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We’re talking about healthy carbohydrates

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more diets are betting on low carbohydrate food consumption. We are talking about eating styles such as keto or paleo diets. In any case, whether or not you love carbohydrates, it is not necessary to know what are the ones you can consume in a healthy way.

Therefore, in today’s article we will talk about what carbohydrates are called healthy and which we should try to avoid if we want to have a healthy diet betting on real food.

What are healthy carbohydrates?

Human consumption of carbohydrates has been increasing in recent decades. This has influenced the advertising of food to a great extent, the fast lifestyle that is demanded of us on many occasions or facets of our lives and a long etcetera.

However, there are not a few studies that associate carbohydrate consumption with many of the diseases we suffer today. Diseases such as obesity, diabetes, diseases related to hormonal problems, skin problems, autoimmune diseases, problems with metabolism, etc.

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What happens when consuming carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates when assimilated by our body become glucose in the blood. This elevated glucose peak causes our body to produce insulin to counteract glucose. All this can be a fairly important health problem that will harm fundamental parts of our body such as our immune system.

However, the problem with the most visibility is that of obesity. The main cause of obesity in this case, is that carbohydrates raise insulin levels in the body, insulin in turn stimulates the accumulation of fat in adipose cells. We find that this excess of insulin blocks our body’s ability to burn fat and therefore it accumulates. On the other hand, excess insulin also influences our metabolism and slows it down. Why is this happening? Our body can extract energy from two fundamental sources: glucose and fat. If we are constantly providing glucose to our body, it is logical to send the signal to consume glucose and reserve the fat.

Before an excess of food, what would be the fuel of our body, the cell acts by blocking the insulin signal since it conceives that it already has plenty of energy (in excess) and reserves the fat, which accumulates. The accumulation of fat ends up resulting in the growth of adipocytes. Such adipocytes and the immune cells in their environment act in this situation by releasing proinflammatory substances. This inflammatory situation causes insulin resistance. Insulin resistance ends up being a consequence of obesity not a cause.

In addition, we must add an important factor to all this and it is appetite. It is no accident that people who usually consume carbohydrates feel greater anxiety about food or a greater appetite for this type of food.

You may be interested in an article where we deal with this topic in greater depth: Anxiety about eating: how to remove it to get a good diet

Are all carbohydrates the same?

However, it is true that not all carbohydrates can be attributed the same effect on our body and that carbohydrates are not harmful per se. The problem lies in the abuse of them, an abuse that is increasing every day in society, especially when we think of all the products we consume that carry flours (bread, pasta, batter, pastries, dough, etc.) to give us a slight idea.

Of all these products, the ones we must avoid are all refined ones.

Choosing the best carbohydrates for consumption

A fundamental factor is that many of the products that are carbohydrates, are inflammatory for our body. Obviously not everyone causes the same inflammation, some will be intolerant and others will not even notice the effects it causes on their body. However, it affects us all. Therefore, we must avoid this type of inflammatory carbohydrates that would become cereals.

When buying, the best way to choose good carbohydrates is to always opt for food instead of products. If we choose food we are choosing real, nutritious food. This kind of carbohydrates are vegetables, tubers and fruit. If we choose products, in addition to choosing carbohydrates that are not healthy and that will force us to overeat, we will be choosing other substances that accompany that can also be harmful such as preservatives, dyes and additives.

If you want to go one step further, from all the foods we are going to choose, we can select those that have a higher nutritional density. This way we will not be consuming carbohydrates simply, but we will be meeting our needs for minerals and vitamins.

In summary:

  • Prioritize the consumption of vegetables, tubers and fruits.
  • Moderate or avoid cereal productssuch as bread, pasta, flours…
  • Avoid sugars.

How and when to consume this type of healthy carbohydrates?

Our limit on carbohydrate consumption will be marked by our own organism. We must prevent what we eat from activating our hedonic system as it will make us consume too much. So if we feel anxious about eating, we will know that we have an excess of carbohydrates, even if after a meal we feel a headache, it means that in such a meal we have had an excess of carbohydrates. Ideally, avoid these points arrive, so we recommend the following:

Leave the first meals of the day without carbohydrates and book them for evenings and evenings. In this way we will lengthen the time when our body has stable levels of glucose and insulin. In addition, eating healthy carbohydrates in the last meal of the day will help us fall asleep better.

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