Are there really no bad carbs?

13

Replies

  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,343 Member
    edited May 2018
    fr33sia12 wrote: »
    AnvilHead wrote: »

    I posted this hypothetical question in another thread and none of the "clean eaters" seemed to want to take it on. I'll repost it here:

    Three people are placed on an island. One gets only unlimited broccoli and carrots. One gets only unlimited beans and peas. One gets only unlimited Big Macs. All three get unlimited water. Who lives the longest?

    Will it be one of the two on those delicious, oh so nutritious, healthy, good for you, all-natural diets, or the one eating that horrible, toxic, disgusting, "nutritionally empty" non-food substance?

    (Remember - we're not talking opinions, woo and fearmongering here. We're talking nutritional facts.)

    You would need to know a lot more information about the people before being able to answer that. Are they all the same size, weight, height? All male or female (they need different nutrition) any underlying medical problems. Then we'd need to know how they behave on the island.

    I'm guessing you're asking this question hoping the "clean eaters" would all say the one eating Big Macs would die first, rather than us realising we're all different so couldn't possibly answer your question and it would probably not be what they're eating that would kill them.

    Those questions are only relevant if we're going to compare their weight gain/loss, body composition, athletic performance, etc. - and yes, they got brought up in the other thread too, in an attempt to muddy up the issue and avoid answering the question. But for the sake of argument, let's assume they have identical living conditions, no pre-existing medical conditions and no allergies/intolerances to the diets they're given.

    We're only talking about which one is going to survive the longest based upon their diet.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    JanetBiard wrote: »
    I did not say anyone has advocated a diet of cake and cookies. What I am saying is that is the logical ridiculous end point of the claims that there are no bad carbs. If there were no bad carbs then the cake and cookie diet would be fine but as you say it is clearly ridiculous.
    And of course I agree that there is nothing wrong with a treat now and then. But advocating a just eat what you want as long as you stay in your calories is not going to help people stay on track.

    I have deliberately made a ridiculous suggestion about just eating cakes and cookies to highlight why “there are no bad carbs “ is a ridiculous position to take and unhelpful to the people who ask about this.

    Making suggestions to reduce refined highly processed carbs would be helpful to people. But time after time I see people who ask about carbs getting the answer “there are no bad carbs” and anyone who suggests otherwise gets a load of woos added as a response. It is not supportive of the people who are asking for help or the people who are trying to make helpful suggestions.

    well I have eaten what I wanted of course in moderation and I have stayed on track for the most part. im almost 5 years into my journey and have taken diet breaks often. I however couldnt stay on track when I had to cut out the so called bad carbs and tried to eat nothing but "good carbs" There are days that I overdo the "bad" carbs but I get right back on track the next day. so for me there are no good and bad carbs. just carbs.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    JanetBiard wrote: »
    Thank you to those of you who have made thoughtful contributions above, I appreciate this.

    I don’t have any particular “brand of woo”, I wanted to understand why any suggestion that there might be bad carbs, that it might be helpful to stop eating, gets such a negative response on this community. It seems strange to me, as the calorie dense, nutritionally poor, highly processed foods we are surrounded with seems to me to be a contributory factor in weight gain.

    Oh well, I will stick to my journey and you will stick to yours.

    my weight gain came from overeating too many fruits and veggies. I can put away a lot of fruit in a day if calories werent an issue. that was the time I cut out what you may call bad carbs.I also put on weight because I was less active as well.
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    edited May 2018
    I met a bad carb once. He was going to take my lunch money, so I pounded him! On a serious note, i think carbs get a bad rap. They are easy to over eat on when combined with liberal amounts of fat. Though, try eating 1000 calories worth of boiled sweet potato or quinoa. It's really hard. 1000 calories of fat and carbs like m&m' s deliciously easy.
  • melissa6771
    melissa6771 Posts: 894 Member
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    osd6ar2882fr.jpg

    I've got to steal this!
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    edited May 2018
    I also wonder if people know that excess fat gets stored via asp? Protein can cause a massive insulin response as well. One of the reasons a protein shake, especial a clean one like whey, is taken after a heavy weight lifting session. Insulin will push protein into the muscles to help restore it after break down. I also remember a study that showed whey protein for type 2 dm patients showed an increase in insulin production.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,287 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    amyepdx wrote: »
    jayemes wrote: »
    JanetBiard wrote: »
    Eating highly processed carbs with no fibre, lots of added sugars and god knows what chemicals are simply not a help if you are trying to lose weight.
    You just need better cake :wink:

    I can’t think of a chemical I’ve ever put in a came either.

    You know, it's interesting but true that these kinds of posts seem to assume that everyone eats tons of packaged cakes or some such (although read the label if you want to know). If I have cake (which isn't that often because I don't enjoy making it and pie is better anyways), it will be homemade (not by me, normally) or from a bakery that uses stuff like eggs, butter, sugar, flour. I mean, like everything else those are made up of chemicals, but I suspect that's not what OP meant.

