"The Truth About Carbs"?

[ickihun]

To keep it simple (a must for my tired old brain) make a smoothie with four apples or more and drink it in seconds minus most of the fibre. This is going to hit the duodenum very quickly. Then sit and eat four apples at one sitting (who would do that?) with all of the fibre. The difference is quite clear to me.

I've never made a smoothie before. I assumed you add water/milk to reduce strength to avoid IBS? I wouldn't drink concentrated fresh fruit juice so I wouldn't give it to a child. I also assumed then 4 apples or 4 fruits served 2-3 people.
I'm really unsure now.
I think I'll make him a fruit salad instead, with some cream. Or blended if he insists. He believes GP is good as he has kids too.

 

[Robbity]

From what I can recall, Dr Unwin (known as Southportgp here on this forum) actually tried out his sugar in carbs ideas here. He started a thread showing images of different foods and their sugar content. I think it was piles of sugar cubes back then, rather than teaspoons of sugar. He even asked for feedback and adjusted his information after collective member input.

A lovely, helpful, positive member.

I have just had a look for both his profile and his list of threads, but came up empty. So he may have deleted his profile for professional reasons, or the thread may have been lost in one of the site upgrades, but I am sure I won't be the only one to remember it. I believe @DCUKMod contributed to the sugar cube thread too.

I also remember him posting the sugar content thread(s) too.
Robbity

 

[Guzzler]

I've never made a smoothie before. I assumed you add water/milk to reduce strength to avoid IBS? I wouldn't drink concentrated fresh fruit juice so I wouldn't give it to a child. I also assumed then 4 apples or 4 fruits served 2-3 people.
I'm really unsure now.
I think I'll make him a fruit salad instead, with some cream. Or blended if he insists. He believes GP is good as he has kids too.

You would be surprised how little liquid you end up with when you blitz fruit. My youngest (22yo) bought a bullet to make smoothies adding almond milk and a protein powder. He doesn't do that any more.
He has whole fruit and whole veggies and rarely uses the protein powder after I pointed out the carb content.

I am shy of giving you advice on how to feed your son but one thing I would suggest is sticking to whole foods. They will keep him fuller for longer and he will be getting every ounce of goodness from them.

 

[Robbity]

I thought irony came fom elephants.

Only if you send them down the mines....

Robbty

 

[Element137]

Overall, I thought the programme was pitched well at a level to help people understand impact of carbs, thought they did well not going any further into the benefits of good fats/fasting etc - I think there was enough there to make people stop and think without blowing them away with other stuff that would seem counter intuitive to most people ( eating fat don't make you fat etc). Rome not built in a day - the libre results must have shocked people ? - first time I have watched anything on TV on nutrition without wanting to kick the screen in - on a similar note - if anyone saw the barrage from trolls on Twitter for Xand before and after the show, leaves no doubt how far we have to go to overcome the deeply engrained (excuse the pun) mentality that we need carbs, and that low carb is 'dangerous' . Overall a great step forward in my view.

 

[johnoo]

I watched it in the UK & felt that it put forward a very positive response against Carbs & how there are many ways of changing diet.
One interesting point, could be wrong, but it was stated that Wholegrain bread was better than white bread --- Agree.
But it was also stated that if the bread was frozen & then thawed out the Carbs. changed to a better type. The same was said for rice.
Comments please!

 

[Guzzler]

I watched it in the UK & felt that it put forward a very positive response against Carbs & how there are many ways of changing diet.
One interesting point, could be wrong, but it was stated that Wholegrain bread was better than white bread --- Agree.
But it was also stated that if the bread was frozen & then thawed out the Carbs. changed to a better type. The same was said for rice.
Comments please!

It was fully explained in the programme. Personally, I have only tried this with rice and the results were disappointing.

 

[Prem51]

One interesting point, could be wrong, but it was stated that Wholegrain bread was better than white bread --- Agree.
But it was also stated that if the bread was frozen & then thawed out the Carbs. changed to a better type. The same was said for rice.
Comments please!

I don't know the science behind it, but people on here have often said that pasta and potatoes, if cooked, cooled down, then reheated don't raise their bgs as high.
I eat wholemeal bread, which does go in the freezer, and usually toasted from frozen, so I was glad to see that was recommended to make it more 'starch resistant'.

 

[Resurgam]

Sounds like he's a prime candidate for a low carb high fat diet then.. fat for satiety and low carb to fix his leptin resistance or maybe just let him be a kid for a few more years. Fruit is probably the last thing he needs.

Way back in my life I found a report of the growth of children in the school system - which found that children from better off homes were, on average, two inches taller than all other children.
The report was published in book form and I found it in a charity shop.
The conclusion was that the difference was accounted for by the amount of protein in their diet, along with fish, milk, eggs and butter for breakfast as the poorer children were either not given breakfast or had fortified bread given to them either at home or from the 'more enlightened scholastic establishments' - funny how a phrase can stick in the memory.

 

[lovinglife]

I've had success with mashed potatoes frozen then reheated and I freeze my protein loaf but that's more for convenience and they don't impact my numbers - less success with pasta and I don't like freezing and reheating rice as I once had a nasty dose of food poisoning from reheated rice (not by my own fair hand ).

I have had the odd small spoonful of my son's uncle bens microwave rice and I was ok with that .

