[Kevin]
Hello, and welcome back to Nutrition for Noobs. I'm Kevin.

[Michelle]
I'm Michelle.

[Kevin]
And this is the podcast where you can learn all about nutrition. So, how are you doing, Michelle?

[Michelle]
I'm doing great. I'm feeling refreshed. I had a good night's sleep.

I had delicious avocado toast, which I know you love.

[Kevin]
When it's done well. When it's done well.

[Michelle]
I do it amazing.

[Kevin]
I'm sure you do. I'm sure it's wonderful.

[Michelle]
Am I a hipster now? Is that your assessment?

[Kevin]
I guess so. Yeah.

[Michelle]
I'm okay with that.

[Kevin]
You need to wear like a lump, the checkered shirt, the plaid checkered shirt. And you need to work on your beard a whole lot.

[Michelle]
I don't know. The plaid shirts in small town Ontario in the 80s, I think they were overdone.

[Kevin]
Exactly. But now that's the hipster with the suspenders and the wild crazy beard. You know, you too can be a hipster.

I don't know what the female hipster look is. I'm sure there's a female hipster without the beard.

[Michelle]
There's usually a hat involved.

[Kevin]
Yeah, yeah. There's always a hat. There's always a hat.

[Michelle]
I think I might do that. I think I might do hats and linen and not cut my hair and stuff when I retire. That sounds like a plan.

[Kevin]
Go for it. And we've just alienated every single hipster listener that we have. So, I'm sorry.

[Michelle]
We love hipsters. Hey, I'm admiring the culture. I'm not making fun of it at all.

[Kevin]
They look pretty happy. But that's okay. I'm making fun of it.

So, only half of the hipsters will leave. The ones who like Michelle. The ones who like me.

[Michelle]
All right. What are we going to talk about today, Kev?

[Kevin]
What are we going to talk about today? Well, we're going to talk about a question that I have long had. And this was actually one of the questions when you and I were first talking about this podcast, this was one of the core questions that I had that always confused me.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
And I'm kind of surprised that we haven't gotten to it until this point, but better late than never. So, this question is all about carbs. And I guess I get confused because they've always been positioned as like the enemy.

[Michelle]
Oh, they're always the elephant in the room.

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly. And not a good elephant either. Because an elephant has way too many carbs.

But, you know, there's so many diets. There are so many diets out there that tell you to cut down carbs or cut them out entirely and just eat protein or just eat fat and all that. And we've already had a protein episode.

We've already had a fat episode. So, we know where you stand on fat and where I now stand on fat.

[Michelle]
Yeah, we need to do all of the major macronutrients. Absolutely. We're a nutrition podcast.

[Kevin]
So, I want to understand a little bit more about carbs. And most specifically, like, are they actually the supervillain that they're made out to be in the nutrition world?

[Michelle]
Okay. Well, let's dive in. They absolutely are not a supervillain.

The carbohydrate is like the misunderstood child in the family.

[Kevin]
Okay, I can relate to that.

[Michelle]
And popular diet culture, you know, really popularized by Robert Atkins and the Atkins diet, that we needed to remove carbohydrates from our diet and increase our protein and fat. And that was going to solve all of our problems. And over history since then, it just keeps changing form.

It was the Atkins diet became the South Beach diet, became the paleo diet, became the ketogenic diet. They're all sort of, there's differences between them for sure. But they really do, at the end of the day, in terms of the overall principles, end up being the same diet with a different cover.

[Kevin]
Right, exactly.

[Michelle]
Because they usually result in very low carbohydrates, very high fat and high protein. And the trouble with looking at nutrition that way is that you start to alienate all of your nutrient density sources and the preferred fuel sources of the human body, of what we actually burn as our preferred fuel. So let me break, it's not very complicated, but I can break this down.

Please do. And make it simple for people because really, you know, remember I said at the very beginning, episode one or two, that it's really important to be willing to have your mind changed.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
And when something is so pervasive in the media, it becomes very difficult to see it a different way. Not because you're not open to the truth, but because it becomes very difficult for people to believe a different view when what they hear everywhere else is completely different. Absolutely.

What they see on the front of packages, on the front of magazines, what they see celebrities doing on Instagram and Twitter.

[Kevin]
It's been drilled into us since we were born practically. Right.

[Michelle]
And, you know, one of my icons in this space, Kevin, is a really prolific integrative medicine doctor called Dr. John McDougall. And he actually promotes the starch diet.

