Are Carbohydrates essential? A Blogger's view

[Oldvatr]

The following comes from a blogger I have been following for several years now

dietary guidelines – Marmalade

Posts about dietary guidelines written by Benjamin David Steele

benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com

 

[Billy Barroo]

Carbs that come from plants/fruits/grains/honey/beans/ legumes/nuts/seeds etc, are not essential. Protein and fat are essential.

 

[Lamont D]

Essential to those with intolerance to carbs?
No!
Essential to the billions of people worldwide.
Yes!
Because the world leaders decided to depend on cheap foodstuffs to feed the world.

 

[zand]

Not essential for nutrition, but I couldn't live without my veggies. I tried but my bowel did not like it. Also I'm not a great meat eater so a no carb diet doesn't appeal to me at all. However I do low carb and on occasions do keto.

And yes, @Lamont D carbs are essential to billions as that's all they can access and/or afford.

 

[Billy Barroo]

It's the protein and fats that are both essential in carbs, not the sugars....... and that goes for anywhere in the world. We can survive on just proteins and fats. Check out the protein and fat content in grains fruit, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. The dietary sugars in carbohydrates "are not essential". If sugars/carbs were essential then how am I and many others still surviving on zero carbs? World wide we know proteins and fats are combined/included in carbohydrates, it's not just sugar.

 

[zand]

It's the protein and fats that are both essential in carbs, not the sugars....... and that goes for anywhere in the world. We can survive on just proteins and fats. Check out the protein and fat content in grains fruit, nuts, seeds, and vegetables. The dietary sugars in carbohydrates "are not essential". If sugars/carbs were essential then how am I and many others still surviving on zero carbs? World wide we know proteins and fats are combined/included in carbohydrates, it's not just sugar.

Yes. We've said that. Trouble is how do you get proteins and fats if you can't afford them/ vomit when you eat them if they aren't accompanied by carbs/ live in a famine hit area? Carbs are easiest to store and cheapest to buy.

 

[Outlier]

Thought-provoking reading - thank you, Oldvatr. I've only been keto for 15 months, but it certainly suits me - as well as the obvious benefit re. BG, I have much more energy, and sleep better.

 

[Billy Barroo]

Yes. We've said that. Trouble is how do you get proteins and fats if you can't afford them/ vomit when you eat them if they aren't accompanied by carbs/ live in a famine hit area? Carbs are easiest to store and cheapest to buy.

The proteins and fats are already incorporated in the carbs. (grains fruits, nuts, seeds, and vegetables.) That's why we can survive......because it contains the essentials,(proteins and fats) we need. I find it much cheaper eating 2 meals a day by just eating meat and fat than eating "carby and fibrous" foods and snacks throughout the day. No more emotional eating, cravings, and sugar addictions....... I've got a lot more will power and determination now.

 

[Brunneria]

I recently had a conversation with a nutritionalist on this subject.
It was fascinating, and I was left with a profound respect for her knowledge and experience.

She was more than happy to concede to the view that 'dietary carbohydrates are not nutritionally necessary'.

However, she made several points that have convinced me that 'eating foods that may contain some carbohydrates, can have far reaching benefits to more than simple nutrition'.

So I am currently moving from the very high carnivore way of eating that I have followed for the last 5 years (following some lab tests and a fair bit of further reading on my part).

I am currently slowly moving to incorporate more plant foods, specifically fermented foods (chick pea miso, kimchi, seaweeds, a smidge of wholegrain organic wild rice, garlic, onion, chicory and very small amounts of home cooked legumes).

The intention is to alter my gut biome from the state that dodgy guts + 5 years of carnivore has created. Altering the balance of the friendly/unfriendly gut bugs should reduce the long term gut inflammation (by improving the mucosal layer and downgrading my gut's current DEFCON 1 immune defence status) which I had been experiencing since long before I started carnivore and which carnivore has done surprisingly little to improve. This will hopefully improve my body's capacity to digest and absorb the nutrition I put into it.

Interestingly, she has made it very clear that in her opinion, if I hadn't been eating carni for 5 years, I would be feeling much, much worse than I currently do. In her opinion, eating carni (+kefir, +extensive supplementation to compensate for malabsorption) has been a coping mechanism, not a solution. I agree with her. She thinks that alterations, mainly in fermented foods and specific types of fibre, will help me to feel better than I do now, with less inflammation and a better, happier gut biome.

Going to be interesting to see if she is right.

 

[Lamont D]

Hi @Brunneria hope you're ok.

What convinced you that your gut biome has been compromised by carnivore diet?

Your dietician does seem knowledgeable excepting that your individual balanced diet has given you a better state of mind. So why mess with something that after decades of finally finding your diet, she wants to introduce more refined or complex carbs? As you have intimated.

I did read something, that fibre in some grains, legumes, that may be the actual cause of inflammation.
With your intolerance to gluten, as I found out that different aspects of ingredients include oils and starches, palm oil and some horrendous e numbers.

I haven't got an issue with experiments, but sometimes, you know best, not her hippy ideas about nutrition. Ha!

I would have more faith in your experience than her taught text book nutritional information.

Best wishes.

 

[zand]

My own gut microbiome was messed up by years of drinking diet drinks. This has led to my body not absorbing nutrients properly.

