The Truth About Carbohydrates - YLAM250034

SPEAKER 1 This program presents ways to optimise health and well being. When considering lifestyle changes, please consult with your healthcare provider to assure they are suitable for you. Hello and welcome. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Carbohydrates are a hotly debated subject in the nutrition world today. Are they good for you or bad for you? What about fattening? Should I go low carb or. Or no carb? Do carbs cause chronic disease? Amid so many questions and conflicting answers, today we'll dive into this topic to discover the truth about carbohydrates. So stay tuned. This is yous Lifestyle as Medicine, a production of 3 ABN Australia Television. It's wonderful to have you with us on this program where we explore ways that you can shape your lifestyle as medicine. We're delighted to have Selina Reyno to lead us in exploring the truth about carbohydrates. Selena is a Dietitian with over 14 years experience working as a clinical dietitian in Loma Linda University Hospital. She has worked with both adults and children and and is passionate about wellness nutrition. Welcome to the program, Selina. SPEAKER 2 Thank you, Kaysie. Thanks for having me. SPEAKER 1 It's a pleasure. We're so excited that you've been able to join us and I'm curious for you to tell us a little bit about your background, where you're from originally and what got you interested in nutrition. SPEAKER 2 Well, my background heritage is Chinese Malaysian, but I was born and raised in Australia. I initially started as a dietitian here in Australia in Melbourne and then I went to America to do my master's degree in nutrition and get my licensing as a clinical dietitian there. And I just really enjoyed working in the hospital and seeing different aspects of nutrition and how we can use it. But my greatest desire is in wellness nutrition. So I have really enjoyed giving counsel and helping people with just sharing plant based diets with them and showing them that that kind of lifestyle can prevent a lot of diseases. SPEAKER 1 So this is wellness nutrition as in what people can have to optimize their health in everyday life and help prevent disease. Is that kind of what we're talking about? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, yeah, definitely. Just teaching people how to eat and just changing their lifestyle and how they eat can really impact and change how they feel about themselves and really prevent diseases that we actually can just get from eating certain foods. SPEAKER 1 I really like that because it's empowering to know that there's things we can do in our everyday life that can really make a difference in this space. And of course that's what this whole series is about the things you can do to better your lifestyle so that it can be medicine. And I'm curious also tell us a little bit about your family. SPEAKER 2 Well, I have four children. My husband is a pastor and I homeschool my four children and they've homeschooled all our lives, mainly because we move so much due to my husband's work. And we started homeschooling in America and just have continued it here in Australia. SPEAKER 1 So you're got a busy life as a mum and no doubt giving them a good foundation with nutrition and healthy lifestyle. SPEAKER 2 Yeah, definitely. I think every child needs to learn how to take care of their own bodies. And I think it's very important that we educate the young generation. SPEAKER 1 Absolutely. Yeah. Most for sure. Okay, so let's get across to the topic about carbohydrates. Tell us just right back to the basics, what are carbohydrates? SPEAKER 2 Well, I think a lot of people, when they think of carbohydrates, they've got this misconception of I can't eat bread, I cannot eat pasta and eat rice. And then this notion of to lose weight, I have to stop eating carbs. And then we see out there in the public where the ketogenic diet is being promoted, high fat diet, and then we've got the high protein diet. And but what people don't understand is that bread, pasta, rice, that's not the problem. The problem of carbohydrates is how much we eat and the choices of carbohydrates that we eat. I think a lot of people don't realize that carbohydrates comes in different kinds. There's not just one kind of carbohydrate. And choosing the wrong kind can actually be what's detrimental to our health and which is what the problem is that we face. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, so it seems that carbohydrates in general have gotten a bad rap, but there's a mix in there. There are some bad ones, but there's some that we really should be eating because they're really good for us. SPEAKER 2 Yeah, definitely. And I think that's why today I would like to share more about the different kinds of carbohydrates there are and just give a more hopefully simplified scientific version of understanding to the general public of when you choose your carbohydrates, There are good ones and there are bad ones, ones we can stay away from or limit, and ones that we can actually focus on to improve our health but also not be afraid to eat them. SPEAKER 1 Yes, I think that's really important. Yeah. All right, so tell us then, what. What are some different types of carbohydrates? SPEAKER 2 So I'd like to just focus in on the two types of carbohydrates. So just looking up at the slide that I have, you can see there the scientific name for carbohydrates. If you really want to simplify it, it's just a sugar, or we say starch. And there's two types. There's the monosaccharides and the polysaccharides. And under the monosaccharides, the basic sugar is what comes to mind when you think of mono. It's just the simplest form of sugar, table sugar, honey, molasses, fruits, sugar that we can find that is basically the sweetest form is a monosaccharide. Complex carbohydrate is what we can find in starchy, like beans, nuts, seeds. And then that's the same as we look into fiber. Fiber is what is attached