Carbs: Dr. Neal Bernard responds

I went vegetarian recently, and although I feel good and am losing weight, I'm worried because I seem to be eating so many carbs. Is that bad? 

 

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President & author of Power Foods for the Brain, Dr. Neal D. Bernard, M.D., answers: 

Not at all. In fact, those carbs are a big part of the reason you're losing weight. Despite the bad rap that carbs have somehow acquired, a gram of carbohydrate has only four calories. Compare that with a gram of fat, which has almost nine. In other words, carbs are relatively low in calories. That' a one reason the majority of people in Japan and other Asian countries where they eat lots of rice and noodles have customarily been thin. But people in these countries have been gaining weight since the 1980's, when meaty Western eating habits started to replaced their rice-based diets. 

So, if carbs are actually low in calories, how did bread, pasta, potatoes and other carb-rich foods get their reputation for being fattening? We'll think about how they're often served: mashed potatoes are drowned in butter or gravy, spaghetti is doused with meat sauce. What we fattening are the greasy toppings, not the carb-rich foods themselves, which are actually innocent bystanders. 

Some people have suggested that carbs ought to be fattening because of the glucose they contain. When a carbohydrate molecule breaks apart in your digestive tract, glucose enters your bloodstream; glucose stimulates the release of insulin, which escorts glucose into the body's cells. The theory is that this insulin release promotes weight gain. What the theory's proponents are forgetting is that insulin release is triggered by proteins too. Just as insulin helps glucose enter cells, it does the same for the amino acids that are the building blocks of protein. So it turns out that beef, cheese, etc. trigger as much or more insulin secretion as many high-carb foods. 

What's more, carbohydrates are a pretty big group. Carbohydrates are in everything from table sugar, candy, and doughnuts to whole-grain pasta, fresh blueberries and heirloom beans. You'll want to pick the healthiest representatives of the group, such as whole grains, beans, fresh fruit, and veggies. They are better choices than highly processed snack foods where healthful fiber is taken out and fatty ingredients are added. 






Courtesy of Vegetarian Times, Jan/Feb 2014