January 10, 2012 - The Scream of Starch!

GM all, I am leaving this afternoon for another visit in Nashville. Would covet your prayers for a safe and productive trip. :) Also, just as an update, I am working every evening on my Devotional Cookbook. I was clipping along FINE until it got time to create the nutritional information. UGH! That is taking forever. I've lost a week working with various programs to determine the best route. In some, I like ALL the nutritional info listed, but ALL of my recipes have to be retyped and this company has ingredient brands I've never seen and I don't know how they will affect the taste. The ONE I really like, is easy and has most of what I use, ONLY gives the calories per serving, carbs, fat, protein - NO breakdown of fiber, net carbs, or sugar. One night when the tears surfaced in my eyes, I thought, well the cookbooks of old had NO nutritional value. But I kept reminding myself, "I REALLY examine in most products/ingredients the sugar/ fiber ratio against the carbohydrates." SO, I am wrestling trying to determine what's the best route. We must have carbs - our body converts them to energy in our cells. However, sugars can be defined in several ways. It's not that we are on a carb free health plan. NO - our fruits and veggies have fructose in them. They process through the liver and this takes a slower, metabolic path - which is what we want. :) When you evaluate a recipe and you see carbs that appear high, if you cannot compare and subtract the fiber and the sugar alcohols, then a flag COULD go off that says "DON'T EAT." However, fruit and vegetable carbs are going to metabolized differently. So, I am in a confused state and I hate that. As I am creating this book, I am also doing a lot of reading on sugars. Sugar comes in four forms: glucose (simple sugar - the main sugar our cells need for energy - best found in fruits and veggies), fructose (sugar from fruits/veggies), sucrose (table sugar= 1 fructose and 1 glucose), starch (glucose strung together - basically PURE sugar). Starch floods our blood stream with sugar and causes our cells to scream, "I WANT MORE SUGAR." Ever eaten some crackers and in half an hour, you're wanting more. You think, "gosh, I'm still hungry." No, you're not - the starch has done it's conversion duty and like a two year old who wants what it wants when it wants - it screams "FEED ME MORE SUGAR OR I'LL KEEP SCREAMING AND CRAMP YOUR STOMACH UNTIL YOU DO." Have you ever experienced that? I have. Now we know that when children are screaming for our attention the WORST thing to do is give them what they want. They become undisciplined and demanding. That sin nature, if not tamed and shaped, can become a severe problem. Anyone seeing the correlation this morning? Anyway - if I choose to go with the fancy labeling, the book will be delayed for a month or two. On the other hand, if I go with simple labeling, will people really see that 36 carbs coming from apples and blueberries as opposed to white flour processes differently and has different results following consumption. Does anyone really care??? Your thoughts this morning? PK