Is there a system of eating in which the systemically toxic excess of carbohydrate can be practically mitigated?
(writing in progress)
The main aim of this Post is to suggest a practical way of 'having one's cake and eating it too', in terms of healthy diets and systems of eating, in the human species (Homo sapiens).
The particular topic is the mitigation of the effects of carbohydrate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate), which tends to be consumed in excessive quantity and with excessive frequency in the modern world.
CONTEXT
In industrial economies today, so much carbohydrate is available to the human species that this substance has become, effectively, an environmental toxin.
This contrasts with the ancestral condition. Hunter-gatherers lived in an environment in which carbohydrate was seasonal and relatively scarce. The physiological nature of the human body is such that the former regime remains the healthier one.
Many chronic illnesses in modern populations can be ascribed to excess carbohydrate.
The mechanism is that concentrations of glucose in the blood tend to be excessive, with excessive frequency. This causes disruption of the normal functions of the pancreas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancreas), mainly via the insulin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin) secreted by this gland.
The results include, amongst others,
- obesity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity),
- diabetes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes),
- metabolic syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome#:~:text=Metabolic%20syndrome%20is%20a%20clustering,Dysmetabolic%20syndrome%20X), and
- insulin resistance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_resistance#).
It seems safe to say that if all added sugar were eliminated from human diets, populations would be healthier.
Furthermore, it seems likely that most human individuals would be healthier on a diet lacking starchy foods - on the basis that starch is rapidly digested to glucose in the mouth and small intestine, causing metabolic stress similar to that resulting from consumption of sugar itself.
However, for most individuals in modern societies, it seems impractical - for many and diverse reasons - to eliminate sugar and starch entirely from the diet.
For example, the category of 'healthy vegetables' includes various tubers and fleshy fruits, which are starchy enough to boost glucose in the bloodstream, within minutes of consumption.
Examples of tubers include
- carrot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrot),
- beetroot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetroot), and
- sweet potato (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_potato).
Starchy examples of fleshy fruits are the various domestic species of Cucurbita (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucurbita and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butternut_squash).
Furthermore, this undesirable boost would remain to some extent even if the foods mentioned above were eaten raw. This is because their glycemic index (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index) exceeds x.
THE PROBLEM
It may be practicable to avoid added sugar, as well as sweet fleshy fruit-pulp and -juice, from one's diet.
However, for most individuals, it is impractical to avoid carbohydrates altogether. This would mean a ketogenic diet, which is physiologically possible for many or most individuals, but not sustainable given the social and economic realities of our lives.
So, how can one continue to consume, on a routine basis, some quantity of starchy food without ill effects?
THE CRUCIAL PRINCIPLES
I suggest that three crucial principles are that
- the rate at which glucose enters the bloodstream depends largely on the dilution of carbohydrate in proteins, lipids, fibre, and water, in the stomach,
- it is as important to reduce the frequency of 'insulin spikes' as it is to reduce the sizes of these 'spikes', and
- mildly sweet food (e.g. wild berries) can safely be eaten provided that this is at most once per day, reducing the frequency of any 'insulin spikes' to one per day or less.
The best illustration of the first of the above principles is that peanut (Arachis hypogoea, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut) and chickpea (Cicer arietinum, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chickpea) contain about a third starch, but are non-insulinogenic. The starch is safely 'smuggled' into then food by virtue of being thoroughly mixed with protein and, in the case of peanut, lipids.
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