Should People Eat Complex Carbs

[ginkgo]

Recently I have seen a couple of people post that people should be eating complex cabs instead of simple carbs. Now I know that it is better to eat foods with low glycemic indexes or (more up to date) low glycemic loads. But what about that old nonsense with complex carbs? Here is an article on a blog that explains that complex carbs are never eaten. It explains why people imagine that they eat them but do not eat them. Please note that the term refers to 2 different things (2 meanings). A food and somethng in a food.
The Myth of Eating Complex Carbs - RoseGoddessBliss.com

[Lisa McGregor]

No.

[Nameless One]

Would it be more accurate to talk in terms of monosaccharides, disaccharides, and polysaccharides?

Supposedly a cooked potato has a higher glycemic index than a lot of sweet fruits. I was under the impression that a cooked potato still consisted mostly of polysaccharides, but smaller ones which would be readily broken down into usable monosaccharides. So it would seem that despite the potato having polysaccharides, according to the GI charts I see everywhere on the web, it will still put sugar through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream faster than a wide variety of sweet fruits. I wonder why this is, when the fruits carbohydrates consist of monosaccharides which don't need to be broken down.

[joelr]

I second the NO.

anyone can try this simple experiment.

1 day skip all 3 meals so your body is sensitive to insulin response and any changes in blood chemistry.
At night sit down, become aware of your body and eat a handful of smarties.

Another day try the same thing but with a spoonful of brown rice.

You can try again with plain oatmeal vs skittles.

Then you will have no doubt of the different internal reactions complex and simple crabs provide.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by joelr

I second the NO.

anyone can try this simple experiment.

1 day skip all 3 meals so your body is sensitive to insulin response and any changes in blood chemistry.
At night sit down, become aware of your body and eat a handful of smarties.

Another day try the same thing but with a spoonful of brown rice.

You can try again with plain oatmeal vs skittles.

Then you will have no doubt of the different internal reactions complex and simple crabs provide.

It is easy to choose examples to prove any point. For example since Adolf Hitler is white and President Obama is black that proves that all whites are psychotic killers and all blacks are very smart and successful. White rice is a complex carb and apples are a simple carb.

If you read the article you will understand that oatmeal and brown rice are complex carbs but you do not eat them. The brown rice and oatmeal that you eat are simple carbs! Is a banana a simple carb or a complex carb? The answer is, it depends. Depends on what?

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Nameless One

Would it be more accurate to talk in terms of monosaccharides, disaccharides, and polysaccharides?

Supposedly a cooked potato has a higher glycemic index than a lot of sweet fruits. I was under the impression that a cooked potato still consisted mostly of polysaccharides, but smaller ones which would be readily broken down into usable monosaccharides. So it would seem that despite the potato having polysaccharides, according to the GI charts I see everywhere on the web, it will still put sugar through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream faster than a wide variety of sweet fruits. I wonder why this is, when the fruits carbohydrates consist of monosaccharides which don't need to be broken down.

This is what people used to think but it was wrong. It is like saying that since heat rises it should be hotter at the top of Mt Everest than at the bottom. But that is wrong. Fruit conatins fruit sugar or fructose. Fructose is a monosaccharide. But it enters the blood very slowly. Some would say that it is due to the fiber in the fruit. But pure fructose enters the blood slowly. The chemistry is more complex than just breaking something down.

Just like it is more complex than heat rising and the temperature at the top of Mt Everest. Also death valley is much lower than other ground around it. Yet it gets up to 140 degrees there. Yet heat rises. But that simple reasoning does not take into account how thick or thin the air is. Many have trouble breathing in the Colorado mountains since the thin air is lower in oxygen. Since the air is thin in Kenya, the people there have abnormally big chests, which makes them like supermen in normal air.

I do not know what you are saying about small potatoes and large potatoes. I do know that it takes longer to cook a large potato than a small potato. Say you had a giant potato. To make it like the small cooked potato, you cook it much longer. Also what you are saying about fruit is referring to raw fruit. What if you cook the fruit for an hour? Did you read the article?