[Kevin]
It sounds heretical.

[Michelle]
And he uses that terminology intentionally to disarm people and to be sensational. It's kind of like using marketing to beat the low carbohydrate, no carbohydrate trend at their own game. He's really about healthy whole food, but he uses the starch diet as the giant words on his book and on his talks to help people understand carbohydrates are the most valuable source of food energy in the human diet.

[Kevin]
Oh, wow. Okay.

[Michelle]
So we talked about in a previous episode how humans, our anatomy and physiology is much more in line with an herbivore than a carnivore because of the length of our digestive tract, the amylase that's in our mouth, the mitochondria, and what are our preferred source of our brain for fuel and how we digest all of those things. So we are carbohydrate burning organisms. It is our body's preferred fuel.

Yes, we are complex adaptive organisms. We do have the ability to revert to other fuel sources when we need to in times of scarcity and fight or flight. But that is not supposed to be our general daily operating system.

[Kevin]
It's not the optimal source.

[Michelle]
Right. You do not want to be in a state of ketosis all the time because having all of those ketone bodies floating around in your body actually start to do damage to organs and tissues. And quite frankly, they decrease longevity in the long term.

I'll get to that in a minute. So let's just focus on the fact that carbohydrates are our preferred fuel for our body. They are the most valuable source of our food energy.

It is the preferred fuel for our brain. It is the preferred fuel for our nervous system. And it is the preferred fuel for our red blood cells.

So our very mitochondria, of which there is not just one, there are potentially dozens or more in every cell, burn carbohydrates for fuel.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
So carbohydrate-rich whole plant foods, when they're part of our diet then, they help to, because it's used for all those things, they help to reduce hunger. They help to control our blood glucose. They control our insulin metabolism.

They regulate cholesterol and triglyceride levels. And the other great thing is that healthy carbohydrate foods are bountiful in non-digestible fibers. And, you know, we can only get this fiber from carbohydrate-rich plant foods.

And those are so important to maintain a healthy GI tract because fiber is the fuel for our gut microbes.

[Kevin]
Yes, yes.

[Michelle]
Right? And we've talked numerous times about how important our microbiome is and those gut microbes, right?

[Kevin]
Keep your microbiome happy.

[Michelle]
Yes, we do not want to minimize our intake of fuel for those microbes or the whole thing is not going to hang together, right?

[Kevin]
Don't starve those little microbiomes. Yeah.

[Michelle]
So carb-rich plants are also clean-burning fuels. The sugars in our, the starch in our carbohydrate-rich whole plant foods are clean-burning fuels and they leave only carbon dioxide and water as waste.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Which are very easily and safely excreted by the lungs and the kidneys. In contrast, if we're trying to get our fuel from other food sources, like animal-based foods that are, you know, rich in protein and fats, those are actually more dirty fuel, if you want to think about clean-burning fuel and dirty fuel.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Because that form of fuel leaves urea, ketones, uric acid, and other metabolic problems that will stress our liver. And over time, it will build up to disease-producing levels and can result in things like over the longer term of gout, of kidney stones, other diseases. There's been many, many studies published, you know, indicating in terms of diet and longevity that ketogenic diets in general decrease lifespan and increase cause of all-cause mortality, they call it, between something like 8 to 10 years.

So all-cause mortality means you have a greater chance of dying of anything.

[Kevin]
Right. That's optimistic. Anything at all.

[Michelle]
Death from any cause.

[Kevin]
Your system is weakened, basically.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
Okay. Wow. All to lose a few pounds.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So we're not here to debate plant-based diets versus ketogenic diets, but I have to just sort of mention that you can't talk about carbohydrates without addressing that. Right.

Because it's a very big part of the picture because a lot of people have this misconception, carbohydrates bad, protein good. Right? Exactly.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
And one of the famous things that Dr. John McDougall says about this and about why people will gravitate towards those other approaches is that he says people love to be told good news about their bad habits.

[Kevin]
Of course. Of course. Eat all the steak you want and have all the butter-soaked vegetables you want and just stay away from the baked potatoes and you'll be fine.

[Michelle]
Right. And I think one of the major successes that people see when they take a low-carbohydrate approach isn't because of the low-carbohydrate necessarily. It's because the one thing all of these diet perspectives have in common, the one thing everybody agrees on is that we need to eat less processed and ultra-processed food.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
And they happen to be one of the major sources of carbohydrate in the standard American diet. Right. But when we talk about a carbohydrate-rich diet, we're not talking about ultra-processed foods.