together with the polysaccharides. And not as necessarily you will think that it has any sweet complex in it, but it's a complex carbohydrate nonetheless, which is built up of sugars that are combined together. So you can say carbs come in two main forms, simple and complex. SPEAKER 1 That's very nice. Clear background, like, breakdown of those different areas. And I think that probably people forget that fiber slips in there as well as one of those complex carbohydrates. So that's very interesting. SPEAKER 2 And just to further break down what a simple carbohydrate is, simple carbohydrates are, you know, not necessarily bad for you, because simple carbohydrates, if it is combined with a complex carbohydrate, does not affect your blood sugar so much. But the problem is simple carbohydrates, when we process it, like white bread, white rice, white flour, it's when it's gone through a processing system where the complex carbohydrate is removed from it. We are left with just the sugar part of it. That is what causes quick digestion and a quick burst of energy. And then your blood sugar starts to spike very high. And that's where we get what we call a sugar high. And most of that is found in a lot of drinks and a lot of sweets like candy or refined sugars like pasta or white rice and things like that. We don't often really realize. But all of that is just pure sugar, and that's a simple carbohydrate. SPEAKER 1 Mm. Right. So in your things like the pasta, and especially the ones that aren't wholemeal pasta and the white rice and that kind of thing. They've taken out the fiber for a start. So that's one lot of complex starch or complex carbohydrate gone. And then it's broken down a little bit as well, so it makes it quick to digest. Is that. That's kind of what we're talking about there? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, that's right. And that's where we look at the complex carbohydrates. The complex carbohydrates are basically just long chains of sugar molecules attached to each other. And if you look at the screen, you can see at the top there, a sugar is basically comprised of just oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. And the sweetness depends on where that hydrogen and oxygen atom is placed within that molecule. So with the simple sugars, you've got fructose, which is a sugar found in fruits, or you've got galactose, where it's found in, like, other, like, glucose molecules, you've got maltose, which is found in molasses, you've got lactose, found in milk sugar. So these are all simple sugars that comes. And it's not necessarily bad for you. But because it's been processed so much, it is detrimental to our body because our body absorbs it so quickly. And with the complex carbohydrate, which is the complex carbs at the bottom, when we eat the complex carbohydrates, our body takes longer to digest it, which slows down the peak of our sugar intake at one time. And also when we are taking a complex carbohydrate, like a brown rice, where the fiber has not been removed from it, or like a bean or starchy vegetable, or even fruits and vegetables with their skins left on, we find that our body takes longer to digest it and our sugars stay more stable. And it doesn't give us that high peak in sugar and that sugar rush, because what happens is when we have that sugar rush of simple carbohydrates, we tend to crash right afterwards. And then we feel more sluggish and we feel very tired, and then we feel like we need to eat more sugar to keep that sugar going, to keep us going with that energy. SPEAKER 1 Interesting. So what. What I'm hearing you describe here is that with the carbohydrates, if the more that you have to, the more that you let your body do the breaking down of those molecules into smaller parts, rather than biomechanical or other machinery kind of processing before it gets into your body the better. Like if we let the body do its work, pulling out the fiber, pulling apart the molecules, digesting it that way, it's going to have a better effect on us than if we do that ahead of time and then drink the sugar or eat the candy or the refined products, that's going to behave differently in our body. SPEAKER 2 Yeah, that's right. And I. If you eat a whole food, like say for example, you eat an apple with the skin on, it's got the complex complexity of the fiber. SPEAKER 1 Yes. SPEAKER 2 And the carbohydrate plus inside, you've got that sweetness, which is the simple carbohydrate. And together, when they work together, the complex carbohydrate holds down the absorption of the simple sugars. And it takes longer for your body to break down that complex carbohydrate and to release that sugar, the simple sugar. And therefore your blood sugars don't just shoot up compared to if you're eating white rice by itself, taking out that fiber. SPEAKER 1 Yes, yes, very interesting. So if you like, obviously in the. You gave the examples of the whole food form, say like a piece of fruit or something, you've got the sweetness in there, the sugar molecules are in there, but you've also got the starches and complex carbohydrates around it. If you also like, if you had a meal and you had a blend of more complex carbohydrates, but you had in that meal a little bit of refined carbohydrates as well, would that behave differently with your blood sugar than if you just had like a whole meal of refined carbohydrates? