Low-Carb Diets – What Is Missing?

Those of you who are regular readers of diet and diabetic forums will be familiar with the ranting of a barely literate dietician. I have always put the illiteracy down to the possibility that English may not be her native language. Although the ranting is enormously amusing it may be a cause of confusion to newly diagnosed diabetics - the dietician has repeatedly insisted over many years of the possibility of scurvy, osteoporosis, constipation, etc, from following a low-carb diet. It is interesting to try to find what is missing in following a low carb diet. Perhaps the simplest way of doing this is to consider identical meals (identical in both portions and meat/fish etc) over a day in which the high-carb food type (potato, pasta rice, bread, fruit, etc) is replaced by a low-carb food type (or more likely a combination of low-carb food types). An example of such an analysis is provided by the following link

http://www.lowcarbdiabetes.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=979&sid=12e8b0d334189b578e7567b0671e239f

In the following example 100g of new potatoes boiled in unsalted water is replaced with 100g of broccoli boiled in unsalted water. Table 1 indicates the vitamin and mineral content for some of the more important dietary elements. It can be seen that broccoli in 13 out of 18 of the important dietary elements has a greater or equal amount of the element. In those instances where potato has a greater or equal amount of the dietary element (vitamin B1, vitamin B6, potassium and selenium) the deficit in dietary element is easily made up with side-dishes made up of combinations of one or more of celery, courgette, radish, cauliflower, or mushroom.

It is interesting to consider the possibility of scurvy, osteoporosis, and constipation.

Table 1 Potato versus Broccoli

	Potato	Broccoli	Winner
Vitamin
A	0.00	80.00	+
B1	0.13	0.05	_
B2	0.02	0.05	+
B3	0.40	0.70	+
B5	0.38	N	_
B6	0.33	0.11	_
B12	0.00	0.00	Draw
Folic Acid	19.00	64.00	+
C	9.00	44.00	+
D	0.00	0.00	Draw
E	0.06	1.10	+
Mineral
Calcium	5.00	40.00	+
Iron	0.30	1.00	+
Magnesium	12.00	13.00	Draw
Potassium	250.00	179.00	_
Selenium	1.00	Tr	_
Zinc	0.10	0.40	+
Dietary Fibre	1.10	2.60	+

 

broccoli contains almost 5 times as much vitamin C as potato

broccoli contains 8 times as much calcium as potato

broccoli contains almost 2.5 as much dietary fibre as potato

Unless an increase in vitamin C, calcium and dietary fibre increases the respective possibility of scurvy, osteoporosis, and constipation, it seems reasonable to conclude that the replacement of potato by broccoli (or numerous other nutrient rich vegetables) provides a viable dietary strategy for the diabetic and the illiterate ranting of the said dietician can safely be ignored.


Source http://www.food.gov.uk/science/dietarysurveys/dietsurveys/

Please visit http://www.lowcarbdiabetic.co.uk/