Carbs for thought
October 27, 2010 21 Comments
Tubers : The evil kid.
Today, as I write this post in a fasting state (Skipping breakfast is now the only way to have some free time in the morning), I am looking for your input. I must repeat that this blog is both about sharing and learning. If you have been reading my blog for the past few months, you know what my stance on carbs (natural : tubers, fruits, veggies, etc.) is : they are not evil! [Link here and here]. So, today is about sharing a theory/hypothesis with you guys. If you have any insight on the subject, please don’t hesitate to share it.
Our body is an interesting chemical and mechanical machine. If I had to make an analogy, I think I would say our body is very similar to a lego person kids build. Through adaptation and natural selection, our body acquired ”blocks” that are specific for certain situations. Put all these blocks together and you get a lego person (or a human in our case). The point being that we have a large number of systems in our body that are specific to what our environment ask of us and what is accessible in it. Sometimes some systems are active while some other systems are not. Sometimes, it’s the other way around.
Glucose : the unwanted kid of the bunch.
As I am writing this, I have the whole glucose system (insulin + insulin receptors) in mind. Our brain runs on glucose. The prefered muscle energy is also glucose (it’s quicker to get and any real intense physical activity is fuelled by glucose). The fact that we have so many insulin receptors, the possibility to actually produce insulin and sweet cravings must means something. Current ”conventional” paleo thinking says everyone should lower his carbs intake in the very low range of the spectrum (<100g) so that insulin is controlled. What if it was the other way around : We should have times with large amounts of carbs and times with very low amounts of carbs. (the total amount might not matters as much as the frequency).
Why would we have such an efficient system if carbs were evil (read : if we should never eat them)? Wouldn’t we have ”lost” (or never evolved) such a system if carbs were problematic (pretty much like say alcohol which we can’t metabolize)? Wouldn’t we have evolved differently (say, a brain that runs only on fat and a liver and muscles that do not care about creating glycogen and using glucose) if carbs were THAT evil? In other words, we have the possibility to use a system that our body seem to think is important, and yet, we try to never active it (in the case of very low carbs). Does that make sense? I can’t say for sure, but I am questioning this behaviour.
Now, before we get a bit more serious, let me just point out that I am not advocating a very high carbs diet (especially not grains). It’s important to point it out before some internet paleo police officer send me a ticket for infraction of the primal laws. So there it is, I said it!
Let’s use some very basic evolutionary thinking to put things in perspective. This is my own interpretation and it might be totally wrong. I would assume that our ancestors had access to a large variety of foods : meat (if they managed to hunt successfully) and plant foods (may be some veggies, probably a lot more fruits, some tubers). I doubt they really cared about the amount they ate from either groups. Just like they cycled through feast and famine, they probably cycled the foods they ate during the feast part of the equation. The feast part of the cycle is interesting : paleos assume that they only had meat (But, again, Eskimos are not representative of our origins). However, if they were anything like modern hunter gatherers, they probably ate lots of meat on some days, and lots of carbs foods (fruits and tubers) other days (depending on a few factors such as how successful the hunt was, how much tubers/fruits they found that day, etc). The point is they probably enjoyed some carbs (read lots) unless situational restriction prohibited it.
This is were it gets interesting : If you take most populations living in the ”North” ( I have Indians from the north and Finland populations), they tend to get diabetic very quick when introduced to large amounts of carbohydrates. They probably don’t have an history of chronic insulin spikes (multiple times a day) and this is why the modern diet probably destroy them. Most people probably think that it proves that carbohydrates are very unhealthy (Carbs = diabetes= pseudo science/logic). However, the people from these populations are not very different than us : they have the possibility to produce insulin and they have insulin receptors (they ain’t mutan or anything, you know). Why do they become diabetic so quick then? Is it the carbs or the frequency of the insulin spikes? May be an insulin spike is not unhealthy as long as it’s not done 3-5 times a day (depending on meal frequency).
Famine : The kid everybody forgets about.
Scratch that, let’s see it from another angle : Physical activity make you sensible to insulin and so does fasting ( read : famine). While there is a ton of ”facts” out there that are left to interpretation, I think we can all agree that our ancestors were active and lived times of famine. Then, why would fasting and physical activity make you sensible to insulin if we should avoid glucose?
Put simply, I think current research on modern hunter gatherers and basic biology/metabolism knowledge demonstrate how glucose is needed/wanted in various tasks (be it glycolysis or the fact that our brain prefered energy is glucose). What evolution demonstrate, however, is that glucose was present but it would probably have been impossible to spike your insulin through the roof all day long (the absence of refined sugar being a good factor here). So, say our Paleo man found some honey, I am pretty sure he would have spiked his insulin through the roof but I doubt he would have found honey on a daily basis and ate it all day long. Plus, he would be active all day long (which improve his sensibility to insulin) and he would probably have to fast sometimes (which also improve his sensibility to insulin).
