When people want to talk with me about the blog, these are the kinds of questions they usually ask: “I went to your website and saw a lot of interesting posts, but where should I start? What is the first thing I need to understand?”

First, there is a huge difference between real food and manufactured calories. Second, manufactured calories are a major factor in the epidemic of obesity and diabetes, as well as the rising rates of many other diseases, such as breast cancer, colon cancer, and prostate cancer.

Let’s take a field trip, out the back door, and into a field of growing wheat. Pick a single grain, and take a good look, and what do you see? Each grain contains a bran fiber coat; an endosperm (primarily starch); and a germ, which is rich in nourishing oils. Approximately 200 years ago, humans figured out how to strip away the coat and germ, so that only the pellet of white starch remained. Manufacturers call this “white flour.”

If you could look at a bit of white starch under a microscope, you would see a long chain of sugar molecules. We break the links between those sugar molecules so efficiently that eating white flour causes your blood sugar to rise as quickly — if not more so — as when you eat a spoonful of sugar. White flour and sugar both cause blood sugars to spike.

Manufacturers chose to call white flour and sugar refined carbohydrates. But to refine is to remove coarse impurities. The term refined was selected specifically to suggest that whole-grain flour was coarse, or unrefined. In nature, carbohydrates are almost always found in a fiber matrix. Consider dates and beets, both of which are used by industry as raw materials for the manufacture of sugar. In their original state, they are so rich in fiber and phytonutrients that they are classified as superfoods. With only rare exceptions (e.g., honey, maple syrup), refined carbohydrates are not found in nature. 

After you eat, your gut breaks down food into sugar, which then gets absorbed into your bloodstream. White flour and sugar are broken down easily; they are rapidly absorbed, and they spike your blood sugars. Foods like produce (fruits and vegetables), nuts, whole grains, beans, eggs, and meats are absorbed slowly enough that blood sugars remain more or less stable.

Once food enters your bloodstream, your pancreas releases insulin to catch the incoming sugar and escort it to the cells of your body. The more quickly you absorb sugar, the more insulin you need. The more slowly you absorb the sugar, the less insulin you need. It works like a valet service. Imagine you were invited to a huge party. At exactly 7 p.m., one thousand cars show up at the party center. They’re going to need a lot of valet staff to park those cars.

But consider an alternate scenario. Imagine you receive an invitation to an open house for 3-9 p.m. At the end of the day, the party center will still park 1000 cars. But they won’t need nearly as many valet staff.

The sugar is the cars, and the insulin is the valet staff. If your sugar shows up all at once, you will need a lot of insulin. But if the sugar gets absorbed bit by bit, you won’t need nearly as much insulin. Insulin is a fat-storage hormone. The more you use, the more you need. This is called insulin resistance. The higher your insulin levels, the more fat you store in your belly. Insulin has many other deleterious effects on the body, and they begin decades earlier than we once thought.

Which nutrients are absorbed slowly? Fiber, protein, and fat. Foods like bulgur wheat, brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa, millet — all whole grains. Dates, beets, avocados, peanuts and tree nuts, seeds, eggs, beans, fruits, vegetables. All of these are absorbed slowly. Which items are absorbed quickly? Stripped carbs, like cake, sugar, breakfast cereals, doughnuts, bagels, cookies. 

Please feel free to post questions.