Getting back to the programme, I enjoyed it and thought it was pitched just right as an entrance level to "carb knowledge" - those who decide to run with it will probably do more of their own research anyway - it's getting someone to take the bait that's important IMHO

 

[Resurgam]

All the bread I used - and which my husband still gets, was/is kept in the freezer - if there is any benefit we have had it for decades.

 

[Bluetit1802]

I don't think the freezing and re-heating was aimed at glucose levels at all. To me, it was aimed at resistant starch and gut health.

You takes your pick. You eat it freshly cooked and see a rise in BG and a deterioration of gut health. Cook/cool/heat you still see a similar rise in BG but end up with better gut health.

 

[AdamJames]

I liked the programme on the whole.

In terms of negatives, the thing that most frustrated me was exactly the same thing that most frustrated me about the 'crash diet' programme last week. The whole idea of diabetes and reversal and what it is they actually measured.

In last week's crash diet programme, someone was told they were no longer diabetic, even though they clearly had impaired glucose tolerance in an OGTT test they took, and were quite probably no more able to safely eat a slice of white bread than I am.

This programme was much the same in that regard, in fact I think it was actually worse. It gave the impression that someone would soon have reversed their diabetes, but this time with even less investigation as to their actual metabolic health. That someone can lower their average blood sugar by drastically reducing their carb intake should not be surprising, and that is all that they seemed to investigate unless I missed something?

It's a great thing if someone with diabetes can switch to a lifelong low carb diet and enjoy it, and it is very likely to greatly improve their health due to keeping their blood sugars lower. But it says nothing about how their body can handle carbohydrates and whether that has actually improved, and that's kind of what diabetes is.

If someone sticks to low carb for life then it's kind of a moot point, but it's an important point in terms of understanding what exactly is happening. I don't see a great distinction between a documentary that suggests "go on a crash diet for a while and you'll reverse diabetes" and a documentary that suggests "go on a low carb diet for a while and you'll reverse diabetes". They are both, to put it politely, over-selling an idea.

If they had just added the point "You really do need to keep the low carb diet up permanently in order to keep blood sugars low and get good results in an HbA1c test" then I'd have been much happier with the message.

 

[AdamJames]

One bit I liked was when the presenter, not convinced that any low-carb dessert could be any good, seemed genuinely impressed by the key lime pie. Key lime pie is one of the approximately 1,000,000 foods I miss.

Did anyone recognise it from the way it looked, or has anyone found a great keto / low carb recipe for it which is okay for their blood sugars?

 

[lucylocket61]

I use wholewheat bread, usually organic and stoneground and home made. We have a mill near us, but it can be bought on the internet and used in a breadmaker, if you have one. We make it the slow way, with un-improved yeast, as that suits my digestive system better. You can make the dough the day before, and prove it overnight, or all the next day, in the fridge. We use better or olive oil as the fat content of the bread, as it gives a better, smoother crust and taste.

 

[AdamJames]

I used to store bread in the freezer mainly because I'm a lonely old man who lives by himself and so it would go stale before I'd finished it otherwise. I didn't know it was supposed to make it healthier in terms of carbohydrate structure.

I also toasted it straight from the freezer just as suggested in this doc. It still sent my blood sugars horribly high, in fact I used to use 2 slices of Warburtons wholemeal, toasted, with butter, as a regular carb tolerance test roughly every 2 weeks or so to see if anything was improving. All I learned was that nothing was improving, and that I can't safely eat 2 slices of that particular bread, even if frozen then toasted.

I also question the detail of the idea of toasting straight from freezer to change carb structure. Whenever I did it, the inside seemed about the same texture as normal, i.e. because it had been frozen all the way through, by the time the ouside was toasted and ready, the inside was probably only just thawed and hadn't had its temperature raised much at all.

 

[Brunneria]

Did anyone recognise it from the way it looked, or has anyone found a great keto / low carb recipe for it which is okay for their blood sugars?

Sorry for the derailment, folks, but I had to pop the following in
https://www.sugarfreemom.com/recipes/sugar-free-no-bake-key-lime-pie-bars/
This woman's website and recipes are amazing

 

[zand]

I don't think the freezing and re-heating was aimed at glucose levels at all. To me, it was aimed at resistant starch and gut health.

You takes your pick. You eat it freshly cooked and see a rise in BG and a deterioration of gut health. Cook/cool/heat you still see a similar rise in BG but end up with better gut health.

Yes that's why I have decided to try it - for gut health. Had my first slice of toast from frozen bread today. My tummy is a bit tender now and I am wondering if this may be a positive thing. Time will tell.

 

[Pipp]

If folks are going to be talking about toast, then fingers in ears 'lalalala' I am not listening. Crunchy toast would be the one carb food I would binge upon.

Interesting though, if people find the freezing bread trick helps. Good luck with that, @zand.

 

[AdamJames]

Sorry for the derailment, folks, but I had to pop the following in
https://www.sugarfreemom.com/recipes/sugar-free-no-bake-key-lime-pie-bars/
This woman's website and recipes are amazing

Thank you! It looks like I need to start stocking things I've never bought before. I've never bought gelatin or artificial sweetener. I did wonder on the programme whether they must have used a sweetener of some sort for their recipe which impressed the presenter. Controversial, and a whole nother topic.

The 'Nutrition Facts' at the end of that recipe seems to have an error and suggests that a serving size is 1g! That isn't going to happen.