We're talking about whole foods, right?

[Kevin]
We're not talking about Twinkies here.

[Michelle]
Right. So where people kind of get their understanding on carbohydrates wrong is that they focus on the words simple and complex when they really should be talking about healthy and unhealthy.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Healthy and unrefined, right? So let's break this down for a second.

[Kevin]
Yes, please do.

[Michelle]
So whether a carbohydrate is simple or complex actually has to do with its molecular structure. It doesn't actually have anything to do whether it's healthful or not. So let me give you a couple of examples.

So just from a little bit of science piece, a simple carbohydrate contains one to two molecules of sugar versus a complex carbohydrate contains three or more molecules of sugar. Okay. But examples of simple carbohydrates is whole fruits and vegetables, but it also includes refined sweeteners, sweetened products, and kind of junk food sugar, simple sugar type of products.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
But whole fruits and vegetables are also simple carbs, and those are great. Okay. Those are fantastic.

Very fiber-rich. Lots of other good things about them. No fiber in the refined foods and sweetened products and refined sweeteners, right?

Complex carbohydrates with a more complex molecular structure of sugars applies to whole grains, starchy vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds, but it can also include flours and starches that are made from those foods, such as corn starch and potato starch.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
So they may still be complex in their molecular sugar, but it doesn't mean that those flours and starches are healthy. Get what I'm saying? Right.

So healthfulness is more accurately differentiated between refined and unrefined. And I think that makes it easier.

[Kevin]
Of course.

[Michelle]
I think even the average person or Canadian nowadays is, if they aren't already, they are becoming increasingly educated on what a refined grain is and an unrefined grain or a refined food and an unrefined food, right? So an unrefined carbohydrate can be either, which is the good kind.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
Unrefined is the good kind.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
Unrefined may be either simple or complex. So it may include simple carbohydrates like fruit. Even some dried fruit can be considered healthy in small amounts if it's in your trail mix or whatever, along with other things, as long as you're not like chowing a Costco-sized bag of it.

[Kevin]
I hope not. You have other problems then as well.

[Michelle]
And non-starchy vegetables. And then unrefined carbohydrates that would be considered complex are things like barley, quinoa, sweet potatoes, and beans, right? And then refined carbohydrates that we want to have less of in our diet if we're consuming healthy whole foods are anything that are made from processed grains or processed starch and starchy foods with all of the whites, right?

White flour, corn starch, white sugars, processed sweeteners, even brown sugar, unfortunately. Even brown sugar is actually a refined.

[Kevin]
It's just white sugar with some molasses added to it. Yeah.

[Michelle]
We have this misconception that brown sugar is healthier, but it's not. And refined carbohydrates also may be simple, like soda, candy, and jam, or they may be complex because many of our breads and pastas that are very, very heavily refined and made with white flour are still considered a complex carbohydrate. So if we just move to more real and less refined, then we'll do better.

[Kevin]
So can I ask just more out of curiosity? So I understand we should be talking refined versus unrefined, but just biologically, what is the difference or is there a significant difference between simple and complex, whether it's the healthy kind or the unhealthy? Does that go back to the glycemic index?

[Michelle]
Yeah. Yeah, they're quick-burning.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
The simple carbs are quick-burning because there's only one to two molecules of sugar. It breaks down very quickly. Okay.

And they take a little bit longer to digest when they're more complex, and they're more satiating when they're more complex.

[Kevin]
They keep you fuller for longer.

[Michelle]
And usually when it comes to healthy whole foods, the more complex forms actually have more fiber.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
And that's one of the reasons as well. Yeah. So I don't by any stretch consider myself an expert that has placed a lot of emphasis on diabetes, but diabetes would be a situation if you were trying to do a healthier path using more whole plant foods to manage.

Or in the case of type 2 diabetes, there are many integrative nutrition and medicine professionals that can assist with type 2 diabetes reversal. Then they would have to pay very close attention to simple versus complex, particularly at the beginning until they can get their insulin under control, right?

[Kevin]
Right. Because the simple can burn very quickly, which can then…

[Michelle]
Because then it matters more to them. But to the average healthy person that isn't diabetic, then they're fine having unrefined carbohydrate sources that are also simple carbs. But the one thing I want to say is I don't want to say that if you are diabetic or pre-diabetic, that you can't still enjoy simple and refined carbohydrates.

