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High and Low Carb Foods?



 
 
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  #11  
Old November 7th, 2007, 05:39 PM posted to alt.support.diet.low-carb
Aaron Baugher
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Default High and Low Carb Foods?

"FOB" writes:

Like nuts are nut trees, apples are apple trees, grapes are grape
vines, mmmmm hmmmmm. A better rule would be to think seeds as high
carb, the rest of the plant is low carb. Seeds, like eggs, contain a
lot of energy to get the new plant started. That's why green peas are
fairly high carb but snow peas, which are picked before the seeds are
fully developed and eat casing and all are lower carb. Root
vegetables are similar, most of them are tubers which will grow if you
plant them so they also store energy. Some seeds break the rule a
bit, nuts are generally higher in fat and protein than carbs, they
store their energy in a different form. Leafy greens are hard
workers, lean and mean.


It'd probably be more accurate to say that seeds are high-*calorie*.
Tree seeds tend to have more of the calories as fat, grasses have
more of the calories as carbs, and legumes have more protein. (There
are surely exceptions.) Off the top of my head, I can't think of any
seeds that aren't packed with calories--of the ones we commonly eat,
anyway.



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Aaron -- 285/254/200 -- aaron.baugher.biz
  #12  
Old November 7th, 2007, 05:42 PM posted to alt.support.diet.low-carb
Aaron Baugher
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Default High and Low Carb Foods?

Doug Freyburger writes:

Looking at a radish I see it grows at the surface so it should
be medium carb by my approximation. Looking at a diakon it
looks like it grows below the surface so it should be high carb
by my approximation. More exceptions. Looking stuff up in
tables definitely works better than my approximation.


Yeah, the underground test doesn't work too well, since root vegetables
run the gamut from the very low-carb radish, up through turnips, onions,
carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, all the way to the very high-carb
potato.



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Aaron -- 285/254/200 -- aaron.baugher.biz
  #13  
Old November 7th, 2007, 06:06 PM posted to alt.support.diet.low-carb
Aaron Baugher
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Posts: 647
Default High and Low Carb Foods?

Doug Freyburger writes:

It is easy to guess at the carb level of veggies based on what
they are and how they grow -


Maybe so (with a bunch of exceptions), but how many people know that
information? How many know that sweet corn is really a grass, that
peanuts are a legume, that horse apples aren't a tasty snack? I *wish*
people knew more about where their food comes from; but I suspect that
for the purposes of carb counting, most would find it easier to keep a
carb chart handy than to learn about vegetable biology and then make
educated guesses.

That's the method I use when I am shopping for veggies that
come from other lands. In a store that specializes in
Chinese grown veggie types I won't find them in the common
lists so I look at them and see if they grew above or below
the ground or on the line. It's not a hard judgement to make
based on what they look like.


Yeah, if they aren't on the lists, that's all you can do--or simply
don't eat it until you find out. I'd hate to assume something was
low-carb based on its looks and find out later it was the Bolivian
version of the potato.

This approximation even works for veggies that grow both above
and below the ground. Consider that celery stems are so low
in carbs they count as salad but celery root is starchy high carb.
Beet greens are so low carb they count as salad but beets are
carby enough that one type is used to make white sugar.


Celery root is something like 12 net carbs per cup. That's higher than
the stalk, but not exactly "high carb" either, for something that's
usually used as a minor ingredient.

The next easy approximation is about fresh or dried. If a type
of veggie comes both fresh or dried the frsh will be a lot lower
in crabs than the dried. Green beans are low carb but almost
all dried beans are high carb (soy being the lowest among the
dried beans).


That has far more to do with the fact that green beans still have the
shell, while dried beans do not. Green beans are simply a bean variety
with a shell that's enjoyable to eat; most bean varieties have a stringy
shell that's barely edible. If you shell out green beans (we do this
often when they get ahead of us and start getting leathery on the vine)
and dry them, they'll be similar in content to other dried beans.

Likewise, edible-podded peas are lower in carbs than shelled peas
because you eat the shell, not because the peas inside are any
different. Let the edible-podded ones mature and shell them out, and
there will be no difference.