    I think part of this is the desire to believe that it's these mysterious chemicals that made you fat and not simply overeating (which some people hate admitting to).

    85a051ae592b4fb54afb2e93ada4cb4c.jpg

    Why fight? She's ceding you the cake!

    ;););)
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,099 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    amyepdx wrote: »
    jayemes wrote: »
    JanetBiard wrote: »
    Eating highly processed carbs with no fibre, lots of added sugars and god knows what chemicals are simply not a help if you are trying to lose weight.
    You just need better cake :wink:

    I can’t think of a chemical I’ve ever put in a came either.

    You know, it's interesting but true that these kinds of posts seem to assume that everyone eats tons of packaged cakes or some such (although read the label if you want to know). If I have cake (which isn't that often because I don't enjoy making it and pie is better anyways), it will be homemade (not by me, normally) or from a bakery that uses stuff like eggs, butter, sugar, flour. I mean, like everything else those are made up of chemicals, but I suspect that's not what OP meant.

    I think part of this is the desire to believe that it's these mysterious chemicals that made you fat and not simply overeating (which some people hate admitting to).

    85a051ae592b4fb54afb2e93ada4cb4c.jpg

    Why fight? She's ceding you the cake!

    ;););)

    Splitting hares or there is more than one way to skin a cat? Lol
  • TheDevastator
    TheDevastator Posts: 1,626 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    I'd say there are bad foods because it's almost impossible just getting all the micro-nutrients with the top foods and supplements in each micro-nutrient category let alone nutrient poor foods or foods high in omega 6s that will throw your omega 6s to omega 3s ratio out of balance.

    Can anyone parse this sentence?

    Or tell me what a ‘top food’ is?

    Or how the human race has survived if micro-nutrients are so darn impossible to get?
    Sorry that was a run-on sentence. I've been up all night. I was testing how long you could hold your breath.
    Top foods as in each micro-nutrient.
    The human race can survive without 100% of their daily amounts of micro-nutrients. They just don't have optimal health or can get diseases if going without a certain one for too long. I also didn't say they were impossible to get. Getting all of them in a day is impossible without supplementation or even a week can be hard.

    Not on topic for this thread, really, but: It's worse than that. I'd lay money that there are beneficial (perhaps even essential) nutrients that science hasn't discovered yet. (It's discovered bunches of them during my 62-year lifespan.) You can't track them, you can't knowingly supplement them, but you'll be healthier if you eat them. They've been in food all along.
    Yeah but what foods are going to have these undiscovered nutrients? Fruits, veggies, meats, nuts and seeds or cakes, cookies, twinkies, snickers, doritos, and soda?
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,287 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    I'd say there are bad foods because it's almost impossible just getting all the micro-nutrients with the top foods and supplements in each micro-nutrient category let alone nutrient poor foods or foods high in omega 6s that will throw your omega 6s to omega 3s ratio out of balance.

    Can anyone parse this sentence?

    Or tell me what a ‘top food’ is?

    Or how the human race has survived if micro-nutrients are so darn impossible to get?
    Sorry that was a run-on sentence. I've been up all night. I was testing how long you could hold your breath.
    Top foods as in each micro-nutrient.
    The human race can survive without 100% of their daily amounts of micro-nutrients. They just don't have optimal health or can get diseases if going without a certain one for too long. I also didn't say they were impossible to get. Getting all of them in a day is impossible without supplementation or even a week can be hard.

    Not on topic for this thread, really, but: It's worse than that. I'd lay money that there are beneficial (perhaps even essential) nutrients that science hasn't discovered yet. (It's discovered bunches of them during my 62-year lifespan.) You can't track them, you can't knowingly supplement them, but you'll be healthier if you eat them. They've been in food all along.
    Yeah but what foods are going to have these undiscovered nutrients? Fruits, veggies, meats, nuts and seeds or cakes, cookies, twinkies, snickers, doritos, and soda?

    That's what makes it worse. ;) I'd go with foods humans have been eating for millennia, myself, as being evolution-tested, but who knows. Very unlikely to be in supplements, though, since those are typically processed to minimize optional ingredients. ;)
  • TheDevastator
    TheDevastator Posts: 1,626 Member
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    These ridiculous arguments always begin with the false premise that you can only eat 100% "clean", or exist entirely upon calorically-dense, low-nutrition foods. Completely ignoring any possibility that there could be a middle ground where one applies a little common sense and eats a reasonably balanced, nutritious diet with room for treats.

    https://bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/excluding-the-middle.html/

    To quote Eric Helms, "Once our nutritional needs are met, we don't get extra credit for consuming more nutritious food".
    When do I know that my nutritional needs are met, is it when following my government's guidelines? Isn't the nutritional needs more on a individual basis where certain people need more of a single nutrient than others?
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