Eating no carb can still raise your blood glucose.
There are people that insist that one must eat carbohydrates for a balanced diet. That we need carbohydrates for energy yet there are many people who have cut out carbs to zero and yet they still have high blood sugar. So, if you are not eating carbs, where does that blood sugar come from? Then your body must be creating glucose from other things. This process is known as gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis is the generation of glucose from certain non-carbohydrates. The glucogenic amino acids in proteins, the glycerin from fats, and the small amount of glycogen stored in the body can be broken down to produce glucose.
Not all proteins are created alike. We need to understand how the different types of proteins are converted and what impacts they have on glucose and insulin. The main role of protein is to be the building blocks of our body, becoming tissue, muscle, bones, hair, and skin. The excess protein that is not used for tissue will be used as fuel (energy). Therefore, we need to understand which proteins have a tendency to be used to build tissue or will be used to turn into fuel. The role of insulin is storage or build-up (anabolism).
Glucose is assisted by insulin into the cell. Glucose gets converted into glycogen which the body can only be stored in small amounts and the remaining gets converted to fat. This also occurs with the amino acids from the proteins which get assisted into the cells by insulin. This amount of insulin is very small. The multichain amino acids from the proteins need to be broken down because they can be passed through the intestinal membrane as single amino acids.
There are several different amino acids, but nine amino acids are essential. They are histidine, phenylalanine, valine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, tryptophan, threonine, and methionine. The reason that they are essential is that the body cannot create them, and they must be received from our diet. Animal proteins are the best source of the nine essential amino acids, such as meat, poultry, eggs, and some soy products like tofu. The whole egg has the highest utilization of protein.
Excess protein, in the case of overeating, will not be utilized and will get stored for fuel. Even though most utilization of proteins is around 30%, proteins with a higher amount of fat content will slow down or buffer the effects of insulin. It is recommended that when shopping for meats, whether it be ground beef or steak, do not select the leaner meat products, but the ones with the higher fat content.
By David Komin
