High carb or low carb diet - which is best?

[carrots]

what do you think? should i be eating potatoes, pasta, rice and bread or dumping them and eating mostly bacon, eggs, beef, fish and chicken?

[thor3436]

humans need to be eating all the foods you listed
you need foods containing protein and other vitamins .
do you just eat different food groups ?

[simmy]

Low carb but not no carb is best imho.

[thor3436]

yes i agree with simmy

[heidi]

Originally Posted by carrots

what do you think? should i be eating potatoes, pasta, rice and bread or dumping them and eating mostly bacon, eggs, beef, fish and chicken?

Do you want a diet to lose weight or for good health? The almost zero carbs Atkins diet is great for losing weight quickly, but the constipation and stuff doesn't make it seem healthy to me.

[carrots]

i'm looking for the ideal good health diet . a diet that if i eat it will keep me at a good, lean weight for life. i don't know if scientists can agree on this diet. i'm kind of thinking about evolution and what sort of diet our ancestors must have eaten for 100s of thousands of years, because that's probably going to be what will keep us in best health and i think that was a low carb diet.

[Paul Robbins]

Research in diet and nutrition is hard. There are also a lot of quacks in the field trying to push one diet or another.

For real research, you've got to deal with real people and, for valid, long-term research, you've got to rely on people doing what they say they're doing or following a dietary program for many years. That's hard. Trends do emerge, though.

I've been impressed by the links established between easily digested carbohydrates and the diseases of civilization, including obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Certain types of carbohydrate cause the pancreas to release large spikes of insulin, which tells our bodies to lay down what we've eaten as fat. Less insulin means less of a signal convert the food we have eaten to fat.

You can read about insulin index here.

For eating equal-calorie food portions, white bread results in 5x more insulin release than peanuts.

The worst of the foods tested for insulin release were bread (white and wholemeal), potatoes, baked beans, yogurt, mars bars, jellybeans and cookies.

These results tie in well with the better known Glycemic Index, which measures blood sugar levels after eating foods.

The best advice I have is to avoid foods that have a high insulin index or high glycemic index. Eat grain bread instead of white or wholemeal bread. Eat pasta instead of potatoes. Eat oats instead of rice. Eat fruits such as apples and oranges instead of fruits like bananas and grapes.

[superstu]

Eat them all and enjoy them my friend. They are all gifts from mother nature and life is for living.