Because in this whole carbohydrate problem of misunderstanding, there has also developed this belief that if you're diabetic, you can't eat fruit. And that's absolutely not true. Where I'd like to point listeners to to learn more about that, because that's not what this podcast episode is about, there's an incredible, incredible book.

And they have a podcast and they have a program called Mastering Diabetes. And their website is masteringdiabetes.org. And Mastering Diabetes is Dr. Cyrus Chambada, PhD, and Robbie Barbaro. And they have a wealth of information, and there's tons of information on YouTube. And they themselves have type 1 diabetes. But Cyrus in particular is a PhD in molecular biology and nutrition.

So he's really, really very articulate on this subject, far more than I can be. And that's my go-to source when I want to understand something, like if I'm dealing with the diabetes question. But there's nothing that I can do that's better than what these guys are already doing and the content they already have out there.

[Kevin]
Right, just go to the source, absolutely.

[Michelle]
Yeah, yeah. So again, I just mentioned the fruit thing because that can be a big deal. And imagine somebody that thinks, oh, I can't, you know, I'm still having trouble understanding this.

And I'm going to avoid fruit because a fruit's a simple carbohydrate because it's fast burning. They're missing out on so many, you know, beneficial metabolites and antioxidant compounds. And there's great fiber and just delicious flavor and incredible nutrition to add to your diet.

So nobody needs to be afraid of fruit.

[Kevin]
Right, exactly. Just educate yourself and understand how it fits into your diet.

[Michelle]
Yeah, make fruit your friend. Make carbohydrates your friend. So there's a huge difference between, you know, making yourself a beautiful Buddha bowl that contains some form of whole grain, like some brown rice and some quinoa on the bottom.

And maybe you roast some potatoes, some sweet potato, even some roasted white potato. That's another thing that Dr. McDougall would say is he would say there's nothing wrong with the potato, like eat the potato. There's a lot of nutrition to be had.

Just, you know, obviously there's going to be more complexity and more fiber out of like a purple potato or a sweet potato. They're actually more a different type of legume. They're not even in the same family as the white potato.

They just all happen to be tubers.

[Kevin]
Oh, really? Oh, okay.

[Michelle]
But don't be afraid of the white potato.

[Kevin]
Fear not, potato.

[Michelle]
Yeah, the problem comes when you deep fry it in all kinds of nasty grease.

[Kevin]
Of course, or cover it with sour cream and bacon bits.

[Michelle]
Yeah, so don't blame the potato for all the stuff you put on it, right?

[Kevin]
Yeah.

[Michelle]
Yeah, so you can have like Buddha bowls, like I said, is full of some brown rice, some quinoa, some roast potato. And then you cover that with a lot of delicious like healthy whole greens and sprouts and chop up, I don't know, some tomato and some peppers and some slices of avocado and everything. When you do that, you are having such incredible nutrient density and you can count all of the different plant types that you're having.

They say that we should have, you know, if we want to be like our gut healthier ancestors, like 30 different plant species a day in order to have that biodiversity. So you can get so many different, some nuts and some seeds on there. That entire bowl, Kevin, would be carbohydrates.

Right? But it would also be protein. It would also be fat.

It would also be all of our micronutrients. Right? So I come back to thinking, stop thinking about macronutrients and micronutrients and just think about whole food and think about variety and think about nutrient density.

If we worry about health, like quality of food and nutrient density, the nutrients are going to take care of themselves.

[Kevin]
Right. And I think that you've stated in a previous episode, I forget which one, about just stop worrying about counting calories.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
So long as you are eating whole foods and nutritious, good quality foods, you're pretty much going to be fine because it's going to naturally fill you up and it's going to naturally sate you and you're going to get what you need.

[Michelle]
Right on. Absolutely. Yeah.

And it takes so much pressure off. The other problem with some of these carbohydrate restricting approaches, it's actually harder to eat. You know, you end up opening the fridge or the cupboard or going to the grocery store or standing in a restaurant looking at a menu and the first thing you have to file your mind through are all the things you can't have.

So the more people that understand this and get that information out there, it not only makes eating easier, it will make you healthier. And like I said, often if trying some of those approaches bring people a little bit closer to reducing the processed foods in their diet, they're going to get short-term gains. They're going to get some short-term improvement with their blood glucose and their insulin and all of those cholesterol, all those markers in the short term.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
But it's not because they added the fat and the protein. It's because they removed the processed foods.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
Right? And they're not actually getting nutritionally healthier.

