Today’s post is a guide to how much stripped carbohydrate is okay to eat. For purposes of today’s post, stripped carbohydrate means white flour and sugar.

This post is not a discussion about whether it’s okay to eat carbohydrate at all. There are people who feel that carbohydrate has no place in their diets, and who manage on a very-low-carbohydrate diet. Sometimes I receive comments from readers who eat this way. Perhaps someday we will discover that this group of people carries a combination of genes that markedly reduces their ability to tolerate even a modest amount of carbohydrate. No judgments here. Personally, I am glad that they have figured out how best to take care of themselves. This post is not for them. Instead, this post is for the vast majority of people who nourish themselves well with whole grains, fruit, and beans, among other foodstuffs.

If you think about it, you will notice that — except for perhaps honey and maple syrup —  there is no such thing, in nature, as carbohydrate without fiber. Where do white flour and sugar come from? They result from the stripping of fiber from whole grain wheat and sugar cane, respectively. Human beings figured out how to do this only in the past few hundred years. We did not evolve to eat stripped carbs, and most certainly not in the amounts at which we currently consume them. But consume them we do, at rates that are driving rates of diabetes and obesity sky high. 

Many people have asked me, over the years, how much stripped carbohydrate is safe to eat. In my opinion, not a lot, though I am not going to say zero. At the end of the day, I think it comes down to three factors: 1) your genes, which are also affected by your environment; 2) the amount of uncontrolled stress you are juggling; and 3) the level of activity you engage in regularly. 

Stress can be physical, emotional, or spiritual. It can be internal (anxiety, bereavement, fever) or external (blizzard, traffic, winning the lottery). Sometimes it’s both (newborn twins). It can be the result of circumstance (a safe falls on your head) or questionable decision-making (skipping breakfast). It can be due to conflict, real or imagined. Agents of stress can be small, like a virus, or large, like an asteroid. Pain and fatigue are common and serious causes of stress. 

Nutritious food is one way to decrease the amount of stress in your life. Stripped carb does the opposite. Instead of serving as a source of nutrition, it directly stresses your metabolism. 

If you’re looking for a number, I’m going to give you one right now. You can have two servings of stripped carbohydrate. In how much time, you ask? Well, that depends. Maybe it’s two servings per day, per week, or per month. If you are active and your blood pressure is perfect, your metabolism might tolerate as much as two servings a day of white flour or sugar. Not two cans of soda, but two ounces. A can of soda with 12 teaspoons of sugar is not one serving. It is 12 servings. Two servings is one-sixth of a can. 

If, on the other hand, you are markedly overweight, with two diabetic family members, under a crushing amount of stress, and getting little or no exercise, I suspect that your metabolism is having trouble tolerating even two servings of white flour and sugar. Maybe twice a month would be better. In other words, save it for special occasions.

For comparison’s sake, the average American eats 10-12 servings or more of stripped carbohydrates every day. Be honest with yourself. If that describes you, don’t try to make big changes all at once. Instead, try reducing your stripped carb intake just a little bit. In another couple months, when you’re ready, you can try reducing it a little bit more. Small changes.

White flour and sugar don’t nourish you at all. They’re just for fun. 

Frankly, it rankles me when people use the term “healthy fats.”  We don’t make a distinction like that when we’re talking about carbohydrates, although there are certainly carbs that are nutritious and carbs that are not.   

Consider the Atkins diet.  I like to believe that Dr. Atkins was on the right track, but that he had some of the details wrong.  Clearly, he realized that there was something about carbohydrate in the American diet that was causing a problem.  But he did not understand that there is a big difference between muffins and mangoes, white flour and lentils, table sugar and peaches.  So people who tried the Atkins diet lost lots of weight when they removed virtually ALL the carb from their diets, even green beans, and then regained it when they got tired of the restriction and began to eat breakfast cereal again.  Along with doughnuts, pasta, bread, cookies, cake, and potato chips.  

Dr Atkins also did not understand that there is a big difference between a slice of salmon and a scoop of Crisco.  To him, all fats were the same and they all were good.  We know now that that is not true.

We are still sorting out the differences among the three main families of fats: saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated.  We know for sure that omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids are very good for us, and that the standard American diet is extremely deficient in them.  We know that we can increase our consumption of omega-3s by eating more fish, walnuts, flax seed, and green, leafy vegetables.  

We have seen the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, in which olive oil (a monounsaturated fat) is the main fat used for cooking, and from this we understand that olive oil, too, is good for us.  Conversely, we know that trans fats (partially hydrogenated polyunsaturated fats) damage blood vessels, causing heart attacks and strokes.  We know they also increase the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.  So trans fats are definitely NOT good.

But there is still a great deal to figure out.  We know, for example, that cocoa butter is one of the most highly saturated fats on the planet.  But….isn’t dark chocolate supposed to be good?  And aren’t saturated fats supposed to be bad?  So what does this tell me?  That we still have a lot to learn.  

Want another curious example?  Most animal fats are actually a mixture of a variety of monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and saturated fats.  Which animal fat contains the most monounsaturated fat, similar to olive oil?  Lard.  Yes, believe it or not, that is true.  So what is most clear to me at this point is that we still, indeed, have a lot to learn.

At the same time, there are some things that I do understand.  The fact is that there are good examples of nutritious foods from each of the three main nutrient groups (fats, carbohydrates, and protein).  If I’m going to make a recommendation that you try one, or if I use one in a recipe or an explanation, I don’t think I need to qualify it with the word “healthy.”   Fat IS healthy.  Protein IS healthy.  Carbohydrates are healthy, too, as long as you get most of them the way our ancestors did, from the garden, with the fiber still intact.  Think fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains.  These are carbohydrates, through and through.  When I include one in a recipe, I don’t need to say “healthy” apples.  You can assume that I am referring to apples without worms or pesticides. 

When I talk about fats and oils, you can assume the same.