The fear of white carbs
The fear of white carbs
And why we need to stop worrying about it...
This week, one of my all-time favorite dietitians debunked yet another popular diet culture claim regarding a specific type of white carb: rice. Take a look.
In this, Abby Langer, RD (who also helped me debunk myths about the alkaline diet, which you can read here) shared that white rice isn’t just “bleached sugar” but is in fact a natural grain. Talking down on food like this not only creates even more hysteria around carbohydrates, but can also be incredibly culturally insensitive.
I liked the video immediately, and I haven’t really stopped thinking about it since. About how our culture is so quick to dismiss white, enriched carbs because we’ve always been told they are bad…but in fact, they can provide our bodies with a rich amount of nutrients that we may not realize.
Why whole grains are the go-to recommendation
First, let’s take a deeper look into why nutrition experts say to eat “brown carbs” in the first place. These carbs are typically known for having a high fiber content because the wheat bran hasn’t been stripped.
When wheat is used to make bread it contains wheat bran. As the diagram shows, the fibrous content found in bread sits outside of the bran shell. The bran and the germ are what’s stripped down and the endosperm is left to make an enriched bread product that doesn’t have that brown color that whole grain products have.
Now research shows time and time again that Americans need more fiber in their diets. The average adult needs 25 to 38 grams of fiber a day to maintain good digestion, gut health, and satiety after meals, and even decreases the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and colorectal cancer. However, the average American is only consuming 10 to 15 grams of fiber a day, so the recommendation to eat more fiber in the diet is still a smart one. Especially if it’s as easy as picking up a different kind of bread.
However, this doesn’t mean that white carbs are all bad. In fact, while the fiber count tends to be different in whole grains versus enriched, in many other cases, they can have a similar nutrition profile.
Why white bread (and other carbs) are seen as bad
Let’s take a step back and look at this from a scientific perspective. White bread is generally seen as “bad” because…
It has a lower fiber content
It ranks higher on the glycemic index (meaning it can cause your blood sugar to spike and drop quickly)
It typically doesn’t have as many nutrients as a whole grain
Because of the way the body reacts to eating and processing enriched carbs, diet culture has made it sound like a gift from satan. It’s “just like eating sugar” and “does nothing nutritionally for your body.”
For that first point, sure—it converts into sugar. But so does literally anything else that contains carbohydrates. That’s how the body works! When consuming a carb, the food is digested and converted into glucose, which then enters the bloodstream and is used for energy.
Again, everything you eat with carbohydrates through this process. Enriched carbs, whole grains, fruits, vegetables…I mean literally everything.
But because of the low fiber content, enriched carbs create that speedier spike in blood sugar, and too many spikes over time can cause insulin resistance, leading to a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Or even an increased risk of heart disease.
But if that enriched carb is paired with nutrients that slow blood sugar spikes and improve satiety—like fiber, protein, and healthy fats—well then, there isn’t much to worry about…is there?
The nutritional benefit of white carbs (yes, really!)
Let’s compare a piece of enriched white bread and whole wheat bread next to each other.
As you can see, despite the difference in fiber and folate, these slices of bread are pretty similar. White bread also contains magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium.
Now because wheat bread does still contain the bran and the germ, it will have a stronger amount of nutrients in it. It has higher amounts of magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin K, selenium, and more. However, white bread does still have these nutrients in smaller amounts.
Plus, as you can see, white bread is also typically enriched with folic acid, as a means to get more folate into American diets. That’s because child-bearing women need 400 micrograms of folic acid (or more) to prevent neural tube defects in children, so the CDC set a guideline to enrich grain products with folate in order to increase this nutrient for pregnant women easily.
Now because we started all of this by talking about rice, let’s compare white and brown rice as well.
As you can see, despite the fiber content (which is small) these two items are pretty much the same.
Abby also mentions resistant starch in her video. This is a type of starch that comes from food that has been cooked and then cooled. It benefits your digestion and feeds your gut bacteria. White rice does this, as well as cooked potatoes (don’t even get me started about white potato myths…probably should be a whole essay on its own).
Anywho, as you can see, an enriched carb can still provide nutritional benefits for a consumer, and shouldn’t be something to be afraid of. The best option is to pair it with something else that is filling.
Just eat the bread you like.
If you love a slice of white bread with your sandwich or with your eggs in the morning, or prefer a bowl of white rice with your curry rather than brown, well, take this as a sign to eat the starch as you like. I like this recommendation from the Grains Food Foundation, as well as the USDA, to “make half your grains whole.” This way you get that variety of nutrients and that boost of fiber that Americans clearly need, while still enjoying the carbs that you actually like.
The best solution dietitians give to their clients is to pair a carbohydrate with another food that will benefit digestion and blood sugar levels. Fiber is an indigestible starch and can slow down that blood sugar spike. Healthy fats (typically the unsaturated kind) are great for providing satiety and slowing down blood glucose. Protein also provides satiety and long-lasting energy, while also benefiting blood sugar levels.
So as long as you pair your white carbs with a food item that will keep you feeling full, there’s really nothing stopping you!
Now…time to make some avocado toast.
Preview image by Asnim Ansari on Unsplash