A Reluctant Holistic Medicine Convert Tells You How You Can Improve Yourself.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

WHITE FLIGHT! or Why You Too Need To Stop Eating The Pale Carbs.


Alright, so I'm just gonna go ahead and piss you all off, while agreeing with a bunch of people I don't like agreeing with - like Gwyneth, Oprah and just about every self-help guru on TV.

The white carbs are bad. White bread, white crackers, white potatoes, white rice. Anything made with white flour.

WTF, FOOD RACIST?!? WHY?! GIMME BACK MY PRETZELS!!

Sure. I'll give you back your pretzels. While I'm at it, I'll give you a bag of sugar and advise you to start hosing through it with a spoon. Because unfortunately, your body reads the pretzels and the bag of sugar as basically the same thing.

Both things spike your blood sugar, causing your pancreas to secrete insulin. The insulin levels surge to remove the sugar from your blood and get it into your cells. And as long as this particular operation goes well, you can eat your pretzels and keep your figure.

However, in case you missed the Onion headline - AMERICA FILLS UP ON BREAD.  A great deal of what we eat during our red, white and blue day are refined carbs. A bowl of cereal for breakfast; a bagel with cream cheese for lunch and pasta for dinner. None of these are sugary treats, but they might as well be - they're still kicking the shit out of our pancreas, demanding more insulin at every meal. I'll let a generic web nutritionist explain the rest:

 "...if insulin spikes too often from a diet rich in the high-carb foods that trigger insulin secretion, your cells respond by decreasing the reactivity and number of insulin receptors on their surfaces. Eventually, this prevents glucose from getting into your cells, leading to high blood sugar and depriving your cells of the energy they need to function. This is why many women with insulin resistance experience carbohydrate cravings, fatigue and weight-gain — their cells are literally starving for energy, even when plenty of glucose is available in the blood. Down the road, your body’s capacity to generate insulin appropriately becomes depleted, and the result is type 2 diabetes."

There's lots of speculation to how much this wears down the body, especially as we age. But there's no argument that diabetes and obesity are on the rise from exactly these foods - even though it seems more logical to blame sodas, candy and fried food.

What to eat instead? Stay tuned...

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