We each have a different metabolic response to eating the same bread
Matthew Ashmore/Alami
Consider two slices of bread, one of handmade sourdough and the other of cheap, mass-produced white bread. Which one do you think is healthier?
The correct answer is, you won’t know unless you try. Some people can have unhealthy reactions to cheap stuff, causing blood sugar levels to spike. But others don’t and instead experience a sharp spike in blood sugar after eating sourdough. Some people will surge on both, others barely at all.
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The same goes for other foods and other nutrients, especially fats, which also spike dangerously in the blood after eating. Our metabolism responds to food in very unique ways, a shocking discovery that upends decades of nutritional orthodoxy and promises to finally answer the surprisingly thorny question: What should we eat to stay healthy? healthy?
It’s normal for blood sugar and blood lipids to rise after eating, but if blood sugar and blood lipids rise too quickly (called a spike), it can cause trouble. Frequent elevations in glucose and triglyceride fats are associated with the risk of diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. For decades, nutrition researchers assumed that all humans responded roughly the same to specific foods, with uniform increases in blood sugar and fat.
glycemic index
Under this assumption, dietary advice is simple and one-size-fits-all. Reduce consumption of foods that cause spikes. Unsurprisingly, these are mostly…
