Article on beans

#1

I was reading an article and found this excerpt about beans. Granted this was not from a science based magazine, it is from the monthly Costco magazine.

Nevertheless I am curious to the validity of this and what it would mean to the Ketogenic WOE?

Beans are one of the carbs I prior to Keto thought healthy and I do miss.

Bean benefits

IN SECTION: FOR YOUR TABLE

These tiny plant proteins deliver big health perks

by KAREN ANSEL

bean benefits
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© OKSANA SHEVCHENKO / SHUTTERSTOCK

B eans could be the ultimate multitasking food. Whether they’re canned, dried or frozen, these legumes, often referred to as pulses, are one of the few foods that deliver a healthful combination of protein and fiber at the same time. Plus, they’re fat- and cholesterol-free, not to mention quick, convenient and inexpensive.

Here are just a few of the ways they can enhance your health.

Balanced blood sugar

Beans are a smart choice for controlling blood sugar—especially if you’re one of the 29 million Americans with diabetes. They’re so potent that eating beans every day has been shown to lower both fasting blood glucose and insulin.

How so? “Pulses contain compounds that naturally inhibit enzymes responsible for starch digestion, much in the same way certain blood sugar medications work,” says Dr. John Sievenpiper, associate professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto. That makes them less likely to raise blood sugar than many other carbohydrate-heavy foods like potatoes or bread.

(Tom Seest) #2

A lot of the original “carb blocker” pills that you could buy were bean based. I havne’t used them in years, and don’t know if they even sell them anymore. They never worked me…

I decided that keeping carbs from entering my mouth worked better.

(Doug) #3

Ha! :slightly_smiling_face: For sure, Tom.

#4

I’m more curious to know if maybe the carbs in beans are maybe not as bad as we thought.

#5

I just don’t agree with the statement that there are good carbs vs bad carbs. Carbs aren’t good or bad, it’s what carbs do to our body when we eat them. Carbs are broken down into glucose and used as energy and trigger insulin (stupid simple incomplete explanation to be brief). So if your body is not responding well to insulin, it doesn’t matter that there’s fiber in there to slow the blood glucose release because the insulin itself performs functions that are detrimental, or are counter to what we are trying to achieve.

I don’t have severe metabolic disease. I just want to keep my insulin low, lose or maintain weight, and keep my body healthy into long life. So I live keto but I’m not obsessed with it. I don’t count or measure now that I have a decent understanding of what foods are made of. I’ll add a can of beans to a large pot of chili, heck I might even add a russet potato (gasps!) But I understand the science shows that for good health keeping insulin as low as possible for as long as possible is ideal.

(Bob M) #6

Are these the same: 1,000 calories of refined sugar; or 1,000 calories of beans (or spinach or cauliflower or whatever)? If not, why isn’t one “bad” and one “good”?

Personally, I avoid beans and adding beans to things, particularly chili, which I think should never, ever have beans. However, if I order chili and it has beans, I don’t freak out about it. I’ve also been known to eat some potatoes sometimes. This past Friday, in fact, I had half a baked potato (with sour cream and butter) that was served with my steak. But I keep this to be as infrequent as I can.

I also think there are good and bad carbs, at least some of them, like sugar, can be classified as bad. And my blood glucose knows which are bad and which are good.

#7

There is a difference between good and bad carbs (namely whole vs processed) but there is a point where sugar/HFCS so destroys your system that it takes all other carbs down with it.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #8

Well, for starters, their carb counts would all vary considerably. A thousand calories of sucrose is 150 grams of glucose + an equal amount of fructose = a crapload of metabolic damage. I don’t know how many grams of glucose are found in 1,000 calories of beans, but my guess is “probably a lot more than in spinach and cauliflower,” because the latter two are mostly water and fiber.

Personally, becaue fructose is particularly evil, I would put sucrose in a class by itself, and lump all other forms of digestible carbohydrate together in the “less-evil” class.

Does it? One of the selling points of fructose is that it doesn’t elevate our blood sugar. But the reason for that is that it’s too busy damaging our liver to care about raising our serum glucose.