What makes carbs good

Here are ideas for getting the right carbs in your diet: Start your day with a breakfast of whole-grain cereal and fruit.

Add an extra serving of vegetables to lunch and dinner. For easy between-meal snacks right at your fingertips, keep raw, cut-up vegetables in the refrigerator. Substitute beans as a main course in place of meat once every week. Eat a whole fruit as your dessert. At the USDA Web site, you can enter your age, sex, height, weight, and activity level to find out exactly how many calories in your diet should be from carbohydrates. For example, if you are on a diet of 2, calories, you will want to get 28 grams of dietary fiber.

If you need to lose weight, you should decrease your calories gradually and increase your physical activity. Choose fiber-rich carbohydrate foods and avoid added sugars. Making healthy carbohydrate choices while reducing calories and increasing physical activity is the healthiest path to weight loss. The glycemic index GI of a food indicates how quickly your blood sugar will rise after you eat that food, on a scale of 0 to , according to Better Health.

Foods with a high GI higher than 70 are easily digested and cause a quick rise in blood sugar. Foods with a low GI lower than 55 get digested more slowly and the blood sugar response is flatter. To take this approach one step further, you want to look at the glycemic load of a food. The glycemic load factors in both the glycemic index and how much carbohydrate is in the food, according to the University of Oregon. To determine glycemic load, you multiply a food's glycemic index number by the amount of carbohydrate the food contains per serving, and divide by A low GL is 10 or less; medium is 11 to 19; and 20 or greater is considered high, per the University of Oregon.

A food can be considered high on the GI scale and low in terms of GL. Another good example is watermelon, which has a high GI of 76 but a low GL of only 8, because it contains 11 g of carbohydrates per serving, according to the University of Oregon.

Net carbs are another piece of the carbohydrate conversation. According to the Mayo Clinic , net carbs refers to the number of carbohydrates in a food minus fiber though this term is not regulated by the FDA, so that definition may not be used by every food company and some may also subtract sugar alcohols.

For example, if a food contains 10 g of carbs, including 5 g of fiber, then it contains 5 g of net carbs. Tracking net carbs is the foundation of some low-carb eating plans , such as Atkins or the keto diet. Galvin says you should, however, still aim to reach the recommended fiber intake, which is 28 g per day, according to the USDA. The bottom line: Carbs are not bad for you. Carbohydrates — both simple and complex ones — are part of a healthy diet.

It can promote good bowel health, reduce the risk of constipation, and some forms of fibre have been shown to reduce cholesterol levels. Research shows diets high in fibre are associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. Many people do not get enough fibre. On average, most adults in the UK get about 19g of fibre a day.

Adults are advised to eat an average of 30g a day. Carbohydrate contains fewer calories gram for gram than fat; 4 calories 4kcal per gram for carbs and 9 calories 9kcal per gram for fat. Also, starchy foods can be a good source of fibre, which means they can be a useful part of maintaining a healthy weight. By replacing fatty, sugary foods and drinks with higher fibre starchy foods, it's more likely you'll reduce the number of calories in your diet.

Also, high-fibre foods add bulk to your meal, helping you feel full. While we can survive without sugar, it would be difficult to eliminate carbohydrates entirely from your diet.

Carbohydrates are the body's main source of energy. In their absence, your body will use protein and fat for energy. Healthy sources of carbohydrates, such as higher fibre starchy foods, vegetables, fruit and legumes, are also an important source of nutrients, such as calcium, iron and B vitamins.

Significantly reducing carbohydrates from your diet in the long term could mean you do not get enough nutrients, potentially leading to health problems. Replacing carbohydrates with fats and higher fat sources of protein could increase your intake of saturated fat, which can raise the amount of cholesterol in your blood — a risk factor for heart disease. When you're low on glucose, the body breaks down stored fat to convert it into energy. This process causes a build-up of ketones in the blood, resulting in ketosis.

Try to limit the amount of sugary foods you eat and instead include healthier sources of carbohydrate in your diet, such as wholegrains, potatoes, vegetables, fruit, and legumes. There is evidence that low-carb diets are safe and effective in the short-term for most people with type 2 diabetes. They help with weight loss, diabetes control and reducing risk of complications.

It's recommended you talk to a GP or your care team before starting a low-carb diet as it's not suitable for everyone with type 2 diabetes. Your care team should provide advice on how many carbs you should eat. Diabetes UK also provides a 7-day low-carb meal plan on its website. It's also important to be aware of possible side effects of a low-carb diet, such as low blood sugar hypoglycaemia.

There is no evidence that a low-carb diet is more effective in the long-term for people with type 2 diabetes than other types of diet such as a reduced-calorie diet. There is currently no strong evidence that low-carb diets are effective for people with type 1 diabetes.

While carbohydrates, fat and protein are all sources of energy in the diet, the amount of energy each one provides varies:. In the absence of carbohydrates in the diet, your body will convert protein or other non-carbohydrate substances into glucose, so it's not just carbohydrates that can raise your blood sugar and insulin levels.

So, cutting out carbohydrates or fat does not necessarily mean cutting out calories if you're replacing them with other foods that contain the same number of calories.

But other things make us feel full, such as the type, variety and amount of food we eat, as well as eating behaviour and environmental factors, like serving sizes and the availability of food choices. The sensation of feeling full can also vary from person to person.

Among other things, protein-rich foods can help you feel full, and you should have some beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other protein foods as part of a healthy, balanced diet.

But we should not eat too much protein-rich and starchy foods. Starchy foods should make up about a third of the food we eat, and we all need to eat more fruit and vegetables. Data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, which looks at food consumption in the UK, shows that most of us should also be eating more fibre and starchy foods and fewer sweets, chocolates, biscuits, pastries, cakes and soft drinks that contain added sugar.

Fruit, vegetables, pulses and starchy foods especially higher fibre varieties provide a wider range of nutrients such as vitamins and minerals , which are beneficial to health.

The fibre in these foods can help keep your bowel healthy and adds bulk to your meal, helping you to feel full. To increase the amount of fibre in your diet, aim for at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and veg a day. Go for higher fibre varieties of starchy foods and eat potatoes with the skin on.

Try to aim for an average intake of 30g of fibre a day. The glycaemic index GI is a rating system for foods containing carbohydrate. It shows how quickly each food affects the glucose sugar level in your blood when that food is eaten on its own. Some low-GI foods foods that are absorbed slower by the body , such as wholegrain cereals, fruit, vegetables, beans and lentils, are foods we should eat as part of a healthy, balanced diet.

But GI alone is not a reliable way of deciding whether foods, or combinations of foods, are healthy or will help you lose weight. Although low-GI foods cause your blood sugar level to rise and fall slowly, which may help you to feel fuller for longer, not all low-GI foods are healthy.