 

[Brunneria]

Hi @Brunneria hope you're ok.

What convinced you that your gut biome has been compromised by carnivore diet?

Your dietician does seem knowledgeable excepting that your individual balanced diet has given you a better state of mind. So why mess with something that after decades of finally finding your diet, she wants to introduce more refined or complex carbs? As you have intimated.

I did read something, that fibre in some grains, legumes, that may be the actual cause of inflammation.
With your intolerance to gluten, as I found out that different aspects of ingredients include oils and starches, palm oil and some horrendous e numbers.

I haven't got an issue with experiments, but sometimes, you know best, not her hippy ideas about nutrition. Ha!

I would have more faith in your experience than her taught text book nutritional information.

Best wishes.

Hi Lamont, good to see you

Neither I nor my nutritionalist think that the carni diet has compromised my gut biome.

It is most likely that the compromisation was done previously (I have a history of several gut upsets dating from travel in Europe and Israel [is Israel Europe?] in my teens and 20s. It is likely that my gut biome has never been ‘right’ since then, with knock on food intolerances and increased susceptibility to further gut upsets (ghiardia and norovirus anyone?)

Adopting carnivore (after the ghiardia), helped a great deal to minimise symptoms, and ‘manage’ the situation.

However it has done very little to reduce the ongoing gut inflammation or correct the root problem.

Introducing (very gradually), the foods I listed above will hopefully create a new gut biome balance that will encourage a thicker mucosal gut layer and more resilient un-inflamed gut lining cells.

I currently have gut flora that encourage the development of Crohns and Colitis, and others which actually digest the protective mucosal layer leaving the gut lining exposed -> inflammation. None of them are massively ‘blooming’ but they are present, and making their presences felt. *

These bugs may well have been here decades, but 5years of carnivore has not starved them out. All carni has done is to somewhat improve things.

The nutritionalist’s thinking is that eating the aforementioned carb-containing plant foods will build colonies of ‘good’ bugs which will overwhelm the ‘bad’ bugs - something that never happened on carnivore.

Will it work? Wait and see.

But in my situation, I’m definitely open to the idea that while carbs don’t offer ME any nutritional benefit, they may well offer my billions of gut bugs a great deal of benefit.

* as an aside, I am DELIGHTED to have lab test results saying that I have no lingering ghiardia, zero parasites at all, and zero Candida - which I am sure is the result of eating carni.

 

[Oldvatr]

Hi @Brunneria hope you're ok.

What convinced you that your gut biome has been compromised by carnivore diet?

Your dietician does seem knowledgeable excepting that your individual balanced diet has given you a better state of mind. So why mess with something that after decades of finally finding your diet, she wants to introduce more refined or complex carbs? As you have intimated.

I did read something, that fibre in some grains, legumes, that may be the actual cause of inflammation.
With your intolerance to gluten, as I found out that different aspects of ingredients include oils and starches, palm oil and some horrendous e numbers.

I haven't got an issue with experiments, but sometimes, you know best, not her hippy ideas about nutrition. Ha!

I would have more faith in your experience than her taught text book nutritional information.

Best wishes.

What I find disconcerting about modern nutritional information is when they advise eating some foods for the phytochemicals that they claim have significant antioxident properties. Now phytochemicals are actually plant poisons that the plant generates to make it less appetising or even harmful to predators. When you eat the plant you become a predator. It is known that many plant defense mechanisms make food less bioavailable to humans. An example is spinach or rhubarb. The spinach is high in iron, but the plant self defensse actually means it is not absorbed by us, so Popeye is promoting poppycock. Rhubarb is poisonous when raw. kidney beans can be fatal if not proprtly cooked. But the nutritionista trumpet that a new fad food is stuffed with phytochemicals and these are necessary ingredients. I rest my case with the superfoods like Blueberries and grapefruit.

 

[Oldvatr]

My own gut microbiome was messed up by years of drinking diet drinks. This has led to my body not absorbing nutrients properly.

My gut biome has been properly stuffed by Dapagliflozin. That med made me have explosive flatulence and led to severe constipation. I reduced the dose, and the problem eased, but is still not back to what it was before my gut was assaulted by chemicals. My diet was steady and relatively unchanged during this period so I do not think my issue was diet caused, but obviously diet fuelled. I could have launched myself into space sometimes.

 

[Billy Barroo]

My 7 year plant based vegan diet back in the 90's messed me up big time. I ended up with muscle wasting, malabsorption and
glycation problems.The high carb, high fibre and seed oils didn't help, it wrecked my digestive system.

 

[Oldvatr]

Carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins are things that are essential to our body, but not all carbs are equally good for you. you take it in a balanced amount. I take all the nutrients in a balanced amount.

I note that you declare that you do not have diabetes. So you are probably not aware that for many forum users here, carbohydrate is actually harmful to us. We in the T2D faction are generally intolerant of carbohydrates, It is not by choice, I can assure you, but I and others here restrict our carb intake to control rampant blood sugar overdoses (our choice) and thus reduce the inflammation and future complications that may arise. from it, It is a medical matter. and carb restriction replaces many medications in my life.

 

[JAT1]

Nearly all my meals were vegetarian before I was diagnosed diabetic and since then I drastically reduced carbs, increased protein and went full-fat on cheese and milk.