The point I am trying to bring here is that I think carbohydrates are not unhealthy (paleo carbs). I think it’s a matter of carbs periodization (which is also why carbs periodization is so used in bodybuilding circles). In other words, the insulin spike itself is probably not bad as long as it’s not done chronically (all day long). It’s a matter of equillibrium/balance. Spike it high from times to times, and cycles in days where you just don’t spike it. Wouldn’t that make sense?
Well, I have been doing it and I can’t say I have noticed anything bad… And I even spiked it with dextrose just to see if anything bad would happen (energy crashes, trouble sleeping, etc.). Now, you can dial 911 and send the paleo police over here.
Interesting! I think you might be right, our ancestors probably “spiked” when they had the opportunity! But it’s tricky to estimate how often and on what. It depends on where they lived, I guess. But on the other hand eating paleo is not, as I see it, an effort to find out exactly what and how our Paleolithic ancestors ate, and mimic that to perfection. Instead it’s to find out how we can achieve optimum helth by understanding how we work and how different food affects us.
Well to bring my marine biology perspective into it – fish can survive on carby meals but most never eat carbs in the wild. So that would suggest that a bunch of species can digest glucose even though they may never have eaten it. interesting as to why that is though.
Thanks for your input Dan.
I’m not sure about fishes (I know very little about them so feel free to teach me), but in the case of humans, Type 2 muscle fibres are pretty much all fuelled by glucose (aka you technically need glucose for them…from food or protein (via glucogenesis)). Is this the case of fishes too ? In other words, is there any biological ”system” that require glucose (such as their brain or some muscle fiber)?
interesting theory…i think a lot of all the insulin talk misses some points….ANYONE who fast then eats irregardless of WHAT they eat carbs or fat or protein, will illicit an insulin response…
paleo carbs are not bad for someone who is sensitivie to insulin however VERY few people have fat cells that are insulin sensitive let along muscles that are as well. is it an evolutionary adaption that once a fat person loses weight they become more sesitive to insulin, playing into the whole fast and famine debate? it would make more sense seasonally however.
also, its not just meat vs carbs…when the hunter gather made a kill they surely SURELY were not eating muscle meat. they were eating brains, guts, thyroid, eyes, liver, heart etc etc….not rib eye and chicken thighs…. i think people miss out on a lot of vitamins/minerals & amino acid in much of the whole animal which probably plays a role in how the rest of their body handles food.
also, the HPA axis of the brain plays a huge role in insulin regulation due to genetics, nutrition profile, and amino acid availability…so in essence, if a person is assuming carbs make them fat and fear carbs…theyre not gonna handle them well…
i think it is more a byproduct of malnutrition than it is a problem with insulin
thanks for the comment Malpaz, I always like to read your thoughts.
I especially agree with you on the necessity to eat other things than muscle meat. I think offals should be eaten regularly!
You also bring two interesting points :
1) ”ANYONE who fast then eats irregardless of WHAT they eat carbs or fat or protein, will illicit an insulin response…”
This definitely demonstrate my idea/theory. If insulin was a bad boy, our body would not be producing it (or at least, not produce it in the absence of glucose). Perhaps the whole idea that insulin and carbs are bad is just rubbish. At least, from an athletic point of view, it is. The idea that people don’t move that much (read they lose muscle mass as they get older) has an impact on their BMR and also on how they can handle insulin (I would guess). Less muscle = less necessity of glucose?
The thing is this : people don’t want to fast (Its unhealthy!), people don’t want to move (Full of excuses), and they certainly don’t want to eat paleo carbs (they are evil). This all change the equation. This is why low carbs work so well with the general population [see my post here]. If you are not going to ”spend” your glucose, you might as well reduce your intake of it!
