"What should I eat?"
"Is the food I eat healthy?"
"How should I differentiate between the right carbs and bad carbs?"....... I always have so many questions about the food I eat everyday. Gone are the days where people used to ask to "Get lots of carbohydrates". We now know that the staple of most diets, carbohydrates, aren't all good or all bad. Some kinds promote health while others, when eaten often and in large quantities, actually increase the risk for diabetes and coronary heart disease.
Carbohydrates come from a wide array of foods - bread, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies, spaghetti, corn, pies etc. and they mostly abundant in sugars, fibers, and starches. The digestive system converts most digestible carbohydrates into glucose (blood sugar) with Fiber as an exception - It is put together in such a way that it can't be broken down into sugar molecules.
"Glycemic Index" (GI) is a new system to measure how fast and how far blood sugar rises after you eat a food that contains carbohydrates. High-GI foods get converted to blood sugar almost instantly, while Low-GI foods take a while to digest completely.
Also, High-GI foods have been linked to an increased risk for both diabetes and heart disease. While lower GI foods help to control type 2 diabetes. Want to know more about GI and calculate the amount of GI of your food intake? Here is a searchable database maintained by University of Sidney. Its also important to note that GI does not tell us the relative amount of carbohydrate in a given food.
Addition of good carb foods such as whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole-grain pasta etc, high fiber content foods and all in all maintaining a balanced diet keeps us Fit 'n' Fine..:D..
Click here to celebrate 'October' as Vegetarian Awareness Month...:) and here for the details of the event.
Source: Article on Carbohydrates by Harvard School of Public Health.
Cartoons from: Google Images
"Is the food I eat healthy?"
"How should I differentiate between the right carbs and bad carbs?"....... I always have so many questions about the food I eat everyday. Gone are the days where people used to ask to "Get lots of carbohydrates". We now know that the staple of most diets, carbohydrates, aren't all good or all bad. Some kinds promote health while others, when eaten often and in large quantities, actually increase the risk for diabetes and coronary heart disease.
Carbohydrates come from a wide array of foods - bread, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies, spaghetti, corn, pies etc. and they mostly abundant in sugars, fibers, and starches. The digestive system converts most digestible carbohydrates into glucose (blood sugar) with Fiber as an exception - It is put together in such a way that it can't be broken down into sugar molecules.
"Glycemic Index" (GI) is a new system to measure how fast and how far blood sugar rises after you eat a food that contains carbohydrates. High-GI foods get converted to blood sugar almost instantly, while Low-GI foods take a while to digest completely.
Also, High-GI foods have been linked to an increased risk for both diabetes and heart disease. While lower GI foods help to control type 2 diabetes. Want to know more about GI and calculate the amount of GI of your food intake? Here is a searchable database maintained by University of Sidney. Its also important to note that GI does not tell us the relative amount of carbohydrate in a given food.
Addition of good carb foods such as whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole-grain pasta etc, high fiber content foods and all in all maintaining a balanced diet keeps us Fit 'n' Fine..:D..
Click here to celebrate 'October' as Vegetarian Awareness Month...:) and here for the details of the event.
Source: Article on Carbohydrates by Harvard School of Public Health.
Cartoons from: Google Images
