All carbs are bad, right? Not really. Here’s a new approach how incorporating cultural foods into a healthy diet can work – even with carb-heavy foods.
Despite the broad diversity of the U.S. population, dietary recommendations often overlook the positive contributions of cultural foods to build healthy dietary patterns. This is especially true when it comes to carbohydrate food guidance, where prevailing approaches have historically focused on only three components – carbohydrates, sugar and dietary fiber – ignoring other important nutrient and cultural considerations. However, a recent paper published in Nutrients highlights a more holistic approach, called the Carbohydrate Food Quality Score (CFQS), that is more culturally inclusive and aligns closer with Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
“Unlike other approaches to evaluating carbohydrate quality, the CFQS evaluates the contribution of both under-consumed dietary components like potassium, dietary fiber and whole grains, and overconsumed nutrients like sodium, predominantly found in carbohydrate-containing foods, especially grains,” explained Judy Rodriguez, PhD, coauthor of the study. “This nuance is significant, as it sheds light on the fact that carbohydrate-containing foods contain many important nutrients beyond carbohydrates. Furthermore, this tool is the only carbohydrate quality index that aligns with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.”
The development and validation of the CFQS is described in two previously published articles. In brief, this new system is based on similar foundations of previously published approaches that focus on fiber, sugar and total carbohydrate content of foods. However, CFQS also acknowledges the heterogeneity, nutrient and cultural diversity across the carbohydrate food category by:
“The new CFQS clearly recognizes that carbohydrate foods are not homogenous and nuance is needed when communicating this to consumers. For example, while potatoes and grain-based foods are considered ‘carb foods’ and contribute important nutrients to the diet, their nutrient profiles and quality vary. The CFQS can help identify those foods that can be chosen frequently as dietary staples,” stated Rodriguez.
Not only do the metrics help to clarify and quantify carbohydrate food quality, but they also support health equity among all Americans as they can be applied across a variety of budgets, lifestyles and cultures.
Dietary guidelines continue to emphasize the importance of total dietary patterns and overall diet quality. However, many tools intended to help people build healthy dietary patterns continue to categorize individual foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The CFQS is meant to break this cycle by providing a spectrum of carbohydrate food choices rather than assigning binary classifiers to food choices (e. g., good/bad, eat/avoid) and simplistic food classifications such as ‘eat a rainbow’ (e. g., dark green, red and orange). While such systems can be helpful, they are confusing when it comes to foods with neutral colors such as white cauliflower, daikon, jicama, potatoes, brown mushrooms and black beans.
“The CFQS provides a vehicle that affirms with each individual’s values, socioeconomics and food and cultural traditions and provides a scale to help address nutritional concerns about the diet,” explained Julie Miller Jones, PhD, coauthor of the study. “The CFQS can reassure consumers of the role of carbohydrate foods for constructing healthy eating patterns and while affirming equitable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food choices to influence health.”
This article is based on a press release by The Alliance for Potato Research and Education (APRE). You can find the original publication here and by following the link in our text.
Image source: Ömer Gülcü, unsplash
