Diabetes disconnect

[dorchadas]

Spoilered for people who don't care due to discussion of eating habits and food:

Comments

[q99]

Yea, this is a known disconnect

[dorchadas]

I've seen it in disconnected sources, but it was really bizarre to have it all put together in the same speech given to the AMA.

Then again, I only went for the extra points on our health tracker program that reduces my insurance costs. I already knew I was going to ignore everything she said about diet. :p

[q99]

I know, it's like the new information hasn't penetrated the whole speech.

[marianlh]

I'm so confused about this point about what is or is not healthy to eat that I've basically just given up.

[q99]

That carb-heavy isn't the best is a relatively new thing, so I think it hasn't sunk in.

A well-mixed diet is still good. And if you want to avoid sugar, a high fat diet is fine- meat is good, just avoid too much processed meat (since that's where the salt and other stuff that is associated with the bad sides of a meat diet actually come from).

[miss_rynn]

I believe it's a chemistry thing. While carbohydrates are sugars, it takes more energy to break the molecules up into smaller, useful sugars than say glucose or sucrose. That's the idea behind "complex carbohydrates" - your body needs to do more work to get the energy out of them. This is also why complex carbohydrates satisfy you for longer than just plain sugar; rather than using the energy from the sugars instantly, a slow and steady breakdown of the carbohydrates will sustain you for longer.

[q99]

Though there's always just doing fats instead.

[dorchadas]

The presenter did make that distinction, and the handouts separated out complex carbs from white rice or candy bars...

...and I was going to go check what exactly was on the handout except I left it at work. (-_-;)

Apparently vegetables count as complex carbs, though, which I didn't previously realize. I thought it was just whole wheat and beans and so on.

[miss_rynn]

Almost every living thing is made up in some way by carbohydrates. Sure, some have more than others, but virtually everything that is edible has some form of sugar or another as part of its make up. Hell, even DNA is made out of sugar.