When it comes to carbohydrates, it's time for an extreme makeover. These macronutrients got a really bad rap in America's recent carbs-are-poison panic. But the pendulum is swinging back as people discover the nutritional truth: Some carbs are good; some are bad.
Eat the good ones and you'll lose the lingering, can't-zip-your-pants effect of last winter's mac-and-cheese binges -- and you'll lower lousy LDL cholesterol. Eat the bad ones and ... well, let's not go there.
So what are good carbs? The ones with a low glycemic index -- it measures how quickly foods break down and send blood sugar up. The slower, the better. Bad, high-GI carbs create blood-sugar spikes that are quickly followed by sharp plunges -- which make you hungry again. Over time, that blood-sugar roller coaster ups your risk of diabetes, belly blubber, heart disease, diabetes and other chronic health problems.
The No. 1 trademark of good, low-GI carbs is that they take awhile to digest -- which means they're almost always high-fiber foods. Fiber keeps your stomach so busy that these foods can't rush into your bloodstream and send sugar levels rocketing.
Good carbs include three huge groups:
1) most fruits and veggies;
2) 100 percent whole-grain anything -- cereals, breads, crackers, whole-wheat pasta and couscous, brown and wild rice;
3) beans, lentils and other legumes.
These are the same healthy foods, by the way, that help keep you feeling full, rather than craving "something." That hunger comes from the sugar low after the high, by the way. We'll tell you in a future column how to convert aging high-GI carbs into stay-young low-GI carbs.
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