Should You Eat Carbs, Or Avoid Them?

Carbohydrates have been put into the spotlight ever since diets like the Atkin’s Diet and the South Beach Diet have recommended cutting carbohydrates out of your meals as much as possible. However, before you make any drastic decisions about what foods to include and not include, it is crucial to learn about carbohydrates and what they do for your body.

Simple or "bad" carbs (Photo credit: Newbirth35)

In short, carbohydrates can be good or bad for your body. It is necessary to eat enough good carbohydrates, because that is how our body has enough energy for low-intensity activities during the day. Carbohydrates are famously found in breads and grains, but actually they are also found in a number of other foods as well, such as fruits and vegetables. When keeping an eye on your intake of carbohydrates it is important to distinguish the good from the bad.

What Are Carbs?

All carbohydrates are basically sugars. Complex carbohydrates are the good carbohydrates for your body. These strings of sugar are very difficult to break down and trap other nutrients like vitamins and minerals in the sugar strings. As they slowly break down, the other nutrients are also released into your body, and provide you with fuel for a number of hours.

Bad carbohydrates, on the other hand, are simple sugars. Because their structure is not complex, it is easy to break down and holds little nutrients for your body other than the sugars. Your body breaks down these carbohydrates rather quickly and what it cannot use is converted to fat and stored in the body. Staying away from simple carbohydrates is what most diets recommend, since they have little nutritional value when compared to complex carbohydrates.

Eating The Right Carbs

Good carbs - Fresh fruit and vegetables (Photo credit: Mundoo)

More importantly than how carbohydrates work in the body and the difference between good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates is how you actually eat these carbohydrates! First, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. These foods include complex carbohydrates, but also a variety of other nutrients needed by your body. Another great tip is to cut the white bread and bread products out of your diet and replace them with whole grain or multi-grain breads instead. Look at the packaging. Foods rich in fiber are probably a source of good carbohydrates.

Learning the difference between good and bad carbohydrates is very important if you wish to have a healthy diet. It is not good for your body to cut out carbohydrates completely—in fact, that is very difficult to do unless you only eat meat! Eating a healthy and balanced diet means including good carbohydrates in your meals along with protein and healthy fats.

To learn more about health, carbs, and the dangerous lies we've been told about them, we highly recommend Gary Taube's book, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health.

And stay tuned to this blog for some good, low-carb recipes featuring healthy, whole ingredients.

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