Transcripts

Lara Rondinelli, R.D.:
A healthy carb is a type of carbohydrate that is going to give you some good nutrition and not raise the blood sugars as much. For example, whole grains - things like whole wheat bread and oatmeal and that whole, whole grain family.

Registered Dietitian Lara Rondinelli, co-author of the Healthy Carb Diabetes Cookbook…

Other healthy carbs are going to include fresh fruit, milk, yogurt - which people don't classically think of as carbs but they do count as carbohydrates as well.

Unhealthy carbs are refined foods like donuts, chips, sugary foods, etc. Because they raise your blood sugar levels and that is linked to the growing problem of diabetes.

So you eat, food breaks down into sugar, it goes into your blood and what's going wrong in Type II diabetes is that the sugar is staying in the blood, it's not getting into the cells. Our muscle cells want the sugar for energy and they're not getting it because the insulin isn't working like it should. So the sugar is staying in the blood and doing damage.

We can help regulate our own blood sugar by eating healthy carbs and eliminating unhealthy ones, and it isn't all that tough.

You know one of the first things I'll tell people is, if you're drinking sweetened drinks, for example, regular pop, and lots of juice and Koolaid - that would be the number one thing to try to get rid of because that's just pure sugar, excess calories raising your blood sugar. So we might start with that.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.