Modern grain and Teff carbohydrates
People in the western World think carbohydrates make one fat. But are all carbohydrates the same?
And do they all make one fat? Let’s have a second look into the material.
How carbohydrates of modern grains look like?
Those carbohydrates exist out of long chains of sugar, connected to each other like a pearl collier.
Carbohydrates in the grain are nicely stacked in layers.
After preparing the dough and while baking to bread a totally different structure develops, in which
the carbohydrates look like below:
Carbohydrate turns into energy
During the digestion in the intestine the carbohydrates are reduced to sugar by
enzymes which act like scissors.
Because of the spatial structure of the
carbohydrates of modern grains the scissors can
very easily cut the chain into small pieces within a
short time.
The small sugar particles are able to pass the colon tissue. At the moment they enter in the blood
they are called blood sugar.
Natural level of energy and insulin
Our body needs energy at any given moment. This energy is needed for many things, like moving,
thinking, eating, keeping the right temperature, maintaining the body and growing (kids). The energy
we normally need is called the regular level of energy.
Most cells prefer sugar as type of energy. To transport the fuel (sugar) to the
place it is needed our body makes GLUTS for which we make insulin.
Blood sugar after eating
At the moment we start eating the situation rapidly can change. In your mouth, stomach, intestine
and in the colon the meal is digested. After some 45 minutes most carbohydrates are turned into
blood sugar.
Too much energy gets to your blood in a too short time span. The only thing the body can do is
transport it as soon as possible to the places where it can be stored (often as fat) or let the kidneys
drain it. And of course extra insulin is needed to transport the overkill of blood sugar : your insulin
level will go over the natural level. If you are sensible for this it will definitely end up as body fat. You
will grow fatter and fatter. Most people will not feel very well with so much insulin in their system.
How do carbohydrates work in ancient grains, like Teff?
The carbohydrates in ancient grains, like in Teff, are utterly different from those in modern grains.
They are complex carbohydrates which are not easy to digest. Let’s look into them in some more
detail as well.
They are rather small and their shape is circular. They are grouped in a crystal structure.
From the moment the baker starts making dough (adding water) and while he bakes the bread, those
Teff-carbohydrates will leave their position in the crystal structure (like ice turning into water). This
looks like below:
And the Teff carbohydrates also act totally different from carbohydrates in modern grains when
cooling down. Teff carbohydrates immediately return into a crystal structure while they cool down.
Like water freezing into ice.
This crystal structure can’t easily be reduced by the enzymes (scissors) to sugar. The enzymes will
have to find their way to the crystal structure layer after layer. Research by universities proved that
after 3 hours in time only halve of the carbohydrates in Teff were reduced to energy (sugar).
Slow energy
The complex carbohydrates in the ancient grain Teff is slowly, during many hours, step by step,
reduced to sugar and gradually enters into the blood as blood sugar.
A lot of people notice that they feel far more energetic after eating Teff than they feel with modern
grains. And they do not store fat. Because there is at no moment an overkill of energy in the system.
And more good news is, that you even might lose weight, very gradually, day by day. Why? Because
at a given point in time your liver will have to add energy (stored in your body, most probably fat) to
supplement the energy level to the natural level as you can see in the next picture (green area can be
blood sugar made out of fat by the liver cells).