Do you easily turn into comforting food as a mean to warm your body and lift your mood? Did you notice most of the food you turn to are carbohydrate loaded? But what carbohydrate really means?

From “carb’ pasta” to “carb’ vegetables”. 

When you do eat carbohydrates – food made from sugars and starches – your insulin level raise to direct the sugar molecule from your bloodstream to your cells, to be used as fuel. Your blood sugar drops as a consequence.

Complex carbohydrates, aka vegetables, legumes and whole grains are composed of fibres and long-strands of simple sugars that slow their digestion down. The resultant glucose drips steadily into the blood. Whereas simple carbohydrates, aka pasta, white bread or white sugar are so quickly digested that they flood your bloodstream with glucose.

When you eat “carb’ pasta”, or simple carbohydrates, your pancreas secretes a lot of insulin in an emergency to maintain safe blood glucose levels. Your blood glucose level comes down as quickly as it went up, leading to reactive hypoglycaemia. So you need more sugar to balance your blood sugar back. This is called cravings. You set your day to blood sugar roller-coaster (red zone on the graph).

Extracted from Functional Nutrition Alliance – “The carbohydrate continuum”