And Now For a Really Important Post About Carbs

~ Laura

I suppose I could write about the snooze-fest that was last night’s State of the Union speech, but I think I’ll write about something very important instead. I’m going to write about carbs.

Last week, I went out with a group of women, and the conversation turned inevitably to the discussion of diets. One woman said that she was on one of those portion control diets and lost 5 pounds. Another said she was on a carb-free/sugar-free diet and had lost 10 pounds since New Year’s. Her diet took a very hardline about carbs – no beans, no squash, no peas, no potatoes.

We’ve become more conscious of our carb consumption in the past year, because we’ve read so much about the evils of processed flour and sugar. Over the summer, when I had a fridge full of vegetables from the CSA, Steve and I tried to live solely on the produce and meat. It was difficult, because I still had to make a carb for the kids for dinner. To feel full, we had to eat several vegetable dishes. Between making our vegetable dishes and kid-friendly food, I had to make a six-course meal every night.

A caveman diet for us and a normal diet for the kids was too much work, so we moved to a limited carb diet.

Last night, I made pasta with jarred sauce and leftover chicken for the boys and their cousins. On another burner, I cooked up some broccoli rabe with sausage and threw in a few scoops of the pasta. So, we ate pasta, just a lot less of it than normally.

Recipe for Broccoli Rabe and Sausage with Pasta

  1. Cook up a package of Italian Sausage in a tablespoon of olive oil.
  2. Take out the sausage and cut up about half of it. Use the rest in a dish the next day.
  3. Pour a couple of slugs of your glass of white wine in the pan and scape up the burnt bits with a wooden spoon.
  4. Add a little more olive oil and sliced up garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt. Cook for a minute.
  5. Add one bag of frozen broccoli rabe and a little bit of water. Put on the lid and let it cook.
  6. Add the sausage.
  7. Add a couple of ladles of cooked farfalle (bow-tie pasta)
  8. Add a little chicken broth or reserved pasta water
  9. Add black pepper and some Parmigiano cheese

Published by Laura

23 thoughts on “And Now For a Really Important Post About Carbs”

  1. I think limited carbs is the most reasonable approach both in terms of health, time, and cost. Strict low/no carb works so well for so many people because we’re so overloaded on carbs to begin with but a steady limited carb approach is much more maintainable for long periods.

    I’ve been on a limited carb diet for about four years. I started doing something along the lines of a strict paleo diet after my son was born as a way to lose the baby weight. I found that I could not maintain a decent weight on the paleo diet, I really need some carbs so as to not go below what I think is an acceptable weight for me. I guess that is an enviable position but for me it mostly emphasized that part of the reason very low carb diets work is because of caloric restriction. There really is only so much meat (and I love meat), veggies, fruits, and nuts a person can eat.

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  4. We do more of an “avoid processed foods” thing than an “avoid entire food groups” thing. I personally think a lot of the benefits people gain when they go paleo (or anything really) is related to eating more vegetables and being more mindful/putting more effort into a whole new range of cooking rather than defaulting to whatever was tripping them up before, but I have no objections if people disagree…food choices are intensely cultural and personal.

    Definitely there are celiac and gluten-sensitive people, just as there are lactose-intolerant people, too. I just really hate advice that whacks out a whole bunch of actual food (as opposed to food product) people around the world eat.

    I make my own whole-grain bread and pizza dough in the breadmaker, and sometimes splurge on heritage wheats/flours. For pasta it’s rare that I make it myself so we do limit how much we eat and serve, but a durum semolina pasta to my understanding has a low to medium glycemic burn. It is however high gluten which is why it stays al dente better.

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  5. I’m with JennG–I think it’s processed food that makes you fat and unhealthy, not pasta or potatoes that you cook at home. We eat quite a bit of both.

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    1. Yup – shop around the outside of the grocery store (avoid processed foods), move a bit every day, and everything else in moderation.

      There’s no magic bullet – burn more calories than you eat and cut out the processed foods.

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      1. shop around the outside of the grocery store

        The only thing you can buy on the outside of the grocery store is propane, ice, and Redbox movies.

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      1. I presume you cook things? That is also a form of food processing. Everything we eat is processed food. Even raw fruits and veggies have undergone thousands of years of selective breeding by farmers.

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      2. I do cook, on occasion, thank you for asking. The original comment implied that pasta (I’m assuming we’re talking about dry pasta) isn’t a processed food and I happen to disagree but I also disagree that processed food is what is wrong with modern eating habits. It is possible to make healthy processed food and I wish there were more options on that front.

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  6. Pasta is not a processed food if you cook it and make the sauce yourself. Read the ingredients: it’s just durum wheat and water.

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    1. Fruits, veggies, cuts of meats, beans, whole grains, and nuts are unprocessed foods, in my mind. Everything else is processed and that’s ok since there’s nothing wrong with processed foods per se. What’s wrong is the excess calories, salt and sugar that are frequently found in processed foods.

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  7. Myself, I am very suspicious of high fructose corn syrup and trans fats. Pretty much everything else, I will eat.

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  8. Yeah, it’s the time of year to think about diets, I guess. I’ve been thinking about the “vegan before 6” thing, just for weight loss. I mostly avoid meat, and am thinking cutting back on cheese and butter might work.

    You can definitely gain weight with unprocessed foods. Probably the worst thing for me this year is that I got a sourdough starter over the summer and have been making bread most weeks. Not sure if it’s the bread or all the butter I’ve been putting on it – because when fresh bread comes out of the oven (or toaster), how can you not butter it?

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  9. I implemented a diet of “no alcohol before 6” last fall. Of course, there are lots of exceptions, like if you are with friends. Or family, because alcohol is usually necessary to survive those gatherings. Also, I hasten to add, the policy was already in effect on workdays anyway.

    Anyway, it has made it easier to keep my weight down.

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      1. I’m switching from wine to beer at dinner time. I tend to drink less of it. A nice bottle of wine is consumed much too quickly.

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      2. I’ve been reading Nero Wolfe lately. He drinks six quarts of beer a day. Any more and they’d have staged an intervention even in 1933.

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  10. Am I the only woman in America still eating carbs? I think I have carbs at every meal. We bake bread, eat tons of pasta, (mostly RPs fresh pasta made here in Madison – amazingly delicious) and adore potatoes. My mealtime goal is food that is made at home, with fresh ingrediants, that tastes yummy. And with a teenage daughter, the word “diet” has been forbidden in our house. We aim for healthy meals and an active lifestyle. I don’t have time/energy/desire to learn about the latest food fad! (But I am also not trying to lose any weight, perhaps that changes things?)

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