Carbohydrates = Sugar
Even though I decided not to make a big deal about quitting sugar this month, I have in fact been taking it one day at a time and doing pretty well. Until last night.
Last night I tried to get by on a very light dinner but found myself quite hungry later. I had been 3 days without any refined sugar, and while I didn’t really have a craving for the simple carbs in something like, say, cookie dough, I reaaaallly wanted some complex carbs. So I dug around and brought out the cashew cream that had sitting in the back of the fridge a wee bit longer than I had intended. It had a mildly cheesy odor to it, which isn’t surprising as this is basically how you make cashew cheese: Let cashew cream ferment in the fridge. I wasn’t trying to make cashew cheese, though, and what I wanted last night was Alfredo sauce.
So I whisked the separated cashew cream back together and added it to a pan of garlic sauteing in Earth Balance, threw in salt, pepper, nutmeg and nutritional yeast, poured it over some pasta, and topped the whole thing with cashew parmesan (which stays delicious forever). In another pan I sauteed broccolini and garlic in olive oil. The Alfredo was, frankly, a little off, but I wasn’t surprised. The surprise was that after eating a serving of commercially produced semolina pasta, I felt like crap.
So what gives? A quick lesson in carbo chemistry, for those who need a refresher: Plants combine carbon (the “carbo” part) with hydrogen and oxygen (ie, water, the “hydrate” part) to form sugars, which are linked together to form starch, which plants store for energy. Conveniently, our bodies use carbohydrates for energy, too. Sugars are known as “simple carbohydrates,” because they are, well, simply constructed, and in a form our bodies can put to use quickly. Starches are called “complex carbohydrates,” because they are constructed from sugar molecules bonded together, and have to be broken down before our bodies can use them for energy.
Plants store starches in their stems, roots, fruits and seeds, and they also bind them together into the cellulose that forms their cell walls. When we eat plants, we digest the starch that is stored in their various parts, but we don’t digest the cellulose that makes up their cell walls, even though it’s also a carbohydrate. Humans lack the enzymes needed to digest cellulose, which passes through our digestive tracts as fiber — which, as well all know from watching TV, is also necessary for our health.
Sooooo . . . what’s all this have to do with feeling crappy after eating semolina pasta? Semolina is a coarsely ground processed wheat product. As with other processed wheat products, the more nutritious outer portions of the wheat grain, the bran and the germ, are separated from the inner portion, the endosperm. Most of the vitamins, minerals and other healthy stuff in wheat are in the bran and germ, while the endosperm is primarily starch. That starch, as we know, is made up of lots of sugar molecules bound together.
And so, that pile of pasta I ate was basically a pile of sugar. I knew this, of course, but I wanted it. I told myself it was way healthier than cookie dough, and that everything would be fine. I know that despite the popularity of dangerous high-protein fad diets, carbs are necessary for good health, but that we should eat carbohydrate-rich foods that are made from whole grains, so that we get more than just sugar.
The thing is . . . I don’t like whole wheat pasta. Nor do I really care for rice, spelt or quinoa pasta. But after a couple of days off refined sugar, that semolina pasta hit me like a handful of sugar cubes.
I always try to learn something from unpleasant experiences, so here are my lessons from my pasta dinner:
- I should be more open-minded toward whole grain pasta.
- If I’m going to insist on eating semolina pasta, I should maintain a steady diet of refined sugar so I feel crappy all the time and the pasta just blends right in.
Wait. What? That can’t be right . . .
