Читать книгу The Insulin Factor: Can’t Lose Weight? Can’t Concentrate? Can’t Resist Sugar? Could Syndrome X Be Your Problem? - Antony Haynes - Страница 37

Most foods actually contain a mixture of carbohydrates, proteins and fats; it’s rare for any food to contain only one of these macro-nutrients. Some foods are dominant in carbohydrates, some dominant in protein and some in fat. Carbohydrate dominant foods consist of cereals, grains, starchy vegetables and fruits. Legumes (beans and pulses) also contain predominantly carbohydrates even though they are often referred to as a protein food. Meats, fish, poultry and eggs have little or no carbohydrate content, whilst dairy products can contain the carbohydrate lactose (milk contains more than hard cheese) and soy products can contain carbohydrates, depending on the type (e.g. tofu, soy milk, tempeh). Nuts and seeds have little or no carbohydrate (the cashew nut contains the most, with 18 per cent of its weight as carbs). Non-starchy vegetables also contain some carbohydrates but in much smaller amounts than their starchy counterparts.

The most simple carbohydrates are known as simple sugars or monosaccharides. These are the fundamental building blocks of carbohydrates, just as the amino acid is the building block for proteins. When you eat a simple sugar or refined carbohydrate it requires little or no digestion and is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream. This elicits a rapid and excessive insulin response, and it is for this reason that refined carbs are so bad for you. The human body is not designed to handle REGULAR intake of refined carbohydrates with impunity.

Refined carbs and simple sugars require little or no digestion and provoke a rapid and excessive insulin response. This is why they are so bad for you.

A system has been devised to measure how rapidly different carbs affect your blood glucose. This is called the Glycemic Index, which is a measure of the amount of insulin the body needs to produce to lower the glucose levels after eating that food. The higher the GI the more insulin is produced.