[Kevin]
Right? Right. And long-term, they're probably doing more damage.

[Michelle]
I've had people – I've had a couple people approach me who figured this out because – here I say I'm not going to talk about a ketogenic diet and here I am. It's kind of triggering for me. I can't help it.

I've had a couple people come to me and say I've been doing the ketogenic diet for I don't know how many months and they come and start asking me about my Flourish program because they developed extremely bad breath, extremely bad body odor, and their hair started to fall out.

[Kevin]
Oh, my gosh. Wow.

[Michelle]
Which is – like look it up. This is very, very common. This is the result of having that massive flood of ketone bodies, uric acid, and all of those other downstream impacts of being in a state of ketosis that long.

It's just not good for us.

[Kevin]
We're not made for it.

[Michelle]
Right. Right. It's not a long-term solution.

It's a fight or flight mechanism.

[Kevin]
Gotcha.

[Michelle]
And it's a starvation adaptation for us to find alternate sources of fuel until we can find our preferred fuel.

[Kevin]
Something – yeah.

[Michelle]
Yeah, so anyway, okay, so enough about that. Let's talk about, since we wanted to go here, let's talk about how much carbohydrate should be in our diet.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Does that sound good?

[Kevin]
Absolutely.

[Michelle]
Okay.

[Kevin]
So Michelle, how much carbohydrate should be in our diet?

[Michelle]
Well, Kevin, I'm glad you asked me that question. So there's two major sort of sources that drive dietary recommendations that other nations adapt into their food guides. And World Health Organization recommends anywhere from 55 to 75% of calories should come from carbohydrates, but no more than 10% from free sugars.

[Kevin]
Are free sugars simple?

[Michelle]
So any sugar that you add to things.

[Kevin]
Oh, okay, okay, okay.

[Michelle]
Yeah. And the Institute of Medicine, the IOM, is another body that puts their opinion out there on scientific literature. They're a little bit different, but very similar.

So instead of 55 to 75%, they say 45 to 65%. It's still a majority of your plate, right? And if you picture, and thank goodness, Canada's food guide doesn't refer to servings anymore.

It refers to proportions, not portions. If you visualize that plate in your head and you see 50% fruits and vegetables, one quarter is quality protein sources, one quarter quality grains, about 75, 65% of your plate at that point is carbohydrate or containing high carbohydrate. The main...

At the end of the day, you know, who cares about splitting hairs between these small percentage differences? They both recommend that the main source of your carbohydrates should be from whole healthy plant foods, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and nuts and seeds. And oops, my dog is sitting with me and he's going to jump down.

There we go.

[Kevin]
It's the unofficial co-host of the mascot of Nutrition for News.

[Michelle]
He is a co-host every single episode in case people didn't know that.

[Kevin]
He's a very quiet dog. Oh, not anymore.

[Michelle]
Yeah, yeah. Shout out to Otis. Exactly.

Thanks Otis for joining us today. Best dog ever.

[Kevin]
So I'm just wondering, in the recommendations, is there any recommended breakdown between simple versus complex or does it just not really matter?

[Michelle]
They don't address it because they say they should come from whole plant foods.

[Kevin]
Okay. So it doesn't... Okay.

[Michelle]
So whole plant foods are really about unrefined.

[Kevin]
Right. Exactly. Exactly.

But then further definition of that between simple and complex, just don't worry about it.

[Michelle]
Nope. They say a variety of sources from whole plant foods. Okay.

[Kevin]
Yeah. Perfect.

[Michelle]
Which is what I say. So I'm quite happy with that recommendation.

[Kevin]
So it doesn't matter basically. Yeah. As long as it's natural sources and whole grains, then you're good.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So they both say that if you are on the lower intake range, let's say 45 to 55% of your diet is from good sources of carbohydrate, then you will meet adequate energy needs as well as adequate fiber, minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and phytochemicals. But they caution that carbohydrate intake below 45% of your total energy intake, corresponding fat and protein intakes will become too excessive and will increase your chronic disease risk, which is basically what I just said, right, about my concern about a ketogenic diet.

[Kevin]
Okay. Okay.

[Michelle]
Right? A low carbohydrate or any, any one of the low carbohydrate diets.

[Kevin]
So basically if you go below 45%, they don't recommend that because there's risks. Okay.

