Carbohydrate quality is a contentious topic. The vilification of carbohydrates has been a very vocal pursuit. Unless you don’t expose yourself to the nutrition information offered in popular magazines, social media and conventional media (well done to you!), you have probably encountered the “attack” on the carbohydrate (sounds a bit serious…). This, of course, has come with the increasing popularity of low carbohydrate diets, and even more “extreme” versions of these diets, such as the ketogenic diet, or even the carnivore diet.
Proponents of such dietary practices often (not always) follow such diets from a position of believing that carbohydrates are an unhealthy component of the diet. This is largely untrue…
Is it fair to say that diets very high in sugar are likely to be less healthful than those low in sugar, on average? Yes, that’s a fair point.Is it fair to say that diets very high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes are likely to be less healthful than diets based primarily on protein and fat, with little of the above? No, that’s not very likely at all.
While you may have some proponents of extremely low carbohydrate diets suggesting that fruits and vegetables aren’t healthful, this simply isn’t the case. We see reductions in the risk of all-cause mortality and non-communicable diseases* with up to 800g/day of fruits and vegetables, which is about 8-12 servings (Aune et al. 2017). Essentially, eating your fruits and vegetables has been, and still is, a very positive public health message that the majority of people would benefit from taking action on. Outside of such nutritional cults, this is not a controversial statement.
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are diseases that are… non-communicable. Essentially, you don’t “catch” them, unlike most of the [communicable] diseases that were a burden on humans up until the medical advances of the 20th century. NCDs are also referred to as chronic diseases, and rather than being “caught”, they manifest as a result of multiple physiological, genetic, environmental and behavioural factors. For example: diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), Alzheimer’s disease etc..
So, Does Carbohydrate Quality Matter?
Anyway, to get to the crux of this article, a recent paper published in The Lancet discusses a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on Carbohydrate Quality and Human Health. While this is not new information by any means, it is worth considering some of the results. In short, there was a pretty clear relationship between dietary fibre and/or whole grain intake and the incidence of common non-communicable diseases, along with all-cause mortality.Â
Image 1: Whole grain intake (g per day) and A) all-cause mortality, B) coronary heart disease incidence, C) type 2 diabetes, and D) colorectal cancer.
Image 2: Total fibre intake (g per day) and A) all-cause mortality, B) coronary heart disease incidence, C) type 2 diabetes, and D) colorectal cancer.
The key message to take away from this is that 1) carbohydrate-based foods can be a key component of a healthy diet, and 2) the types of carbohydrates that you eat are important. These probably aren’t new insights for you, but they are worth considering nonetheless. This still doesn’t tell you what you should be eating, though.
So, What Should I Eat?
To put this information into practice, for carbohydrate quality, you should focus on eating more vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains etc., and less refined flours, sugary cereals, and [white] baked goods. For example, you could swap your morning bowl of coco pops for a bowl of porridge oats, white bread for whole grain bread, add some kidney beans into your stir-fries, have some fruit instead of chocolate etc. And, don’t overcomplicate it. Some people like to get into the weeds and worry about what types of fibre they are consuming, which is fine, but if you simply eat a variety of the food sources listed above, you will be covering your bases.
Information is great, but putting these things into practice throughout the lifespan is what is actually difficult. We recommend changing a couple of small things in your day-to-day diet at a time. Making swaps that preserve your normal meal sizes, timing and frequencies is a great way to make some improvements. If you are unsure where to start with the diet, then we recommend learning how to set up your diet correctly. If you are still confused after that, then getting coaching may be a good idea!
If you are a coach and you want to learn how to coach people to better nutrition, then we recommend our Nutrition Coaching Certification program.