[joelr]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

It is easy to choose examples to prove any point. For example since Adolf Hitler is white and President Obama is black that proves that all whites are psychotic killers and all blacks are very smart and successful. White rice is a complex carb and apples are a simple carb.

If you read the article you will understand that oatmeal and brown rice are complex carbs but you do not eat them. The brown rice and oatmeal that you eat are simple carbs!

I don't see that as a point proving example to bring my experiments logic to light at all.
By your logic I'm saying "all brown foods are complex carbs". Obviously I'm not making such a generalization so I don't know where you got that?

A better analogy is simply your experiment shows that Hitler indeed is a killer.
Same as Smarties are indeed a simple carb and white rice is a complex carb and is handled as such by the body.
When someone kills like that they are a crazy killer. When a food gives you stable long lasting energy, gives NO sugar buzz, no insulin spike, no sugar crash, it's a complex carb.

As to reading the article I know the article SAYS that cooking or ripening carbs make them simple, the mushy carb theory, I got that. This is me getting it.
It's just that it's not true.

You didn't even try my super cool well-thought out experiment did you?

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by joelr

I don't see that as a point proving example to bring my experiments logic to light at all.
By your logic I'm saying "all brown foods are complex carbs". Obviously I'm not making such a generalization so I don't know where you got that?

A better analogy is simply your experiment shows that Hitler indeed is a killer.
Same as Smarties are indeed a simple carb and white rice is a complex carb and is handled as such by the body.
When someone kills like that they are a crazy killer. When a food gives you stable long lasting energy, gives NO sugar buzz, no insulin spike, no sugar crash, it's a complex carb.

As to reading the article I know the article SAYS that cooking or ripening carbs make them simple, the mushy carb theory, I got that. This is me getting it.
It's just that it's not true.

You didn't even try my super cool well-thought out experiment did you?

To make it more clear, Adolf Hitler does not represent all white people. There are good and bad simple carbs. The article explained how to tell if a food is healthy for you or not. I have never heard of Smarties. I figure that it is a certain brand of candy. Just like a Dell computer is a certain brand of computer. Skittles is a certain brand of candy. Can you guess what I am hinting about? It makes it More difficult to Read a sentence Like this Talking about adolf hitler, Apples, haas Avocados and Streets like main street.

So what are the ingredients in Smarties or Skittles? They are on the label. What are the ingredients in apples and oranges? There is no ingredient list for them. So the article says that Dr. Oz (Oprah's doctor that has his own TV show) says to eat foods that have no ingredient list. So you chose for your example what the article says is not good for you. But you ignored the simple carbs that have no ingredient list like apples, oranges, bananas and strawberries. It even explained it further like with foods made or grown by nature and those that are made by man.

Unripe bananas are not sweet. Do you know why? It is because it is a starch or complex carb. Now as it ripens, it gets softer and sweeter. When it gets too sweet, it also mushy, mushy, mushy and mushy.

Also you just invented the mushy carb theory. Google says that it does not exist. See this!

[joelr]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

To make it more clear, Adolf Hitler does not represent all white people. There are good and bad simple carbs. The article explained how to tell if a food is healthy for you or not. I have never heard of Smarties. I figure that it is a certain brand of candy. Just like a Dell computer is a certain brand of computer. Skittles is a certain brand of candy. Can you guess what I am hinting about? It makes it More difficult to Read a sentence Like this Talking about adolf hitler, Apples, haas Avocados and Streets like main street.

So what are the ingredients in Smarties or Skittles? They are on the label. What are the ingredients in apples and oranges? There is no ingredient list for them. So the article says that Dr. Oz (Oprah's doctor that has his own TV show) says to eat foods that have no ingredient list. So you chose for your example what the article says is not good for you. But you ignored the simple carbs that have no ingredient list like apples, oranges, bananas and strawberries. It even explained it further like with foods made or grown by nature and those that are made by man.

