Good Carbs- Bad Carbs-What's Up with the Carbs?
Holistic healing with Carbohydrates
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates
I know you've heard this and maybe you've even said this yourself, "No thanks, I'm cutting out carbs."
Some carbohydrates ARE good to skip. Others are essential if your goal is optimal natural health. Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates can happen when you make the right choices.
Do you know the difference?
Carbohydrates are very important because they are our primary energy sources. They also supply fiber and vitamins and such, but their primary purpose is clearly to give us energy. Some of that energy gets into our system and is used right away (sugars) and those that take a little longer to be digested and used (starches).
There is more to learn about sugar, though.
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates
First, let's talk a bit about sugars. Can a naturally holistic diet include sugar? Well, yes, of course!
Carbohydrates exist in basically two main forms: the sugars and starches. Sugars are made of simple monosaccharide sugars, such as glucose and fructose which is found in fruits. Carbohydrates are also made of disaccharide sugars such as sucrose (sugar), maltose (malt) from grains and the lactose from milk. You might notice that we've talked about basically monosaccharide (single chain) sugar and disaccharide (two chain) sugars.
Natural monosaccharide sugars (glucose and fructose), and disaccharaide sugars (sucrose, maltose, and lactose) are found in sweet vegetables such as carrots and beets, fruit, honey, malt, milk, sugar cane, sugar beet and molasses.
Some other sweets you are most generally familiar with are those from sucrose such as cakes, pastries, cookies, pudding and alcohol. These are the carbohydrates you CAN live without.
What's that? You can't cut them out completely?
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates
Remember that a naturally holistic lifesyle has a foundation in moderation. One helpful hint I can give you is to have tiny bits of the sweets you like. For instance, one or two little chocolate kisses will satisfy most sweet-tooths. If you can wait 15 minutes, most cravings will pass. If you still want that chocolate, a kiss or two is much less harmful than a big fat-filled chocolate candy bar. You just need a little self-control. Better if you choose a peice of fruit instead of the candy (high sugar choice). Learning to control and understand impulses is part of self-holistic healing.
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates and Nutrition: It Could Save your Life
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates
What happens when you eat a lot of sugar? Well, it isn't pretty. Substances called glycosinolates are produced when your sugar intake is high. You don't really have to remember the name of the substance unless you think it might make interesting conversation at a cocktail party as we all munch on goodies and drink sugary stuff.
What IS important to know is that the excess sugar reacts with cells in the blood and protein and something called 'advanced glycation end products' or A.G.E proteins are produced. These A.G.E. proteins interfere with metabolism because of an increase in toxic substances that can cause damage to the endocrine, immune and nervous system. This not only translates into diseases such as diabetes, it can cause aging. Not only will you look older, but your body will not function as it should and you will feel older. Nobody wants that.
Starches are made of polysaccharides, which are long chains of simple sugars, usually glucose. Other polysaccharides are in fresh vegetables and fruit and from cereal husks and seed coats-and therefore from brown rice, whole oats, beans, seeds and so on. You may know a bit of fiber and know how important it is.
Since we do not have the enzyme necessary to degrade the cellulose in these foods, that cellulose becomes the fiber in your diet.
Are you seeing how important carbohydrates are now?
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates
Starchy vegetables like potatoes, parsnips, corn, peas and broad beans and grains such as whole wheat, rye, oats, barley, rice, millet, and maize are the best source of starch. What about buckwheat? This is interesting-Buckwheat isn't even a grain at all. It is a member of the rhubarb family, and a good source of carbohydrates and starch for people who are gluten-sensitive.
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates
Let's go back to starch and sugar again. Generally speaking, the foods with the sugar release that
glucose pretty quick. Your bloodstream gets somewhat flooded with the sugar (like a flash flood) and your body has to react fast in order to maintain that all important balance. By the way, our body will always strive to maintain balance in spite of what we do to it.
What about the sugar in our blood and starch? When the starches are consumed in the form of vegetables, whole grains and fruits, the food takes a bit longer to digest, and the glucose is released a little at a time and slower.
