What Is A Bad Carb?

by Babs 'O' Reilly
(Miami Beach, Florida, USA)

Working on one of those new low carb diet plans? Trying to figure out which carbs are good guys and which ones are bad? You're not alone.

In fact, almost anyone who has tried a low carb diet plan has tried to decide which are the right kinds of carbs to eat and which naughty ones have to be placed in the time out chair for the duration of the diet. So, what exactly is a bad carb?

A bad carbohydrate is one that is highly processed or extensively refined by man or machines. In most cases, they have been so extensively handled that all of the nutrients have literally been sucked out of them.

In fact, you may even find in some cases that nutrients were reinjected into them because they had been so depleted. Look around the grocery store – see anything with a “Fortified” label?

That means those nutrients were added back in after they were taken out.

So, why would anyone turn these carbohydrates against their good nature? More often than not good carbs go bad so companies can easily transport them across the company to grocery stores like yours.

In other cases, of course, the explanation is not quite so easy. Bad carbs are really tasty. White sugar fits into many of the foods that we call bad carbs, and how many people do you know that don't like baked goods that contain the evils of white sugar?

But, why are bad carbs so bad? There are a couple of reasons really. First, your body simply doesn't handle them well.

The more highly processed a food, the less your body is able to digest it properly, leading to all sorts of health problems, not the least of which is weight gain. Bad carbs change the levels of hormones in your body.

Your insulin production begins to fluctuate, you don't have the energy level that you should, and your body just starts converting things to fat right and left.

The real problem here is that these bad carbs are empty foods. They simply increase your hunger levels, leading to more eating which leads to more weight gain.

Need some examples? The cookies in your cookie jar are a great one. Sodas are another. Snack foods, candy, and any baked good are bad carbs.

White bread and pasta fit into that category as well. If you're a lover of bad carbs like these, you may have a rough time with that low carb diet.

Lots of dieters, though, report success and a greatly minimized craving level for the bad guys, so hang in there.

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What Is A Bad Carb?

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