Let’s Have A Bowl of Sugar: Popcorn… It’s What’s For Dinner?

By Anais Starr - Perfectly Well! on November 24, 2012 • ( 0 )

Have you ever had popcorn for dinner? I bet. I have… lots of times. With Braggs, almond oil, garlic, nutritional yeast. The works! Yum. And I always felt like it was maybe diet food. A low calorie dinner. Yay me. Keeping it under control.

For a couple of years now I’ve been learning about and practicing low-carb eating. With body as laboratory, I’ve been monitoring my weight, how I feel physically and emotionally, and how that sort of a program ‘works’ for me. Is it sustainable? The answer is, yes, it is very sustainable.

Recently I’ve been reading a cookbook – Low-Carbing Among Friends, Vol 1, with recipes from a slew of low-carb coaches, doctors, and personal chefs. It’s quite good. I’m just beginning to try the recipes.

I came across one last night – Caramel Popcorn – whoa, low-carb? I read the introductory paragraph:

Many of my clients often grab popcorn as a night-time snack. 5 cups of air popped popcorn is very low in calories, but it is ALL SUGAR! 38 grams if carbohydrates = 9.5 teaspoons of sugar in our blood, which is way too much. Complex carbohydrates are just glucose molecules hooked together in a long chain… our body breaks it apart into blood sugar. In air popped popcorn, there is no fat to slow the insulin spike from happening (which is why I always use full fat real foods AND never a carbohydrate by itself.) Our Brain Neurotransmitters also get out of balance when we have chronic high insulin levels… cravings, moodiness, depression, anxiety or fatigue. ~ Recipe by Maria Emmerich

It’s to our benefit to understand this – that there are ONLY three food types – proteins, fats, carbohydrates. Carbohydrates = sugars. Highly ‘starchy’ vegetables are those with high sugar (carbohydrate) content like potatoes, carrots, beets, etc.

So if we are tending to the carbohydrate aspect of our diet, we need to look at everything we eat that is NOT protein or fat. We can use this information to help us figure out what works for our own healthy balance. And it can help us to take full responsibility for our own food decisions that have such a huge effect on all aspects of our human existence.

Popcorn for dinner? I don’t think so!

I will post comments about the recipe mentioned above after I’ve tried it. Stay tuned …