Does this mean that we can eat all the starch we want? Good try! Although there are benefits to the whole grains and vegetables, too much bread and pasta and too much in relation to protein can cause challenges to your blood sugar regulation. Fructose from the fruit is released slowly, and doesn't cause as much trouble overall.
If you are diabetic, your regulatory system isn't what it should be, and these foods will cause an increase in your blood sugar. The medications you take to help your body maintain a balance with regard to blood sugar may not be able to maintain balance if you bombard your body with large amounts of sugar-no matter what kind of sugar.
Why do we crave those sugars?
Endorphins are a part of the picture here. The sweets make us feel good. If you are interested in learning more
about this, click on the photo.
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates: Food and Feelings. You Have the Power!
Some sugars such as glucose and sucrose seem to give us a boost of energy. If you add a little caffeine to that sugar, such as with a can of soda, you are really jolted. What happens after that boost of energy? Well, let's just say there is a slump-sometimes a big slump. Image how hard your body has to work to maintain a balance.
There are so many chemical reactions going on in your body! Do you want to lighten the load for your body?
Starches offer a more 'slow release' of energy. This is because the sugars in vegetables, legumes, seeds and fruits are more complex and are digested slower. The energy they give you last longer. This slower release helps to avoid those drastic swings in the blood sugar. The more stable your blood sugar, the more energy you have and the less hunger you'll have. So, if you want to lose weight and have optimal natural health, eat plenty of these carbohydrates.
Remember these two guys?
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates
Eat More, Weigh Less!
Dean Ornish published a revolutionary book called "Eat More, Weigh Less." He has a newer one called "The Spectrum" that I like. He not only addresses the kind of foods to eat, but a little bit about why we eat. He has a nice holistic approach and the book has a lot of useful information in it. You can learn more about it by visiting my store. Click on the photo to see this book and others.
All about Antioxidants. You can't live without them!
Holistic Healing with Carbohydrates
There are many recommendations woven into these pages that will help you to have the health your body wants and thereby lower your cholesterol. The goal should be to obtain optimal natural health and management of your body's ailments will follow.
With regard to diet, one big suggestion is to allow about 80% of your carbohydrate intake to be from the slow-release carbohydrate foods like vegetables, beans, seeds, and fresh fruit and the other 20% can be from the more carbohydrate-dense foods such as potatoes, whole grains, bread, pasta and dried fruit.
How should you prepare those veggies?
If you can tolerate raw, whole foods, go for it. Some of our digestive systems don't tolerate raw foods well. It is difficult to digest-especially for the elderly. Try steaming those veggies. When you boil veggies, you lose a lot of the nutrients in the water that gets discarded. This doesn't happen when you steam. Only steam as much as you need to. I like my veggies to be firm-almost raw, but not quite. You can steam as long as you prefer. Frying the veggies is the least desireable. Also, watch out for the microwave. The microwaves work from the inside out and can damage the cells of the foods that you microwave. microwave cooking changed the nutrients so that changes took place in the participants' blood; these were not healthy changes but were changes that could cause deterioration in the human systems. There is a great deal of controversy surrounding this stand. Consider this: the weakening of cell membranes by microwaves is used in the field of gene altering technology.
My helpful holistic medicine recommendation: Avoid using the microwave as much as possible. My husband and I go round and round about this because he even microwaves food in plastic containers. The plastic can be changed and chemicals from it leaked into the food. This can't be good. Avoid it as much as you can. Why work so hard to live a healthy holistic lifestyle and then blast your food in a microwave if you can avoid it?
Choose fresh over frozen vegetables and fresh or frozen over canned. Canned foods are packed in water and usually come with a lot of salt. If you use canned vegetables, rinse them very well before cooking. Heat the canned or frozen veggies in a little water and for only as long as you need to. Overheating will lead to loss of nutrients into the water. You are trying to eat the right things, and you don't want to leave a lot of good stuff in the water to go down the drain.
Learn more about how you can live an Optimal Holistic Lifestyle
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It is not intended to treat, diagnose, cure, or prevent any disease. Always take the advice of your doctor before undertaking any diet, exercise, or other health program. We will not be liable for any complications, or other medical accidents arising from the use of any information on this web site.
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