My dislike of many starchy carbs like bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, and breakfast cereals is based on a body of evidence that suggests that the glut of insulin that the body produces on eating them can speed our path to conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.
And, despite all this talk about their being good for you, the fact remains that carbs leave a lot to be desired on the nutrition front, too. Individuals often spring to the defense of starchy foods on the basis that some supposedly healthy populations eat a lot of them, proving such foods can't be unhealthy. The argument usually goes along the lines of: "If starchy foods are so bad, how come the Mediterranean/Chinese/French diet which is full of pasta, rice, and French bread is so healthy?" First, I think that we sometimes have a very stereotypical image of some traditional diets. The French do eat French bread, but most of their diet is actually made up of quite natural, unprocessed foods. The same is true of the Italians who, when they eat pasta, actually tend to eat it as a starter rather than as a main course.
And while the Chinese do eat rice, they eat a lot of other foods too, including vegetables, fish, and meat. I haven't been able to find any good data on the overall glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) of the diets of these or other nations. If we had some, maybe we'd see that the stereotypical view we have of their diets is far from accurate. But even if it's true that these nations do eat a stack of starch and at the same time enjoy good health and longevity, what this really tells us may not be obvious. When examining the effects of food on health, it's important to isolate the factor you want to assess and keep, wherever possible, everything else the same. One way of doing this is to look within a population to see what relationships there are between the diet and the health of the individuals.
The fact is that health and longevity are the products of a number of different factors, and some of the negative influences involved may be offset by more positive ones. For instance, perhaps rice does make up a fair proportion of the Chinese diet, but maybe the Chinese are generally an active bunch, and this may be helping to protect them against any damage that rice might otherwise wreak in the body. The studies that have been done in the area show quite compelling evidence that we eat a high GI/GL diet at our peril. Just last month, we saw the publication of two studies, which have linked higher carb consumption with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Shortly after I had written about these studies on my blog, one commentator claimed that high GI foods can't be bad for us because the Japanese eat rice and are healthy. The reality is that such a simplistic deduction is no more scientific than claiming that because your grandpa Joe smoked and lived to be 100, smoking cannot be harmful to health.
Dr. John Briffa is a London-based doctor and author with an interest in nutrition and natural medicine.
Dr. Briffa's website
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