostly low glycemic index, and are loaded with fiber, vitamins, minerals and beneficial phytochemicals.
Fruits vary a lot in carb content, and all cultivated fruit is higher in sugar than its wild ancestors, but most of it has a modest glycemic index, and it all contributes vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals.
Milk has 12 grams of carb per cup, in the form of lactose.
As each is peeled, hold the orange over the bowl with the berries (to catch any juice) and use a paring knife to cut off the outer membrane as thinly as possible.
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