Diet is such an important subject for your health that I’ve decided to discuss it in a four part series, beginning with a focus on how to read and understand the carbohydrate content on food labels, which carbs to eat, and which ones to avoid. Once you better understand food labels and as a fun sociological experiment, look into other people’s grocery cart at the grocery store. You’ll likely conclude that most people opt to purchase foods high in carbs above everything else. Why?
Most of the food we eat today is filled with the bad three: sugar, fat and salt. The reason for this is many foods have been processed and stripped of a great deal of their nutrients, removing their natural goodness and flavor. Food manufacturers know this so they supplement the food to enhance the taste. Over time, we become accustomed to this overabundance of energy and salt. You can easily eat a snack that contains 25 percent of your recommended daily intake (RDI) of salt and not even notice! Imagine if you were used to driving the speed limit on the highway. Imagine now that the car can only go half as fast. You would feel like you are crawling. The same goes for your taste buds.
Understanding food labels: carbohydrates
A carbohydrate is a sugar and comes in many forms. Sugar is a form of energy especially important for the brain and nervous system – they only consume sugar, and cannot process fat or protein well. When your blood sugar is too low, your brain panics and you get cravings. Women should consume about 180 grams/day a day and men 250 grams/days.
At normal sugar levels, your blood system has less than one teaspoon of sugar floating around, about 5 grams. One slice of bread has between 25 and 35 grams of carbohydrate, or 5 to 7 teaspoons of sugar. We most often eat two slices – add in a soft drink (48 grams) and fries (who knows how much), and you’ve just consumed 15 teaspoons of sugar! This amount of sugar is at least 15 times your blood sugar level, too much for your body to handle all at once, which causes a spike in your blood sugar.
Understanding sugar