Unripe bananas are not sweet. Do you know why? It is because it is a starch or complex carb. Now as it ripens, it gets softer and sweeter. When it gets too sweet, it also mushy, mushy, mushy and mushy.

Also you just invented the mushy carb theory. Google says that it does not exist. See this!

I got the Hitler thing, I'm saying it's not a good analogy.

The mushy carb theory was a joke. You really searched on Google for that?


All that Wizard of Oz, Oprah, food ingredients stuff is unrelated to what we were discussing. The article says we never eat complex carbs because they are reduced to simple carbs when cooked. Just focus on that.
That part is what I'm talking about. I'm saying it's not true.

When complex carbs are cooked they still react in the body as a complex carb should. They do not react like a simple sugar.
The simplest sugars like table sugar - sucrose have considerable reactions in the body.
Fruit sugar has less but still noticeable sugar reactions.

Brown rice and oatmeal, even after cooking, have the least sugar spike along with many other complex carbs.
Therefore the cooking does not erase the "complex" out of the carb.
Hence the article I believe is wrong.

[Nameless One]

Strange I always thought fruits provided monosaccharides mostly and cooked starchy vegetables provided mostly polysaccharides, but broken into much smaller chains and branches than uncooked. I also thought a simple carb is a monosaccharide, perhaps a disaccharide, and a complex carb is any polysaccharide. This is what I get for not studying the matter dilligently. I will now perform seppuku.

[Mike75]

I don't understand all this mumbo-jumbo about complex or simple carbohydrates. But I can tell you one thing that eating brown rice or oatmeal doesn't have as much effect on our body as we think.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Nameless One

Strange I always thought fruits provided monosaccharides mostly and cooked starchy vegetables provided mostly polysaccharides, but broken into much smaller chains and branches than uncooked. I also thought a simple carb is a monosaccharide, perhaps a disaccharide, and a complex carb is any polysaccharide. This is what I get for not studying the matter dilligently. I will now perform seppuku.

Yes to make it more complex simple carbs are sugars that are either a monosaccharide (single sugar) or a disaccharide (double sugar). What is a polysaccharide? It is more than a single or a double. It is a triple or more. This puts it in baseball terms. So the polysaccharide is a starch or complex carbohydrate. So do not kill yourself over this.

But fire can change this. Fiber (a complex carb) cannot be digested. But if you burn it down to an ash then it can be digested. Now what you are saying is true about cooking a potato in the oven for 10 minutes. But cook it for an hour and the breakdown continues. Cook it for 10 hours and the fiber in it is digestable since the fiber will be broken down. I was a chemist for the federal government.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by joelr

I got the Hitler thing, I'm saying it's not a good analogy.

The mushy carb theory was a joke. You really searched on Google for that?


All that Wizard of Oz, Oprah, food ingredients stuff is unrelated to what we were discussing. The article says we never eat complex carbs because they are reduced to simple carbs when cooked. Just focus on that.
That part is what I'm talking about. I'm saying it's not true.

When complex carbs are cooked they still react in the body as a complex carb should. They do not react like a simple sugar.
The simplest sugars like table sugar - sucrose have considerable reactions in the body.
Fruit sugar has less but still noticeable sugar reactions.

Brown rice and oatmeal, even after cooking, have the least sugar spike along with many other complex carbs.
Therefore the cooking does not erase the "complex" out of the carb.
Hence the article I believe is wrong.

Are you saying that eating fruit causes the same reaction as eating candy or eating brown rice? I say that it is has no more reaction than eating brown rice. You say that it has some reaction. It should not according to the glycemic index or load.

If it does then you may have an overgrowth of candida. People who have this should not eat fruit until they cure it. As far as what I am saying about cooking food, focus on God or nature. God does this. If you do not believe in God then nature does this. The example is the banana. If anyone has a reation to fruit, go to your doctor and tell her to look for candida.

If someone has candida they should not eat fruit but unripe fruit like a raw green banana is OK. It is a complex carb but God changes it into a simple carb. Thousands of people in the U.S. are fruitarians. That mean that they only eat fruit. A picture is worth a thousand words. Here is a picture of a fruitarian bodybuilder.

