CARBS YOU CAN RELY ON

If you're looking to fuel up for an extended period and without the spikes in blood sugar, complex carbohydrates are your man.
These carbs take a long time to digest, and that sluggish pace is what prevents the sudden spike in blood sugar. Complex carbs
are generally stored as glycogen in the muscles—making them available for immediate access when needed. If you're sprinting,
weightlifting, or doing other similar intense and short bouts of exercise, glycogen stores are rapidly converted into glucose for use.
Essentially, complex carbs can do what simple carbs can do—but better. These slowly digested carbohydrates can offer bursts of
glucose when needed rather than in the inefficient and often detrimental way simple carbs expose glucose immediately after being
consumed.

If this wasn’t enough to make you fall in love with complex carbohydrates, consider that these carbs have more nutrients,
vitamins, and fibre on the whole while simple carbs (especially processed ones) are often “empty carbs.” Fibre-rich foods—like
beans, whole-wheat goods, broccoli, other vegetables, and nuts—are essential to feeling good; fibre is described as “your body's
natural scrub brush,” as it takes gunk of out of your digestive tract with it. While white bread is empty calories and does fill you with
sugar and make you fat if eaten constantly, whole-wheat bread brings a lot to the table—so don’t cry at the prospect of removing
bread. Just let better bread be a part of your life. (Good breads usually have three grams of fibre per slice and often have “whole
grain” as the first ingredient on their list.)

THE CANADIAN FOOD GUIDE DRAMA: A HISTORY

Do you remember Canada’s rainbow of nutrition that was divided into food groups and taught in schools everywhere across this
country? Do you remember that it emphasized that a diet high in carbs, low in fats, and including many processed foods was the
best diet? Well, many doctors definitely remember this, as they had been criticizing similar Canadian food guides for misguiding
the public deliberately and having influence from profiting food industry groups since the 1980s. During the ‘80s, ideas about the
benefits of low-fat, high-carb, and processed-food diets were implemented. Since then, we have seen a steady increase in obesity
rates. From 1980 to 2010, obesity tripled for Canadian youth and doubled for Canadian adults. Approximately 25 percent of all
deaths in Canada are caused by heart disease and stroke. This increase in obesity is also estimated to cost the Canadian healthcare
system $8.8 billion dollars by 2021.

These terrible trends were recognized by doctors everywhere; in hopes of getting the government to change the Canadian
food guide, the Canadian Clinicians for Therapeutic Nutrition was formed. Their mission was to get the guide changed to one
that encourages whole-food diets that include healthy fats, decreases the amount of carbs recommended for consumption, and
condemns processed food properly. The old food guide equated fruit juice with juice for example and vilified whole foods with
a lot of saturated fat in them. These ideas, along with many similar misguided notions about simple carbs and saturated fats,
encouraged more processed food to be eaten by the population. In an interview with the CBC, Hasan Hutchison, Health Canada’s
director general for the office of nutrition policy and promotion, stated that “There is strong convincing evidence that one should be
reducing saturated fats and replacing it with unsaturated fats, not with sugars or other simple carbohydrates.”

The Canadian Food Guide has been since changed to resemble what many vocal critics were using as an example of a quality
food guide: Brazil's. Our guide now states that Canadians should cook at home, eat whole foods, avoid processed foods, choose
water as your drink of choice, and be wary of food marketing. Our food guide only changed in 2019, so completely changing the
public perception of what healthy eating is will take time.

After having been misled to think that high-carb diets with lots of simple carbs and processed foods were the way to go, it makes sense
that some Canadians are overcompensating by cutting out carbs completely—but that is the wrong mindset to have. Carbs are friends,
food, and fuel. Without this essential macronutrient giving our brains the energy to function, we may make poor decisions—like not
eating any carbs.