2)the HPA axis of the brain plays a huge role in insulin regulation due to genetics, nutrition profile, and amino acid availability…so in essence, if a person is assuming carbs make them fat and fear carbs…theyre not gonna handle them well…
I think more research should be done in food psychology. This is a forgotten area. I have not seen a lot of blogging on this and it’s a shame! Would you happen to have some papers/studies/links for this statement? It interest me quite a lot!
thanks again for your input.
yes…. gimme a day or two and ill send you some… im currently teaching myself about the brain cicuits in their relation to the gut health…seems the begining(the brain functioning) and the end(the gut functioning) are like 9234652034 times more important that the in between(liver/pancreas).
while i understand the huge role of the liver/pancreas health in its relation to insulin regulation, i also know the mind is an absolutely ‘mind boggling’ aspect of health that will never actually make any sense. when you eat, if your brain is not getting the signal of feast (everything crossing the BBB correctly and not battling) because your adrenals are shot or you stress over stupid unpaleo stuff (like work), or your body is full of unhealthy fat cells from years of SAD and not getting the messages it needs…but its ‘all in your head’.
i think one of the biggest reasons exercise has benefits is because the brain ‘wakes up’ in a healthy and evolutionary way. this means when you feast, it is ready to tackle food, thus your body is delivered what it needs b/c your organs are going to function right b/c your brain says everything is ‘ok’…same reason i think BCAA’s work is not their insulin release or their ‘magic’ in fasted training…it is their ability to go directly to the brain regulating neurotransmitters(low neuros sets anyone up for problems)…
they say protein is the building block of muscle growth, but i would argue amino acids are the building blocks of HEALTH(not muscle) which when provided in the necessary amounts will illicite good body responses.
another thought, given the amino acid need for the body is met(by good paleo sources), it would seem ideal to allow their transfer to be made easier by the consumption of some carbohydrate. i dont think that carbs=good serotonin=happy, BUT i do believe that ingesting good amounts of good amino acid food with enough carb means the brain gets what it needs(not carbs but the sources from other paleo food) which will mean a more positive energetic individual.
SO, concluding, getting the right nutrition to your brain allows the enzymes to carry out what the human body is SUPPOSED to do(no body wants to be fat)…i get stuck in genetic disease, like getting serotonin to turn to tryptophan…if that doesnt happen in people they are very very likely to have mood problems as well as insulin and weight problems.
a couple more thoughts…. bad fat cells have bad leptn which means the brain doesnt receive the correct sensation from food which results in a body & actions that dont seem to percieve health.
also… someone coming from a life of high-trigger brain food(sugar/processed food/excess O6) have pretty much self induced problems with brain reception(is this fixable) and will already have hormonal imbalances. the bad diet CAUSED the brain to become insensitive to most stimulus(why someone needs to eat not just one M&M but the entire 5lb bag). when you think of a hunter-gatherer…finding honey sent a HUGE FLIPPIN epic signal to the brain… someone who eats a SAD does not get the trigger response. thus, their body just doesnt function correctly from there.
it all starts with a sensation, and how your body percieves that sensation pretty much depicts its reaction, insulin and carbs included.
so people dont have weight set points….but brain homeostasis…when it is found/reached/discovered everything should fall into place
Food for thought : What if people eating junk foods do get a different signal to the brain (reconfiguration of what is natural…aka get tricked) ? What I mean is this : Most of our likes and dislikes are produced from a reward mechanism. In other words, the HG you are talking about could only achieve it’s highest reward (in term of sugar preference, reward being happiness/joy/etc.) from eating honey. Nowadays, our highest set point is this artificial crappy and disgusting foods. Anything less than that does not produce the same ”happiness reward”. The fact that it’s everywhere (processed foods are the norm) might trick us to try and find the highest reward possible.
Let’s put it another way : Someone who smoke marijuana reach happiness (Reward = feeling good, comes from the impact on the brains and neurotransmitters, etc.). If he was to do cocaine, he would probably (as its often the case) feel like marijuana is useless. Anything short than cocaine is often not ”worth” it to these people. (we could go on and on if that person decided to go for heroin, crack, meth, etc.). In other words, could the signals you talk about be related to this reward system (why we always need to eat a 5lbs bag of MandM instead of a handful)?
yup thats precisely what i mean….people are never satisfied and always looking for the next big hit….i suppose it has a evolutionary adaption as your going to find different foods always looking for the biggest nutrient/energy reward. i think theres a difference tho in the reward you get from bone marrow and the reward you get from a ‘mock paleo coconut biscuit” . the bone marrow provides a happy brain but because it comes with the nutrients it is supposed to, the body reacts accordingly. when the ‘grok wannabe’ eats his ‘mock food’ it is turned from a nutritious base brain stimulant to a physical reward because you think you need X Y or Z…you see, they think primal isnt good enough so they start adding in a lot of unprimal aspects like cardio & calorie counting/carb fear and none of that relates to grok in anyway. i think grok had extreme high reward and extreme fear reward….fear from sprinting from a predator and a high reward from something like honey of multiple grokette sex episodes in a day…and beyond that he was just grok, looking for the next meal
i know for me when i accepted recovery from anorexia i had no choice but to give up my mental pursuance of the ‘next big thing’ because i came to realize ill never be skinny enough to satisfy myself and the other choice was death. when i started studying evolution and nutrition(esp the brain) i learned that pretty much all humans are living for the next reward and nothings good enough. when you learn to live life for life, the enjoyment, the smell of fresh air, a sunny breezy warm day you learn a lot from sitting with yourself forcing a stressfree environment(which is exhausting at first) to eating food from a perspective of malnutrition and having it as your sole focus until you catch yourself wanting to ‘live life’ and wanting to eat beef liver every couple weeks because you love the reward you get from it
its a homeostatic state of mind and it will result in a body that wants the right things and looks the right way all serving as a personal reward. until someone gets that reward, they are unable to help someone else and impact a life or pursue a true passion in others. they are unable to look at food and trust it will meet & exceed your bodies needs and result in happiness. people look at food and get a mental body picture, or a calorie amount, or a ‘this is right’ because ______ fill int he blank.