Fiber (a complex carb) cannot be digested. But if you burn it down to an ash then it can be digested. The water keeps rice from burning but cook rice without water for a few hours and you will be able to digest the fiber since it will not be fiber anymore.

The carbohydrate in the food is called that since it is carbon and hydrate (water or hydrogen and oxygen [H2O]). If you burn out all the water, you are only left with carbon that is black.

[ginkgo]

From Wikipedia:

"Ehret was a founder of naturopathy and pioneer of Ehretism. He claimed to have discovered that the human body is an "air-gas engine" that is powered exclusively by oxygen and that a diet consisting of fruits, starchless vegetables and edible green leaves ("herbs"), which he dubbed 'mucusless' foods, is the optimum food for human consumption." Complex carbs are a starch. For decades after his book, all the writers about diet would talk about mucusless foods. They are the best foods to avoid colds and flus.

[joelr]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

Are you saying that eating fruit causes the same reaction as eating candy or eating brown rice? I say that it is has no more reaction than eating brown rice. You say that it has some reaction. It should not according to the glycemic index or load.

No, I already pointed out the differences between the 3 types of carbs as I see them. Here it is again.

"1) The simplest sugars like table sugar - sucrose have considerable reactions in the body.

2) Fruit sugar has less but still noticeable sugar reactions.

3)Brown rice and oatmeal, even after cooking, have the least sugar spike along with many other complex carbs. "

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by joelr

No, I already pointed out the differences between the 3 types of carbs as I see them. Here it is again.

"1) The simplest sugars like table sugar - sucrose have considerable reactions in the body.

2) Fruit sugar has less but still noticeable sugar reactions.

3)Brown rice and oatmeal, even after cooking, have the least sugar spike along with many other complex carbs. "

In the first example you are talking about candy. People eat that. People do not eat pure sugar. In the 3rd example, you are talking about food. In the second example are you referring to eating fruit or candy made with fruit sugar? When you say fruit sugar are you referring to fruit? People do not eat pure fruit sugar. If you mean fruit then say fruit. In the 3rd example you do not say rice carbs and oatmeal carbs.

I do not get any reaction from eating fruit. People with a candida albicans overgrowth do. Of course there is right way and wrong way to eat fruit. If you eat fruit alone and do not have candida, no problem. If you eat fruit with meat and bread then you will have problems with the fruit. This is talked about in the books Fit for Life 1 and 2.
[From Wiki.] They sold many millions of copies. People breaking a fast will only eat fruit at first. The 2 books mentioned above say that fruit is the best food to eat. The diet came to public attention in the mid-1980s with the publication of Fit for Life, a New York Times best seller[3][4] which sold millions of copies,[1][5] over 12 million according to Harvey Diamond.

Tony Robbins [black belt in karate] promotes the Fit for Life principles and veganism to increase energy levels in his book Unlimited Power.

Arnold Ehret says so also. What does Wikipedia say about him? All the following: Ehret was a founder of naturopathy.

At 31, he was diagnosed with Bright's disease (inflammation of the kidneys) by Dr G. Riedlin, and pronounced incurable by 24 of Europe’s most respected doctors.

He took a course at a university of medicine, physiology and chemistry.

Due to his new lifestyle, Ehret claimed to have cured himself of his diseases and to be able to perform feats of physiological strength, including a 1000 mile bicycle trip from Algiers to Tunis.

Having renounced the nitrogenous-albumin metabolic theory in 1909, he learned of a contemporary, Thomas Powell M.D. in 1912, who concurred with his belief that "grape sugar" (simple sugars in fruits and vegetables) was the optimum fuel source, body building material and agent of vitality, for humans, not protein rich foods.

His findings about food values and pH values, were supported by chemist, Julius Hensel,[48] and Swedish chemist, Ragnar Berg.

