Posts

Showing posts from June, 2011

Testing Blood Glucose Levels on a Low Carb Diet – Facts and Myths

Last month Jimmy Moore started testing his blood sugar after eating popular low carb products. Here’s the facts and myths about blood glucose levels when eating low carb. Saturday was the first time I heard about Jimmy Moore testing his blood glucose levels after eating some of his favorite low carb foods. While Twitter is a great place to keep in touch with your favorite bloggers, it’s easy to miss important tweets – unless you think to pull up their most recent posts. While most low carbers stop by Jimmy's blog every day or two, I quit doing that about a year ago when videos became the norm there. At that time, I didn't have a high-speed internet connection, so wasn't getting anything out of that blog. Saturday, I just happened to be reading the tweets of the people I follow on Twitter when Jimmy announced his blood sugar testing results from eating Julian Bakery’s CarbSmart breads was in. Since I now have high-speed access, I clicked on the link he provided, and began ...

Low Carb Veggies, Fruits, and Pesticides

Image
The Environmental Working Group released their latest “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” listing for pesticide contamination today. So how did low carb veggies and fruits do? Avacados make a great low-pesticide choice Non-starchy vegetables and low-glycemic fruits are the mainstay of a healthy, low carb diet. High in fiber and nutrients, and low in carbohydrates and calories, they help to keep blood glucose levels from spiking too high. However, environmental contaminants like PCBs, arsenic, dioxin, cadmium, bisphenol A, and mercury can interfere with the body’s metabolic processes. A low carb diet is designed to lower fasting and post-meal insulin levels, allowing the body to have ready access to its fat stores. But pesticides (including herbicides and insecticides) can increase or impair insulin secretion, or damage beta cells themselves. While most organic vs. non-organic arguments stem from what feeding your family organic vegetables would cost, many scientific studies clearly show envir...

Peas Are Not Evil!!!

I stopped by The Lighter Side of Low Carb’s Facebook fan page the other day, and noticed that Cleo had posted a picture showing what her personal USDA plate looks like. She had 3 strips of bacon, an egg, and 3 peas smiling up from the plate. While most of the comments shared how they would personally alter the foods in the graphic (I would have added another egg and more peas, myself), the one comment that caught my attention said - “Peas are evil.” There seems to be a common tendency within the low carb community to demonize foods not listed on the Atkins 2002 Induction menu chart. But I don’t know how or when that ever got started. I took a quick trip back to 1970 (one of the two Atkins’ books that survived the flea bombs that destroyed almost everything I owned last year), but Dr. Atkins’ advice didn't even insinuate that peas are evil. He said: “…additions are interchangeable and flexible. You can make any of these additions any week that you choose. I could be very arbitrary ...