[Michelle]
Yeah. When you start to restrict your carbohydrate intake and your carbohydrate intake is below 45%, then you are going to be too high in fat and protein intake. And there will be too much in there for your kidneys and your liver and other things to deal with.

[Kevin]
Right? You're going to start suffering some of the byproducts of that. Okay.

[Michelle]
Interesting. And just in terms of our brain, because it is our preferred fuel for our brain, the current recommended daily allowance or the RDA for carbohydrate intake for both children and adults based on minimum average glucose requirement for the brain is 130 grams per day. Now I'm not suggesting anybody start counting that.

Nobody should. You should just focus on what you eat. But that's a 130 grams is, is quite a, a big number, right?

Especially if you are a person who's counting things and you're going to be trying to do your carbohydrate restriction. And it just goes to show you that's the amount that our brain requires, right? Keep in mind RDAs of anything are, when you see an RDA for vitamin C and an RDA for that RDAs are not optimum.

[Kevin]
It's a minimum.

[Michelle]
RDAs are the minimum amount that you need to not get sick.

[Kevin]
Right, right.

[Michelle]
It's not necessarily the amount for optimal health. So that's the minimum amount. So it just goes to, I guess, put a punctuation mark on this idea that we need, our body is fueled by carbohydrates.

Our brain really needs it. And if you don't get enough, then your brain is not going to work optimally. You're not going, you're thinking.

[Kevin]
I'm going to go eat some carbohydrates then, right now.

[Michelle]
You're going to get brain fog. Well, think about, do you remember Kevin, do you remember being like a university student who had to spend hours and hours in the library or laid up at night studying and researching something and you constantly got the munchies?

[Kevin]
Yep. Yep.

[Michelle]
Yeah. That's because your brain was burning more carbohydrates.

[Kevin]
Okay, you use your brain more, in which case it's saying, hey, I'm hungry for what I want to eat.

[Michelle]
You want me to keep going for you? You need to give me more fuel.

[Kevin]
Okay. Not just coffee, the way I fueled my brain. I now understand my marks in university.

That explains a lot.

[Michelle]
So let me just kind of wrap all this up in a nice bow for everyone.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
So, because if anyone is just sitting there a little mystified, listening to this and had a different perception of carbohydrates.

[Kevin]
You've been lied to all of your life. There's the answer right there.

[Michelle]
I hate to tell you, marketing is lying to you all the time.

[Kevin]
Marketing lies to people, no.

[Michelle]
So low-carb, bad, high-carb, good, if it's quality carb, right? Right. Unrefined carbohydrate sources provide the most efficient and safe burning energy for the body, and they also confer the most protection of nutrient density from diseases.

So I'm just going to talk about how it breaks down a bit, just in case people didn't really get my emphasis on this point. Protein can be used for fuel, but if it's used for fuel, then the kidneys first have to break it down into glucose, and then the over-consumed part gets stored as fat, and then that gives additional burden to the kidneys. We are designed, we can use fat for fuel, but over long periods, it will accumulate these ketone bodies, which cause a plethora of dangerous issues that can lead to ketoacidosis and other things, and that's when people start to see their hair fall out and stuff.

The only other possible fuel source, which we already kind of dispelled in our last podcast episode, is alcohol.

[Kevin]
If you're relying on alcohol as your main source of fuel, then you have other problems.

[Michelle]
In large quantities, it's toxic to the liver, the pancreas, the brain, and most of your relationships.

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly. Not recommended at all.

[Michelle]
So if you didn't believe all of this, then just look at the healthiest, longest-living people on the planet. The longest-living people on the planet, and I'm not just talking about the blue zones, I'm also talking about large studies like the Adventist Health Study 2. There are many of these larger population studies that are being done across sections of the planet.

The healthiest, longest-living populations have a plant-centered dietary approach that is very rich in unrefined carbohydrates and contains less than 10% total animal-based foods. So low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets are absolutely proven in systemic literature reviews to increase chronic disease and death by any cause, or what we call all-cause mortality. The end.

[Kevin]
So basically, to sum up the entire podcast, this episode, basically, don't be afraid of carbs.

[Michelle]
Don't be afraid of carbs.

[Kevin]
They're not your enemy, you've been lied to all of your life, eat the red pill from Morpheus and you shall see the truth, and you'll see that carbs aren't your enemies, carbs, your body actually needs them, and you just need to look at the quality of carbs and make sure you're looking at unrefined carbs.

[Michelle]
That's right.

[Kevin]
And life is good. That's easy, I love it. Why didn't you just start with that?