After collaborating with Henri Oedenkoven who owned Monte Verità,[38][39] Ehret opened a sanitarium in Ascona, Switzerland[40] and another 'Fruit and Fasting Sanitarium',[41] in nearby Locarno, treating thousands of patients considered incurable.

In 1994, Gary Null Ph.D. wrote: "Arnold Ehret [1866 to 1922] was a man of unique insight with a prophetic understanding of how to cleanse and rebuild the body. It would take the world of orthodox medicine 80 years to catch up with him."[85]

Null is best known as a promoter of natural and alternative remedies. He has written or produced more than seventy books, booklets, and audio CDs on the topics of health, wellness, nutrition, and alternative medicine.[2]

[Lauxa]

Geez, I have to look up glycemic load now? I thought I was doing well to understand glycemic index, but apparently that's sooo 1997...

[joelr]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

In the first example you are talking about candy. People eat that. People do not eat pure sugar. In the 3rd example, you are talking about food. In the second example are you referring to eating fruit or candy made with fruit sugar? When you say fruit sugar are you referring to fruit? People do not eat pure fruit sugar. If you mean fruit then say fruit. In the 3rd example you do not say rice carbs and oatmeal carbs.

1) Yes people eat both pure sugar and candy. When I say sucrose/table sugar it's obvious I'm generally talking about candy and soft drinks.

2) When I say fruit sugar I am talking about eating fruit. I'm feeling no need to alter my wordiness. That sugar is called fructose.

3)I think you got what I meant. It's beyond obvious. It's beyobvious.



Don't google that, I already know it's not a word.

[ginkgo]

They do sell pure fructose that is fruit sugar. Fructose has a very low glycemic index and load meaning that it enters the blood very slowly. It has a lower one than potatoes.

Steven Pratt M.D. wrote a book on the 21 healthiest foods called SuperFoods Rx.
Here they are:
apples
avocado
beans
blueberries
broccoli
dark chocolate
garlic
honey
kiwi
oats
olive oil
onions
oranges
pomegranates
pumpkin
wild salmon-- high in omega-3s
soy
spinach
tomatoes
tea
turkey
walnuts
yogurt-- I guess he chose this for the probiotics

It has the oats that you mentioned but that is the only one that starts out as a complex carb. It has a lot of great fiber in it. I count 8 fruits out of the 21. Also under each fruit he will list their sidekicks like grapefruit under oranges. Olives are a fruit. Walnuts are a hard fruit. Eight is a lot considering he is listing beverages like tea, additves like honey that is like pure sugar and garlic.

The book says that oats contain a fiber called beta glucan that the FDA says lowers bad cholesterol. It is high in minerals. Brown rice is a sidekick. Note that the difference in brown rice and white rice has nothing to do with the carbs. Almost all the carbs are in the endosperm. That is the part of the grain that is white rice. Brown rice also has the bran with lots of fiber and the rice germ with lots of nutrients like octocosonal.

So the carbs are mostly in the endoperm and that remains unchanged when they make the brown rice into white rice by grinding off the bran and germ. You can eat the white rice and then go into a health food store and buy the germ and bran. Again there is no difference in the carbs (digestable ones, not fiber) of the white or brown rice. Fruit also has fiber that is a complex carb but I do not count that since it not digested. Again the carbs in brown rice are no healthier than the carbs in the white rice.

If you feel a difference in eating brown and white rice, it is not from the carbs since they are unchanged. It is either in your mind (imagined) or due to the extra fiber and nutrients in the brown rice. The rice bran is supposed to have some very powerful anti-oxidants.

[joelr]

Yes, In my experience I've found no difference between brown or white rice.

In fact the first few times I did a diet phase I ate only white rice (I ate other foods too but when I ate rice 1-2x daily with my tuna I used white rice).

Then I got into the "brown rice hype" and used only brown for a few diets. Then switched back because I like white better and it cooks quicker.
Really made no difference that I could see.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by joelr

Yes, In my experience I've found no difference between brown or white rice.

