05/12/2024
Stop me if I sound like a broken record 📻, but…when did carbs become Public Enemy #1?
From the early days of Atkins, there’s been no shortage of diets and celebrity doctors demonizing the humble carbohydrate.
Nutrition research can get pretty twisted when we overemphasize some individual nutrient in our food but ignore what happens when people actually eat the real thing. For example, I could take a totally healthy plant 🌱 food that prolongs your life 🙌🏻 and reduces your risk of heart disease 💔and cancer☠️, and I could pull out one specific part of that food, spin a few statistics and overemphasize weird test tube studies to make up a misleading narrative about how unhealthy that plant is. But that’s not scientifically sound - and I have no interest in lying to you. (*Cough* 🤧Lectins🤧 *Cough*)
I'm not sick, I'm just sick of the BS.
When we talk about carbs, here's what you need to know:
Carbohydrates are an essential macronutrient found in countless foods (mostly plants), from the undeniably healthy (whole plant foods) to the undeniably bad-for-you (ultra-processed foods).
Lumping unrefined complex carbs 🥦🍎🍍in with highly refined, ultra-processed carbs 🍭🎂🍩is pretty silly. They impact your body in VERY different ways.
When you cut out or reduce ALL carbs, you’re throwing the baby out w/ the bathwater — or, to coin a new term, throwing the fiber out w/ the Fritos. Cutting out whole plant foods is not a path to better health when we're already so deprived of them.
Although I don't advocate for a low carb or ketogenic diet, I absolutely believe that there are people who thrive with this dietary pattern and there are ways to do it well. That would mean cut out REFINED carbs (think candy bars, white bread/rice/pasta), but keep the healthy the healthy carbs from whole food plant sources.
Or, to put it simply… complex carbohydrates in whole plant foods are the foundation of a healthy gut. End of story.
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