The Paradox of Ending Hunger with Carbohydrates

The Agricultural Revolution created this conventional wisdom of “feeding the hungry” by blasting our world with carbohydrates. Therefore, we have plenty of insulin-producing-food — but little knowledge of how not to abuse our insulin production.

Insulin spikes occur when you eat sugars, simple carbs (ex. white rice, white bread, potatoes), large amounts of complex carbs (ex. brown rice, wheat bread, sweet potatoes), and large amounts of protein (from excess amino acids converting to glucose). Although insulin is fundamental to our health because of its nutrient partitioning abilities, insulin spikes can be bad.

Short term effects of insulin spikes

In the short term, insulin spikes (high sugar level) give us a wave of high energy, followed by a huge crash. Negative short-term effects of the crash are brain fog, decreased physical energy, and food coma.

Long term effects of insulin spikes

Long-term effects of insulin spikes can be explained by taking the negative short-term effects and exaggerating them. Brain fog develops into mental illnesses such as Attention Deficit Disorder, Dementia, and Alzheimer’s Disease. Decreased physical energy and food coma develops into physical illnesses such as obesity-induced cardiovascular problems, accelerated aging, and cancer.

Insulin is like a magic school bus that shuttles nutrients throughout the body. If the school bus is called over and over again within the same day and this is repeated for months and years, we end up abusing the crap out of the bus. Eventually, this beat up school bus is going to have broken windows, ripped up seats, nonfunctioning seat belts, and it’ll barely be able to roll to the bus stop. The bus won’t be able to transport all of the nutrient “passengers”.

Other than the limited ability to transport nutrients, abusing insulin production leads to more negative consequences. Excess sugars in the liver will lead to high triglyceride levels, increasing our chances of developing obesity-induced fatty liver disease. Our bodies will not be able to get the antioxidants it needs to reduce oxidative stress and free radicals — we’ll experience accelerated physical and mental aging. Cancer is a physical form of localized-accelerated-aging, whereas Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease is the mental form.

Part II on the Gut…