Carbohydrates and Reading Labels!

Carbohydrates and Reading Labels!

by Elizabeth Corbin

It is scientifically proven that vegetarian items (plant based) detoxify the body, and animal based foods feed the cells.  So, I believe in a good quality regimen of all the basic food groups; I had been a vegetarian in the past and came up with the complications that fruits and veggies by themselves just couldn’t handle.  My point is all bodies are different and have different needs depending on you genetic make-up, so some of us can handle more carbohydrates than others for example.

Meats:

It is best to buy organic when possible.  Meat products that are at least 95 percent organic may be labeled "organic." If entirely organic, the product may be labeled "100% organic." Products with more than 70 percent organic ingredients may be labeled "Made with organic ingredients."

Look for all of the following you can get:  Get grass-fed, pastured, free farmed, cage free, free range, local.

Labels:

Your goal when you go to the grocery store is to look at the list of ingredients; don’t worry about all the other information at that time.  Manufacturers must list food ingredients in order of predominance, meaning what is in the item the most is listed at the top.  So, you are going to look at the top 4 items. 

Do buy items with “God made” ingredients

·                    If it is a grain product you want it to say “whole” as one of the top 4 words; watch out for the next 5 bullets

·                    When it has 20 ingredients of difficult words, just put it back on the shelf; it has no nutritional value at all

·                    Fructose, dextrose, Sucrose, or any other word ending in “ose” it’s nothing but refined sugar (bad for you)

·                    Artificial, sarcalose, saccharin, aspartame… don’t even go there, it kills rats and will shorten your life too

·                    Sodium Nitrite or Nitrate is a preservative that is very bad for our bodies

·                    Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) causes all kinds of issues when ingested by humans.

At Home:

When you get your food home and are thinking of serving sizes and what that consists of, do look at the Nutritional information.

The main two things to look for are the portion size and the carbohydrate amount… look at other information if you are having particular issues and your doctor said to stay under a certain amount of sodium for example.

As I stated before, Carbohydrates pose a problem if you are consuming too many for you body.  They break down into sugar, causing more insulin to secrete and a wide rage of problems could come happen. 

Labels are based on 2000 cal diet, which is an average, so keep that in mind; you may not be eating that many calories.  The ADA says eat no more than half your calories in carbohydrates. 

Focusing on Carbohydrates: 

·                    Determine your calorie need (example 1800 calories)

·                    Divide that number in half = number of calories from carbs (example 1800 divide by 2 = 900)

·                    Each gram of Carb has 4 calories, so divide your number of calories by 4 (example 900 divide by 4 = 225)

·                    This equals how many grams you may have per day; should not go over this amount.

If you are having a specific issue and are off balance, I suggest going as low as you can on carbohydrates each day; not under 40… because then you have gone way to the extreme.