[Michelle]
So basically, buy carbohydrates in unrefined form, look at ingredient lists and make sure that they are unrefined in the ingredient list as much as possible. It's not to say that you can't, you know, make a sandwich with some sandwich bread, but choose your choice of sandwich bread a little bit differently. And if the first ingredient is enriched flour, then maybe choose one that has more whole grains in it.

Do you know what I'm saying? So I'm not saying that everybody has to eat millet and quinoa and brown rice and, you know, never have a bagel or a croissant or anything again. That's not what we're saying.

We're just saying make a majority of your diet.

[Kevin]
Just be more aware.

[Michelle]
If you can cut out all those things to have at you, that's fantastic. Or maybe there's a use for that bread maker after all.

[Kevin]
No, let's not bring up bread. Let's not encourage people to buy any more bread makers. We've been through that in the early aughts.

We don't need to revisit that trend, please.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So basically, if it's whole, right, if it if it if it if it's whole and we didn't do something to it, it's going to be a healthier source.

[Kevin]
Right. OK. That makes sense.

I that makes perfect sense. And I thank you for for breaking this down. But I'm bummed.

[Michelle]
I know it doesn't sound like it should be. It should be a lengthy podcast topic, but I feel like I have some convincing to do. Well, it's one of those.

[Kevin]
I mean, first off, it's it's sort of one of the holy trinity of nutrition, fats, protein and carbs. And, you know, I think as as you pointed out, there's been a lot there's a lot of talk out there about carbs and there's a lot of misinformation and carbs have always been presented as this horrible thing and you need to cut them down and cut them out and blah, blah, blah. And it's really a matter of rethinking them, just like you presented.

We need to rethink protein. We need to rethink fat. So we need to rethink carb and say, no, carbs aren't completely evil.

We just need to be smart about it and look at how our body needs them and look at what carbs are out there. Take out the junk. Don't eat as many of the refined carbs and try to get more of the unrefined carbs and your body will be happy and healthy.

[Michelle]
Mm hmm. Yeah, exactly.

[Kevin]
Or happier and healthier.

[Michelle]
Exactly. And that's why I wanted to help the listeners understand what does our body actually burn as its as its preferred fuel source? Like just because your body can do stuff for it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean it's natural.

It's a natural state. Right.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
Yeah. Like just because I can do certain things doesn't mean I should.

[Kevin]
Exactly. Yes. We can do a lot with our body, but that doesn't mean that we should be doing a lot with our bodies.

[Michelle]
Okay. We better stop that right there because this could go south really quickly.

[Kevin]
On to a nice G-rated dad joke. Okay. On to something nice and family friendly.

Okay.

[Michelle]
I feel like we haven't talked. We haven't recorded and we haven't talked in so long. Yes.

I want a joke. I want a dad joke.

[Kevin]
You've missed. Okay. This is, I hope it's not triggering for you.

[Michelle]
Oh dear. Okay.

[Kevin]
But you will understand that, you know, jokes follow the popular culture. So jokes assume that carbs are bad.

[Michelle]
Okay. Way to undo everything I just said, Kevin.

[Kevin]
Exactly. Exactly. Well, I'm also saying this for our audience.

Okay. Don't believe this joke. It's a joke.

[Michelle]
All right.

[Kevin]
My doctor told me that I need to try a low carb diet. He put me on six weeks of bread rest.

[Michelle]
The views and opinions expressed in Kevin's joke do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Michelle Pierce Hamilton.

[Kevin]
The views of anyone. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

These are my jokes and I have to take full responsibility for them. Well, thank you, Michelle. I appreciate this as always for raising the veil about carbs and for helping us understand the truth about how carbs really are.

I might have to, I don't know. I'm thinking I might have to change my closer from eat your greens to like eat your carbs. I don't know.

[Michelle]
I don't know. That's controversial right there.

[Kevin]
I know. I know. Can I change my tagline?

I don't know. Well, anyways, thank you, Michelle. This has been very insightful.

[Michelle]
Two cups of greens per day is still incredibly important.

[Kevin]
Okay. Okay, good. So until next time, this is Kevin saying, eat your greens and maybe some carbs too.

[Michelle]
And this is Michelle saying, always be real, everyone.

[Kevin]
This has been Nutrition for Noobs. We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs@gmail.com.

That's the letter N, the number 4, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favourite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends.

That's the best way to spread the word. We'll see you next time with another interesting topic.