Carbohydrates and the form they take in our food, is a really important topic for you to understand if you want to have a truly nutritious diet.

Starting with the basics: Simply put, carbohydrates are a form of energy. They are found in many foods, mostly fruits, vegetables and grains. The two main forms of carbohydrate are sugar and starch. Many foods have a mix of sugar and starch. Some have mostly one or the other. Sugar is the main form of carbohydrate found in fruits, and starch is the main form of carbohydrate found in grains and some vegetables (such as potato). Sugar is the most simple form of carbohydrate, and starch has to be broken down into sugar (in your digestive system or in processing).

Carbohydrates are naturally found in whole foods alongside other components, including vitamins, minerals, fibre, fats and protein. These things all have important roles to play. We really need to consume these with our carbohydrates, otherwise the carbohydrates can start to cause problems.

The problem is, in our modern diet we get so much of our carbohydrates in a refined form. This means the vitamins, minerals, fibre, fats and protein have been removed. Healthy non-modernised people did not eat refined carbohydrates as we do. They only really started being such a main part of our diet in the twentieth century, and our health has paid for it.

Certain vitamins and minerals are needed by your body to properly process carbohydrates and sugar. When we eat refined carbohydrates the vitamins and minerals have been removed. Because of this, vitamins and minerals are taken from your own body! So when we eat refined carbohydrates, not only does it provide no nutrients, it actually takes nutrients from our body. Eating refined carbs can easily lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Your body needs these vitamins and minerals for so much, and when your levels become low, you can’t function at your best and healthiest! Vitamin and minerals protect against cancer and heart disease, so if you are lacking in these nutrients, you’re much more likely to get these and other health problems. Refined carbs can also bring on tooth decay and bone loss, because minerals are drawn out of your teeth and bones.

Proteins, fats and fibre, when eaten with carbohydrates, help slow down the release of sugar into your bloodstream. When you eat refined carbohydrates with these components missing, you get too much sugar going into your bloodstream too quickly. This puts an enormous strain on your body, which works hard to try and bring the blood sugar down to a normal level. You get a rush of energy, a “sugar high”. You might feel a bit hyperactive and over-excited. But this won’t last. This high is later followed by a low. You have low blood sugar, you feel tired, depressed, weak. You need more sugar to bring your energy up again. And then this repeats itself. It’s like a rollercoaster of highs and lows. Over time, this puts a lot of strain on your body and weakens you. Your immune system and other systems cannot function at their best, so it leaves you very vulnerable to diseases, cancer or bad health of any kind. All the strain placed on your heart can lead to heart disease. You can get diabetes, either chronically high or low blood sugar.

If you don’t eat enough protein, fibre and fat with carbohydrates, then it will likely raise your blood sugar too much and too quick. Obviously, if you eat carbohydrates as part of a meal containing protein, fibre and fat, the effect on blood sugar will be less. But by adding more carbohydrate without these vital nutrients, you easily mess up the natural balance, and get too much sugar.

There is a natural balance present in all real food as provided by nature. If you eat refined carbohydrates, you get too much carbohydrate from your food and not enough nutrients. You can easily get more carbohydrate then your body needs for energy, and when this happens, it is stored as body fat. It is no surprise that people on our modern diet high in refined carbohydrates are often overweight and lacking in health.

Learn this point and remember it well:

Refined carbohydrates can make you fat and sick!

In fact, a diet high in refined carbohydrates is probably THE main reason people are overweight and under-nourished.

The two main types of refined carbohydrate in our diet are refined sugar and refined grains. Refined sugar is made from plants, usually the sugar cane. All of the vitamins, minerals, fibre, protein and fat are removed from the plant. What we have left is pure carbohydrate; sugar. We know this by many names:
Sugar
Cane Sugar
White Sugar
Sucrose
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Fructose
Etc.

The other source of refined carbohydrates is refined grains. The outer layers of the grain (that contain fibre and nutrients) are removed. We mostly know these as white flour or white rice. Refined grains are not as bad as refined sugar, because they at least contain some protein, and very small amounts of fibre, vitamins and minerals. They are still harmful enough and nutritionally lacking that they should not be a major part of our diet.

One more point I have to note. Artificial sweeteners are no better than refined sugar. In fact, they may even be worse. I'll do a blog entry on the dangers of artificial sweeteners later.

My advice to you is to avoid refined sugar as much as possible, and only use refined grains in very small amounts, if at all.

Look out for more of my blog entries coming soon, where I’ll give some practical tips on how to avoid refined carbohydrates, and some really good alternatives to use instead!

Stay tuned…
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