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, definitely. I think if you. That comes down to processing of foods. You know, if you're eating brown rice with lots of fruits and vegetables and that will keep you fuller, but not just that you can't eat as much because when you eat processed foods, you can just eat that because it tastes good and you chewed, you don't need to chew as much. And once it gets into your tummy, your stomach, like what you says, through processing, the fiber has been taken out. So when it gets to your stomach, your stomach doesn't have to do as much to digest that food. And therefore, within one or two hours, you're hungry again because your stomach has just absorbed it, lightning speed. And unfortunately, when we eat so much, this is the culprit. When we eat so much of carbohydrates, your liver cannot handle such high amounts of sugar at one time, and it brings it actually into your liver and converts it into fat and then stores it as fat. And that's what a lot of people don't realize, is that when you eat high amounts of carbohydrates, that's processed and your body cannot process it as quick as you eat it, that's what happens. Your liver will take it and convert it straight into fat. And that's where we experience the weight gain. And that's why as dietitians we always say it's not the carbohydrate, it's the type of carbohydrate that we're actually eating that's causing the weight gain, which is too much processed and too much of the simple sugars and not enough of the complex carbohydrates. SPEAKER 1 That's really important to understand, I think, because as you say, that's part of the reason why carbohydrates got a bad rap, because people say it's fattening, it does all of these things. But as you say, it's is because we're eating the refined stuff, which is mean we're getting concentration of sugar. It's less work for the body. And so it's like, oh, what do I do with this? Let's just store it. That's how the body reacts to it. And so that's how we. Yeah, we fall into that. SPEAKER 2 Yeah. And I think if you look at the slide number, the third slide, you can see very easily that on the left it's just sugar, which is your simple carbohydrate. And on the right hand side it's a whole grain. And just imagine you eating that sugar that would just melt straight into your mouth and go straight into your bloodstream without really needing you to even chew. And if you look at the whole grain, for anyone to digest that, it would take vast amounts of chewing and a lot of saliva, a lot of time in your stomach for it to break down. And that's where you will see that that's where the slow of the blood sugar speaking is really important for the digestion of these carbohydrates that we choose to put into our body. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, and I think you kind of indicated before that when you have those more whole forms of carbohydrate, it actually takes longer for your body to break it down, which means you're going to feel satisfied for longer too. Is that right? SPEAKER 2 Yeah, definitely. So it's just like. And the higher calories as well. So for example, if you ate a whole apple, you would naturally get full on one apple. Not many people can eat more than one apple in one sitting. Whereas when you juice it to get a cup of apple juice, you'd have to juice at least two apples or three to get a nice solid cup of juice. But you don't realize that how much simple sugar has gone into there. You're basically eating three apples. And the amount of sugar that you've basically drawn out, and you've thrown out the good parts, you've thrown out all the fiber, you've thrown out the skin and all of the good stuff, and you've just basically taken the juice and the sugar of that fruit and you drank it, which is why it's a highly simple sugar through processing. And it's the same thing if we made an apple pie. You know, in an apple pie, you could eat. Once you cook down an apple, that probably. To make one pie, you'd probably need six or seven apples. And to eat that amount, you add sugar to it. You've taken off the peel. So it's highly processed. That's why once it's cooked and once it's, the alteration of that food product in its original form is taken away. That's why we say, call it processed. And then it's been made into a simple sugar. And our body does not need to work hard to digest that. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, very good illustrations, I think, especially the one about the apple juice. I think if we. If we got given a glass with only a third full of juice, we'd feel pretty sure cheated. It's like, what is this? I want one more. But you make the point so well. Like, if we tried to eat three apples in one sitting. Well, if that's all you ate, you could probably do it. But it's not usually what we do, is it? It's amazing how much the fiber really helps to bulk out the meal, doesn't it? Like it. It does a huge amount. SPEAKER 2 Yeah. I think the fiber is what is the main carbohydrate here, which we call the complex carbohydrate. And that's the part where a lot of people don't enjoy eating it. You know, it's rougher. Like when you eat brown rice versus white rice or white bread versus wholemeal bread. People like that texture or the taste of the white bread or the white rice because it's more palatable. You don't have to chew as much. It tastes better in your mouth. And that's where the complication comes in, because people will tell me, like, well, I don't like to eat that. And unfortunately, we have to get used to exerting a little more effort into chewing foods that we don't like, you know, like, you know, with fibrous vegetables, we like to, to look for, for foods that are softer, we rather eat a cucumber versus say something beans or, you know, a starchy like celery, mainly because of the texture and it just feels different in our mouth. But what God has made for us, the fresh fruits and vegetables and beans, nuts and seeds, is for our health. And that carbohydrate, that fiber part, is what was included in there to maintain our blood sugar and our health overall. SPEAKER 1 Now, you mentioned earlier a little bit about how the blood sugar can spike and then drop. And then we can feel, I think, cravings or something at that point. We feel like we need to top that up really quickly. Tell us a little bit more about that. SPEAKER 2 Yeah, looking up on the screen, you can see I've got a little chart. Hopefully that will explain more. You can see in that red line, if you're eating, say for example, a glass of apple juice, the