In fact the first few times I did a diet phase I ate only white rice (I ate other foods too but when I ate rice 1-2x daily with my tuna I used white rice).

Then I got into the "brown rice hype" and used only brown for a few diets. Then switched back because I like white better and it cooks quicker.
Really made no difference that I could see.

The reason that they recommend whole grains is because most of the nutrients (not carbs) are in the bran and the germ on the outer parts of the grain. It is the same with potatoes. Most of the nutrients are in or near the skin. That is why a pound of small potatoes is more nutrient dense than a pound of large potatoes. Nutritarians are people that eat the most nutrient dense foods.

[Humancure]

There is always a reason why you should not, and there is always a reason why you should eat.

To reduce pressure off the kidneys, people often eat a carb only diet - this can be beneficial in its own right.

Same applies to eating raw foods, same applies to eating vegetables, and although half of Steve's followers will hate me for this, same applies for eating meat - all have benefits and drawbacks.

[Barcs]

Generally speaking, I try to keep my carb intake to a minimum and early in the day. I'll eat weight control oatmeal in the morning with berries, then a fruit in between breakfast & lunch, then another fruit in between lunch and dinner. I rarely eat carbs with dinner, but if I do, they are usually complex (brown rice or pasta). Simple carbs seem to give you more energy for early in the day, but I feel complex carbs should be eaten later.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Humancure

There is always a reason why you should not, and there is always a reason why you should eat.

To reduce pressure off the kidneys, people often eat a carb only diet - this can be beneficial in its own right.

Same applies to eating raw foods, same applies to eating vegetables, and although half of Steve's followers will hate me for this, same applies for eating meat - all have benefits and drawbacks.

I looked at your site. It needs a margin on the left side. I have IE8 and Windows 7. It is hard to read being right up against the left. White space is important to making things easier to read-- like between paragraphs, words and the sides. The bible was oringinallywrittenlikethiswithnospacebetweenthe words.

Actually at 100% there is a space on the left but at 150% there is no space on the left so you should use a different code so there is always a space on the left.

[Barcs]

^That's odd. It looks fine in Mozilla Firefox.

[joelr]

Originally Posted by Humancure

Same applies to eating raw foods, same applies to eating vegetables, and although half of Steve's followers will hate me for this, same applies for eating meat - all have benefits and drawbacks.

Regarding the link to why vitamin supplements will kill you -

I understand the concept but that was a really short article. There are no links to any studies done on liver function values between heavy and non-vitamin users, studies done on blood levels of vitamin C vs synthetic.

Never mind "kill" I think first there would need to be some evidence of any harm done at all. I don't supplement vitamins any more so I'm not bias either way. This just seems like an ad for herbal and natural supplements.

[ginkgo]

Originally Posted by Barcs

^That's odd. It looks fine in Mozilla Firefox.

I have not put Mozilla Firefox on this new computer but I will and I will use that. It can increase the size of the print and word wrap so the entire page fits on the screen. When you increase the size of the print in IE it sends off the screen. Also Mozilla Firefox checks your spelling. But most people use IE and with the following code it will not go right against the edge when it uses larger sizes: <style type="text/css">
body { margin-left: 15%; margin-right:15%; margin-top:5%; margin-bottom:5% }

[Humancure]

Originally Posted by joelr

Regarding the link to why vitamin supplements will kill you -

I understand the concept but that was a really short article. There are no links to any studies done on liver function values between heavy and non-vitamin users, studies done on blood levels of vitamin C vs synthetic.

Never mind "kill" I think first there would need to be some evidence of any harm done at all. I don't supplement vitamins any more so I'm not bias either way. This just seems like an ad for herbal and natural supplements.

Thanks for your judgement on my article

Its for readers that are looking to explore directions. If you extract vitamins from petroleum, your body uses MORE energy to process this (without benefits).

You are supposed to read the article, see why it could be true, and see why it couldn't be true - and as far as studies are concerned - there are minimal real studies done on ANYTHING natural - only pharmaceutical funded ones, intended to be biased in the first place.