This is not my own original content. This is from a ZC veteran whom I trust very much. There can be a lot of confusion on the term “Zero Carb,” considering that dairy and eggs have a small degree of carbs. Further, people challenge why it matters to cut plant foods, when you can simply keep your carbs under 20g. This post explains it very well.
Bear in mind this is from a ZC-er, which has some philosophical differences with mainstream keto. So feel free to disagree, but remember this is from someone who has been living ZC for over a decade, so in addition to scientific resources, this person is also relying on individual and community experience of longterm ZC-ers. This is specifically posted in the ZC subforum, for those who are earnestly pursuing ZC.
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RE: There is carbohydrate content in eggs, dairy, certain seafood, offal… heck, even varying small to trace amounts in meat…so why is it called “Zero Carb”, anyway?
The term Zero Carb, in its proper context, simply means no plant foods. This is actually the most correct application too, despite all the confusion out there, because technically there is no such thing as ‘zero’ carbs, in terms of the chemistry of macronutrients and food molecules.
To try to explain this a little, for anyone more curious about it, I’ll detail a bit more of the organic chemistry of food:
There is a difference when speaking about labels, between something being called ‘Carbohydrates’ (ie capital C,the title given to one of the 3 groups of macros in food), something containing some ‘carbohydrate’ (ie small c, and meaning only the CHO elements and carbs in food), and ‘Carbohydrates’, a looser but equally accepted term for those foods of only plant origin, which are sometimes grouped under that same moniker.
The 3 types of macro nutrients which make up ‘food’, as we know, are proteins, fats and carbohydrates. That is simply how they were originally categorized and labelled, however, based on their main features and structures and components. Meaning the type of molecule they are and the specific atoms they contain, and how those are grouped, which all determine their actual shape and functional effects; which is also thus how they both trigger and react to other molecules and structures within the body.
However, it’s important to understand that a ‘carbohydrate’ is only thus named because it contains CHO, ie, carbon atoms, hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms. And the way these are arranged cause them to bond in a certain way and that then determines their shape and structure. Their shape and structure is actually what determines their functional effects too; how the body processes them and the chemical effects they cause in the body itself.
What is not so commonly realized though, is that fats and proteins ALSO contain CHO components because they also contain those atoms and thus have CHO potential and technically are not therefore ZERO ‘carbohydrate’ since the elements of ‘carbohydrates’, ie CHO, are contained therein. Thus, those macros too also contain atoms of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen. The difference is in the types of bonds within the molecules and the arrangements such that the final structures are different to some degree and thus in what functions they serve, to those which have been specifically categorized as ‘carbohydrates’ proper.
So, all macros contain these same basic elements. Proteins also contain nitrogen and sometimes sulfur atoms. Their basic units are ‘amino acids’. Fats are ‘fats’, similarly, because of the different way the atoms are arranged, even though they too still contain the same 3 types of atoms as carbohydrates do.
Thus, this ultimately means that because ALL macros, fats, protein and carbohydrates alike, contain the elements of what are called ‘carbohydrates’ in their structural chains, that the CHO components are determined by the subsequent ways in which the body responds to the different molecules and what chemical reactions occur based on their effects.
The term’ carbohydrate’ is simply that, a label for a molecule which contains CHO in a specific arrangement .
Therefore, there is effective ‘CHO’ available in EVERY macro molecule, be it fats, proteins or carbs themselves. For example, each triglyceride molecule (the base unit of fats) is bonded such that the fatty acids are attached to what is called a glycerol backbone. Now a glycerol molecule is like a glucose molecule split in half, if you will, as that’s the easiest way to visualize it. Technically, in the body, two glycerol molecules can be combined to form 1 glucose molecule.
Importantly though, just as with the argument that some amino acids can be used to create glucose, just because it CAN happen, is not the same as it actually happening. The body will not just create glucose out of the glycerol molecules in fat simply because it is ‘possible’ to do so. These things are determined by hormones and chemical regulatory pathways and driven by demand, not by mere possibility or even ‘opportunity’.
Now the difference, when it comes to the effects the 3 different macros have in the body, comes down to this: carbohydrates will be broken down into glucose. Fats and proteins contain atoms which can be converted to glucose structures, simply because they also contain C,H, and O atoms, as detailed above. But there are extremely specific proclivities to chemical reactions which limit the ways in which this can come about. Thus fats and proteins, generally speaking simply do not have the same effects in the body, nor do those structures cause the same hormones to be triggered nor the same metabolic pathways to be used, as actual carbohydrates themselves do.
