are you afraid of carbs? are carbs really bad for us? What about fat? should we eat low carb foods or low fat foods? or both?
today we're going to take this whole mess and we're gonna try to make it simple
Low-fat and low-carb have become household terms
We see these labels everywhere: food packaging, magazine covers and all over the Internet. In both cases
The idea is that one nutrient is our enemy, but is that a good mindset when it comes to food?
Apples are almost a hundred percent carbohydrate and yet they're very healthy
Apple candy, also almost all carbohydrate, not so healthy. Carrot, mostly carbs,
Healthy. Carrot cake, mostly carbs, not so healthy. I know, I like it too
In fact, I bet there's a way to make a healthy carrot cake
Boom. found it. all healthy natural ingredients. I'll put the link in the description below. give it a shot
Let me know if it's any good. There's always a solution
Ok back to business
Apple good carrot good
Apple or carrot candy, not so good. and yet all four are mostly carbs. other foods that are mostly carbs include lettuce
Cauliflower, broccoli. you get the idea. So the healthiest foods on earth are mostly carbohydrate
clearly carbs are not the problem here the
problem is
artificial food
This is why any discussion of carbohydrates that doesn't distinguish between natural and artificial foods and just talks about
Carbs in general is not helpful. It's mixing apples and
Oreos. if your diet revolves around natural foods as close as possible to their original form as grown
You do not have a carb problem
One of the most surprising things about this carbophobia is that it goes directly against scientific evidence. my own graduate research at Caltech
Clearly pointed to carbohydrates as a key
nutrient for health. my colleagues and I measured how long animals lived on different diets; the results were very
Surprising: the more carbohydrate we gave them the longer they lived. since then labs all over the world have seen the same trend
That's lab animals, but several facts suggests that the same is true in us human beings
For example, low carb diets have been consistently associated with higher mortality
And some of the longest lived populations in the world have diets very high in carbohydrate
Of course, we're talking about natural healthy carbohydrates here not Twinkies
so the issue is not so much what the label on the package says it's that it has a
Package in the first place. real food is usually sold unpackaged
And it's grown not made in a factory. if it has a catchy
Trademarked name a team of marketers came up with, a colorful package and a long list of ingredients, you're better off avoiding it
monosodium glutamate
disodium guanylate
Butylhydroquinone, this isn't food,
It's a lab experiment. cookies crackers candy artificial cereal soda and other sugary drinks. These products are very tasty
I mean they hit our salt sugar and fat
Receptors hard because that's what they're designed to do
But unfortunately, they're not healthy in any way. when it comes to fats the same logic applies: avocado,
Mostly fat, healthy. Cheetos, mostly fat, not so healthy
So again, fat is not the problem, if you get it from natural healthy foods like nuts,
For example, you're golden. with fats,
There's another factor: fats from vegetable sources are consistently associated with lower risks of heart disease and diabetes
So if we're shooting for optimal health a good rule of thumb is to focus on natural unprocessed foods
specifically of vegetable sources. these foods give you the right fats in the right amounts. so forget about
low-fat and low-carb
These terms have a lot of people confused
We don't walk into the grocery store and get a pound of carbohydrate and 3 ounces of lipids. We buy foods
so focus on choosing food
Healthy natural food. no matter what
The next diet fad may tell you, if you're gradually working on replacing artificial foods with natural foods, you're heading in the right direction