Page 52 - Phonebox Magazine September 2014

Balancing those scales
Food: it’s necessary; it’s delicious; and it’s confusing! There are so many conflicting sources of information on what you should
and shouldn’t eat to stay healthy. And what is it with the stuff that tastes so good being bad for you, and the stuff you can take or leave (or even thoroughly dislike) being so good for you? Just think how you feel after a day where you’ve had too many burgers or cake, and little or no vegetables or water. Tired? Hungry? Grumpy? Foggy-brained? There’s no doubt about it: what you eat can help promote good health or it can contribute to all sorts of irritating little issues you could do without...
...like tiredness and sugar cravings. I reckon there are very few of us who don’t suffer with lack of energy, food cravings or an inability to think straight from time to time. It’s not exactly ill health is it? But it interferes with your ability to function, and who wouldn’t rather feel full of energy, free of cravings for yet more cake, and mentally sharp?
These ‘symptoms’ are likely to be linked to your body’s attempts to keep your blood sugar (or glucose) levels stable, because the
body can’t function optimally when levels are too high or too low. Your body needs glucose for fuel, and this is what carbohydrates have in them. Carbohydrates: bread and potatoes right? Well yes, but also rice, crackers, pasta, noodles, pastries, biscuits, cakes, sweets, crisps, chocolate – in fact anything made with some sort of flour or sugar – and all fruit and vegetables (I’m guessing those last two came as a surprise for some of you). When you eat carbs your body releases insulin to bring blood sugar levels back to where they need to be. There’s some things you need to know about insulin: it helps glucose get to where it needs to be...then moves any excess into storage. Your body needs a bit of stored glucose, but anything extra to that goes straight to fat. And if too much insulin is released because you’ve eaten lots of carbs your blood sugar levels are likely to dip too low, which is when you start to feel tired, hungry for more carbs, and just generally grotty.
So on to the point of this lesson on blood sugar. There are things you can do to help slow the release of glucose from food. The more fibre a carbohydrate food contains,
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52 Phonebox Magazine