Importantly also, the very small amount of actual carbohydrate itself, above and beyond just the CHO elements in animal foods, bound up as they are in specific ways with predominant amounts of protein and fats, do not cause the same cascade systems and responses to come into play inside the body, as CHO dominant plants foods do. The small amounts of carbohydrate inherent within animal foods, is thus greatly mitigated due to the fat and protein constituents and the tendencies for those carbohydrate and CHO elements to not trigger the body the same way when they come from animal foods, as they do when they come from plant foods.
This is where the structural aspects make a difference; ie how the actual components and the specific arrangements of the molecules, bound up in these function-determining ways, causes such a huge difference to how the body’s own chemistry will ultimately respond. They are significantly different. How the CHO from plant foods is responded to, contrasts greatly to how the CHO in animal food is responded to internally.
So technically, ALL macros contain CHO atoms, thus all foods contain elements of CHO or the ability to have some of the molecules reduced or bonded into carbohydrate-type molecules, which can, if needed, be converted to glucose. But, because the amounts in animal foods are so low and their effects also mitigated by the proteins and fats therein, they do not create the same effects as plant carbohydrates do and they do not trigger the body into responses which occur when plant foods are eaten.
The atoms of C,H, and O contained in animal proteins and in fats, means that NO food is technically ZERO carbohydrate. Even meat itself contains small amounts, and thus technically glucose can be produced from at least some parts of the protein molecules. Meat also contains some, albeit small to barely trace amounts of glycogen (another CHO-type molecule), which is the storage form of glucose in the body and, as already mentioned, fat contains glycerol, yet another CHO molecule, which can be combined to form glucose.
Thus when creating and defining and understanding labels and the like, these things need to be understood in a more general way, because the actual chemistry of molecular structures means that all these things are conditional rather than absolute. They are based only on commonalities in structure and the elements they contain, rather than any truly definitive black and white situation. So in some ways, these labels are not perhaps wholly accurate in every way when it comes to fitting them to every set of definitions, since those definitions themselves can be somewhat conditionally dependent and malleable too.
But it is what they were originally categorized as, and they do generally suffice enough, broadly speaking, to allow us to separate and categorize general types of substances based on their differences and/or their similarities. But, hence, it is thus the conditions not the ‘label’ which determine what and how the body will respond to them and how the molecules themselves will be assimilated and in turn influence other metabolic processes too.
Now, with animal foods containing fats and proteins, their shape and structure and other elements mean that the body reacts to them vastly differently than to plants. It also in turn reacts vastly differently not just to the carbohydrates in plants, but to the proteins and fats in plants too.
Thus removing the plants creates an environment, generally speaking, which is effectively absent of any significant CHO in terms of how the hormones and other response/communication chemicals react. By removing the high CHO plant molecules and compounds, we create an effectively ‘Zero Carb’ environment (ie, the closest we get to only the baseline functional levels of glucose being produced).
The small or trace amounts of CHO elements in animals foods are inconsequential for the vast majority of people. Occasionally some will have some more serious or extensive metabolic conditions, such as more advanced or long-term insulin resistance, which means they may be more sensitive to the small amount of CHO in animals foods than others. For that minority, they may find that for them, removing dairy and those animal foods which have slightly more CHO than muscle meats do, may help them stop secreting too much insulin and/or other possible chemicals, hormones and factors at play too, in those disease conditions.
So, for a small minority of people, the CHO in things like, liver, oysters, cream and cheese, may cause hormonal triggering of certain substances. But for the vast majority of people, all they need do is remove the plant foods. Once they get rid of the actual group called ‘Carbohydrates’, ie the broader label, capital C, given to plant-based foods, then the body responds to the rest in a balanced and more ideal manner.
When generalizing, even in a casual sense in science, ‘Proteins’ is also usually the broader label for animal foods, ‘Carbohydrates’ is also used as the broader label to define plant foods, ‘Fats’ is the label used for animal fats, and ‘Oils’ is the term used for plant fats.
The term ‘Zero Carbs’, thus actually means zero plant foods, since the class of foods called ‘Carbohydrates’ are typically a common reference to that from which the bulk of them are derived; that is, Vegetation.[/quote]