if you approach it differently, accepting food is nourishing and that is why you eat it youll ultimately receive pleasure and reward form that but in a different way.
the one thing i DO agree with taubes on is that the obese are malnutritient-ed but so are the skinny
i venture a guess that grok did not have to eat ANYWHERE NEAR what people do today to becom nourished. grok didnt stress about anythign we do, grok didnt have a job, grok had sex when he wanted, groke wasnt filled in air pollution, grok didnt sit at a deak 8 hours a day and grok distinctively knew what he needed, be it a few days by the shore for fish or a land hunt for fruit/nuts/animals. everything he ate provided him with more vitamins/minerals than anyone can attempt to replicate modern day. baby groks were breast fed and always around their clan feeling safe. babies now are produced from people who ate shit, so already set the stage for shitty sperm/eggs, stress during pregnancy trying to listen to a doctor and in fear of baby weight, then have a child who is bottle fed
i dont have an answer and i have rambled a TON, but hopefully you can see from the explanation, our species is doing everyday ass backwards. health and a lean happy body are the byproduct of nutrition, not the pursuance of ones reason in life.
Thanks for this reply. I actually liked to read it.
It kind of touch a point about evolutionary that I have not really wanted to make on my website (yet) although I have some stuff written already : Yes food storage helped our species to expand. Yes it is all nice. However, what is not nice that maladaptive genes are artificially kept and this definitely explain our current health condition. In other words, we mastered our environment so greatly (we got so comfortable) that we pretty much suppressed natural selection. ”weak” (notice the quotation marks) people are kept alive even though they are not adapted to the environment. Now, in no way do I wish anyone death or suggest that we should stop helping anyone. However, according to this idea, we do know that we are not doing the right thing : we should prevent the bad stuff from happening instead of trying to cure it! This subtle mind in shift is, in my opinion, the only way we can make this species healthy again.
As a side note (and as an actual comment to your post), when you look at it, it actually sucks how our sexuality has been so controlled (again a matter of this is right or wrong) ever since religion was created. Sexuality (defined as the actual acts as well as the process of seduction/mating) is, in my opinion, a pretty good characteristic of species (sexuality kind of define us).
haha i dont wish death on anyone either but your absolutely correct in what you say
If I had read your post 50 years ago, I could agree.
I am 68 and was a long distance runner for over 25 years and a triathlete for another 5 years. Years of carb loading has grievously wounded my blood sugar/insulin control system.
And I bet that virtually everyone in the US over 50 and everyone who is overweight has a messed up blood sugar/insulin control system also.
That leaves you and the small percentage of the US population that has nothing to fear from carbs. For the rest of us, carbs are evil.
“Why would we have such an efficient system if carbs were evil”
The efficiency of our system is in getting glucose the hell out of our system as quick as possible by storing it in our muscles, our liver or as fat. So the body does consider blood sugar as evil as it is constantly driven to keep it at a low level.
The 100 carb limit is used as it is the amount the average liver can store. Whenever that the liver storage capacity is exceeded, the body does wacky things with the excess.
I eat less than 50 grams of carbs a day and many days I do not exceed 20, yet I am very active. Here are the activities I do in a fasted state: (not consecutively)
Tabata intervals
45 min HIT weight training sessions with every heavy weights
2 hours of tennis
3 hours of canyon hiking
I never run out of energy. I have taken blood sugar readings before and after these fasted activities and my blood sugar is always 30 points higher than when I started. It is obvious that my liver is making glucose from the amino acids floating around in my body. Carbs through the mouth is virtually unnecessary.
Thanks for your input Jake.
There are a few statements with which I don’t really agree. However, it would be very useless for me to argue against them if we consider your situation. It’s obvious that chronic insulin spiking (as an endurance athlete) has changed a few things for you (negatively).