For fruits the easy approximations are tart is lower, sweet is
higher followed by grown in temperate climates is lower, grown
in the tropics is higher.


So berries are tart so they are lower carb. And sure enough
most berries are grown in northern climates. Pinapples and
dates are not only sweet but they are grown in the tropics.


I'd disagree with the first test, since berries and melon seem *much*
sweeter to me than citrus fruits.

Anyway, even though there are a lot of exceptions, it's still an
interesting thing to study and discuss. Maybe someday vegetables will
be hybridized for lower carb totals (turning more of it into fiber,
maybe), the way they've been hybridized for the past century to
*increase* the sugar content. I know I'm going to be growing more
heirloom varieties of things this year, rather than the newer
super-sweet varieties that are most common these days.



--
Aaron -- 285/254/200 -- aaron.baugher.biz
  #14  
Old November 7th, 2007, 08:47 PM posted to alt.support.diet.low-carb
Doug Freyburger
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Default High and Low Carb Foods?

Aaron Baugher wrote:
Doug Freyburger writes:

It is easy to guess at the carb level of veggies based on what
they are and how they grow -


Maybe so (with a bunch of exceptions), but how many people know that
information? How many know that sweet corn is really a grass, that


I've never understood how folks end up not knowing where their
food comes from so I can't address that.

peanuts are a legume,


A glance at a peanut says it has a hard hairy shell therefore it
grew underground. Squeeze a peanut and it is clearly dried.
Those two add together for a guess of high carb even without
knowing that the "pea" part of the word is more important than
the "nut" part of the word.

that horse apples aren't a tasty snack?


Not knowing what a horse apple is, I gotta admit I pictured
rocky mountain oysters when I first read the term. ;^)

Anyway, even though there are a lot of exceptions, it's still an
interesting thing to study and discuss.


If I learn a few exceptions and it gets me to 90% of the items
in the store, then it's a pretty good guess setting mechanism
for me.

  #15  
Old November 8th, 2007, 06:03 PM posted to alt.support.diet.low-carb
Aaron Baugher
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Posts: 647
Default High and Low Carb Foods?

Doug Freyburger writes:

Aaron Baugher wrote:
Doug Freyburger writes:

It is easy to guess at the carb level of veggies based on what
they are and how they grow -


Maybe so (with a bunch of exceptions), but how many people know that
information? How many know that sweet corn is really a grass, that


I've never understood how folks end up not knowing where their
food comes from so I can't address that.


It's hard for me to imagine, since I grew up on a farm with a big garden
and livestock. But I guess I can understand it: they're born and raised
in cities, and never really leave them except to visit fun outdoor
locations like beaches and parks, so they'd have to learn about food
production like a foreign language or any other new topic. A generation
ago, most people at least had a grandparent or uncle who lived in the
country, so they had some contact with it. Nowadays farm tourism is a
big business, because for so many people, rural life is as exotic as the
zoo. People pay *actual money* to pick their own pumpkins, walk through
cornfield mazes, and bottle-feed calves--things we called "chores" when
I was growing up.

Why people don't get curious about their food and learn about it
anyway--that's harder to figure. I mean, I've never been to prison, but
I still read about making prison wine one time. You could ask that
question about a lot more things than food, though.

that horse apples aren't a tasty snack?


Not knowing what a horse apple is, I gotta admit I pictured
rocky mountain oysters when I first read the term. ;^)


Heh. Around here, horse apples are what the horse leaves behind on the
trail. I'm not sure whether I'd prefer to eat one of them or a rocky
mountain oyster.

Some places, people also use "horse apples" to refer to what we call
"hedge balls" or "hedge apples." They're the fruit (I guess a fruit) of
the hedge tree, also known as Osage Orange. They look like a
light-green brain a bit bigger than a softball. Nothing eats them, and
people put them around their house foundation to keep out bugs, so I
suspect they're poisonous or really nasty.



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Aaron -- 285/254/200 -- aaron.baugher.biz
 




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