amount of sugar in there your body absorbs right away immediately into your bloodstream. And it goes right up high. You can see on your left, your blood glucose level just goes up really high. And for people who are used to having a sugar high or liking that, eating high amounts of sugar, your body accepts that very easily and you feel good, you feel energetic and you're ready to go. But what happens is after maybe an hour or so, your body will release insulin, which comes from your pancreas. That's a hormone that is detects, whether when you've got a lot of sugar in your blood, the insulin will start going out and it goes on alert, telling your body, you've got lots of sugar. You got to get rid of that. Because your body doesn't like high amounts of sugar in your blood because that can cause other issues like infections and cause your liver to overwork. So your insulin works as quick as it can to try and get rid of that sugar and brings it straight to your liver. And then that's when your, your body experiences a big crash right down. And it doesn't just go back to baseline, it goes actually lower because your pancreas has released so much insulin that it brings you below your blood sugar level. And then you start to have maybe the shakes or you start to feel very tired. And then that's when you feel, oh, I'm hungry, I need to eat something else to put that sugar back up. And that's why in our diets today, we not only have three meals a day, we sometimes have six. Three meals plus three snacks to try to maintain that crash. But what we don't realize is what we need to do is eliminate that simple sugar and take in that carbohydrate. And you'll see in that chart there's a green line or a yellow line that shows normal sugar rise. If you're on a complex carbohydrate, it's, it goes up and then it comes back down to baseline over time. And if you're on a complex carbohydrate where you're not having a high fiber diet, you won't feel that super high nor that super low crash when you're on the high sugar diet. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, that's amazing because yeah, in that graph, the drop on when you're having just a normal glucose response, there's almost nothing, like there's almost no dip there. It just basically is coming back to a stable state, isn't it? So those symptoms you described before, feeling shaky, feeling I got to get something in. Like you're not going to have any of that at that point, are you? It's just going to feel, oh, I'm, I feel normal. Like if you feel comfortable. SPEAKER 2 Yes. And I think that's where it's important because you don't feel like you have to eat something right away to be able to maintain that sugar crash. And therefore you won't be overdoing the amount of carbs that's recommended for you. And then you don't need to have a snack in between your meals and you'll be able to last from breakfast to lunch to dinner and that helps with maintaining weight. SPEAKER 1 Yeah, that's really incredible because what this is telling me is that the way all of those nutrients are packaged in those, the foods where you've got the fiber, the whole complex carbs all in there, it's almost like it's helping you have better control of your diet, of your calorie intake, if you will, by eating that form. Because it's balancing things out, you're not getting those ups and downs, you're feeling satisfied. So you're not going to be as vulnerable to overeating or having in taking in more than you need. It's like nature is helping us in having better control. SPEAKER 2 Yeah, definitely. And I think that's where we go wrong when we say or we promote low fiber diets. And I think it's really important that, to understand that the low fiber, low carbohydrate diet actually reduces your thinking about reducing the amount of sugar. I mean, the amount of vegetables and fruits and grains. And those, if you eat it in its whole form, is where all our vitamins and all of our minerals come from. And so when we do these low carb diets where we're only focused on protein or high fat diets, it works short term, but long term it's not sustainable because we're not getting the vitamins and the minerals that our body needs from these carbohydrates. That's why it's so important never to do low carb diets, but just do high complex carbohydrates and eliminate the simple carbohydrates and eliminate the processing of foods in your diet. SPEAKER 1 Hmm. That's very powerful to have that understanding and I think that is very helpful. I've also heard that the carbohydrates are your brain's preferred fuel source. Is that correct? SPEAKER 2 Definitely. Our brain functions only on carbohydrates. People who go on these high protein and high fat diets, always fatigued, have brain fog, mood swings, low motivation, and along with that, you get other issues like high cholesterol and kidney issues from the amount of protein that's put onto your kidneys through these diets. SPEAKER 1 Wow. So the whole foods sound to be the best ones that have all of those beautiful carbohydrates and nutrients packed in that are unrefined. That seems to be the best thing for our bodies to enjoy. Thank you so much. Thank you, Selina for sharing those insights. I think they've been very helpful and very practical too to give that understanding for. Yeah, that's a big confusing question of carbohydrates. Thank you for joining us. SPEAKER 2 No worries. Thank you. SPEAKER 1 We've been talking with dietitian Selina Reyno on the truth about carbohydrates. I trust that our discussion has cleared up some of the confusion about carbohydrates and shown the value of unprocessed carbs such as found in whole plant foods, which are actually really good for us. If you have questions or comments about this program or if there's a topic you would like us to discuss, contact us on [email protected] and remember to shape your lifestyle as medicine. SPEAKER A You've been listening to Your Lifestyle as Medicine, a production of 3ABN Australia television.