My point exactly. The poison is in the dosage as carbs are dangerous. You can easily get by with a small amount. Why take a chance? Learn from my experience. Learn from the millions of Type II diabetics in the US.
JP, I forgot to tell you about this really wonderful book:
“The Old Way: A Story of the First People” by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
The Old Way: A Story of the First People
Her parents were medical anthropologists and they lived with a hunter gatherer tribe in Africa in the 1950s before the tribe had any exposure to Western Ways. Elizabeth who was a teenager at the time lived with them also.
You will have no questions on how hunter gather tribes lived after reading this book. It goes into great detail in their daily lives including hunting, cooking, sex, and gathering.
As to gathering, you will learn that carbs were hard to come by. Tubers were hard to find and difficult to dig up. And the people hated the work involved. Fruit was fibrous and had little sweetness. It was their fallback food.
The writing is very charming and entertaining. Elizabeth is now in her 80s and is very healthy. She has been eating Paleo her entire life and talks about how healthy the diet is.
Thanks Jake for the suggestion. I heard about that book although I forgot to order it.
I think your description of the book somewhat demonstrate the idea I was putting forward in this article.
Carbs are not bad unless you eat too many of them and too often. I tried to explain it by the frequency at which the insulin is spiked (which is different today vs back then)
”As to gathering, you will learn that carbs were hard to come by. Tubers were hard to find and difficult to dig up. And the people hated the work involved. Fruit was fibrous and had little sweetness. It was their fallback food. ”
This definitely demonstrate my point. The thing is this : To help people, I feel that it’s better to tell them to limit something than telling them something is evil. Perhaps, if we told people to reduce the frequency at which they spike their insulin (in other words, tell them to eat some tubers/fruits from time to time but not necessarily daily), we would all be healthier.
As for amounts of carbs (which I have not discussed), I am all for a moderate amount (defined as 80-150g).
Thanks again for reminding me to buy the book!
that comment about jake seeing insulin as evil thus getting rid of it in a timely fashion via use, storage etc…. interesting take…. i think if you combine it with your theory and explain the process like the guy at weightology, you would make millions. also, i seriously doubt jake was carb loading in his early years on sweet potatoes…. modified food lends a modified reaction
JP, this is a fascinating post, as are all the comments. I like how you put forth your ideas and then are open to discussion. This is what it’s all about.
JP,
I wrote you an email to your hotmail address that’s listed on your Contact page. Would like to get in touch with you if/when you have a chance. Cheers.
I think genetic adaptation also comes into play. Yes, I know the old fall back that we haven’t had time to evolve, but I personally disagree. There is plenty of evidence that peoples that have had a very short history of eating processed foods are more susceptible to problems like obesity and diabetes. They can live just like a European, but their genetics are more oriented towards hunter gatherer. The Pima Indians are a classic example. They were trim and healthy on their native diet. Then they were put on a reservation and given ‘white man food’ like biscuits. Levels of obesity skyrocketed very quickly amongst the entire population which at first was mostly people who used to eat their native diet but as time went on, the children who had always ate the white man food also became obese. THis suggests the problem is a genetic maladaption to the white man food. Most whites have a much longer historical time frame of eating more processed foods than do the native Indians and thus are probably better (but probably not ideall) genetically adapted.
I would also like to say that just because some cells of the brain consume glucose first does not necesarily mean that glucose is ‘preferred.’ It’s a subtle but dangerously unproven assumption that glucose is better because it is burned first by some cells. Interestingly, my understanding is that heart muscle cells actually ‘prefer’ ketones. However, most cells are able to run on either which means to me that we are adapted to either. And since people can live without carbs but cannot live without protein and fat, then what that means to me is that protein and fat are the things we are most adapted for as in fact, they are essential. Whereas the amount of carb intake that would make up the most healthy diet for each person is probably a lot more variable depending on genetics and also is open for a lot more debate. I don’t necesarily prescribe to the dogmatic ‘sugar is evil’ level of paleo thinking, but I do think we can’t get too swayed by the ‘brain runs on sugar’ thing. The brain can adapt run mostly on ketones and the rest of the very small sugar requirements can be met by gluconeogenesis. Those humans who adapted to such a diet from an early age seem to do really well on it and in fact are often very physically active. Just because people who have eaten crap foods most of their lives are not so easily able to do the same does not mean that lots of sugar is good for us. But it does complicate the issue of what diet is best for them, ie what diet is best for those who probably already have essentially a sick and damaged metabolic process due to years of attempting to adapt to toxic food? The best diet for a sick person is not necesarily the same as the best diet for a healthy person.