Healthy Food Choices: Low Carbs

Video Transcript

MARY HONDROS: The term low-carb generally refers to foods that are high in protein and obviously, low in carbohydrate. These kinds of foods include things like meat and meat products, and then things like peanut butter, almond butter, or sesame Tahini, things--soy nut butter. Those are all high protein foods, low carb. Keep in mind that the term low-carb doesn't necessarily mean that it's a healthy food product. There's a lot of new products coming out nowadays that are labeled low-carb. And the way they make them low-carb is by taking out the carbohydrate or the sugar component of the food and putting some kind of additive or some unnatural product in there to replace that sweet taste. So when you're talking about including low-carb things in your diet, remember that they're not necessarily always healthy if they're processed. Now, natural-foods that are naturally low in carbs, like I mentioned before, meats and nut butters and things like that, can be healthy part of a diet. So if you're interested in including more low-carb foods in your diet, keep in mind that things like peanut butter, almond butter, and soy nut butter are low-carb products that are also high in protein. And also remember, secondly, that if you're including a lot of meat in your diet, you need to limit the amount that you do and just because animal meats are not the healthiest to have in large amounts. Thirdly, you remember that foods labeled low-carb generally have some kind of sugar additive in them that's may not be healthy. Research still doesn't really know if sugar additives are healthy products, so just keep that in mind. And also keep it in mind that foods that are labeled low-carb tend to be more expensive and if you've ever tasted something that's low-carb, it doesn't necessarily taste like the real thing. So anyway, those are the things to keep in mind if you're trying to stick to a low-carb diet and you're looking at buying low-carb food products.