I would love to share with you a false myth and whisper you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about carbohydrates in our diets.
It has become common knowledge thinking that carbs make you gain weight. And the bombardment of the media helps the diffusion of this belief. As a direct consequence, more and more often are coming out diets that cancel completely the use of carbohydrates from diets,
Who is in love for carbs will definitely smile at my proved affirmation that this general thought is not completely true. Or at least it is imprecise. Actually not all carbs make you gain weight.
We find different types of carbohydrates. The most common ones proposed by the media and first raw into the general supermarkets are the ones that do not make any good on us. But there are others that do strengthen our immune system, give us lots of long lasting energy and, unbelievable…make us even lose weight!
First raw, unfortunately is reserved in supermarkets, bakery and patisseries, to simple carbs based on refined flours and grains. Those ones, a part from raising rapidly the glucose in the blood, are also an attack to the balance of our microbiome because they multiply the bad bacteria and reduce the diversity of the flora. On the contrary, the complex carbohydrates decompose in sugar in the blood in a very slow, durable and progressive way, ensuring a better nutrition and energy without glycaemic picks. Moreover they are rich in fiber, the best food for our microbiome.
The complex carbs are the whole, no refined, possibly organic flours and grains. And it seems I could hear the millions of microbes living in your gut making a jump of happiness and engage in a dance move to my words!…
Our microbiome is considered the eyes and ears of our immune system, a precise alarm that something is not working well in our system.
If our microbiome with all its good bacteria, viruses and fungus that live in our body (and thanks to them, most functions are possible in our body!) is healthy and strong, our immune system will also be strong and we will be healthy. But if our microbiome is unbalanced and weak, the immune system is distracted in restoring balance there for the organism to function properly and won’t have time enough to face the external pathogens. As a consequence, we get to catch any possible virus passing around us, included the so famous covid!
The key then is in the type of carbs that we do eat. Pasta, bread, pizza made of refined wheat and this good looking white bread that we love to have for breakfast with anything on top, well, those ones go directly to the bad side. The White rice, as well.
The invitation then is to consume the whole grains and those that I personally call the noble carbohydrates: quinoha, millet, amaranth and buckwheat that by coincidence (have you also noticed?) are also gluten–free….
Let me give you another little tip. We have the chance to be able to choose in between so many types of whole grains. Lets for example consider the rice: red rice, black rice, whole basmati etc. Then we have the quinoha: red, white, black…Each of those food are a specific enriching food for a bacteria group –type. The most we diversify our microbiome…the most different bacteria we will have, more protection for our immune system we will get and that takes to more durable health!