Genius Foods

eating more concentrated carbohydrates than ever before,
and getting a meager 15 grams of fiber—on a good day.
Critics of the ancestral diet often point to the probable
consumption of ancient grains in the preagricultural diet, but
regardless of the exact percentage, they were clearly
accompanied by massive fiber content—a dramatic and
critically important contrast to the calorie-dense, processed
sources we have today.
It’s important to be aware of the ease with which our
bodies can break a starch into its constituent sugar
molecules. This conversion process doesn’t even wait for
you to swallow—it begins in your mouth, thanks to an
enzyme in saliva called amylase. (If you’re like me, you
learned this in your ninth-grade biology class. Allow a
starch to linger in your mouth and you’ll taste the sweetness
as the starches begin to break down to their constituent
sugars right on your tongue.) In fact, even before you take
your first bite (or sip) of food, just looking at what you’re
going to eat stimulates the production of the storage
hormone insulin, so that it can be ready to dispose of the
oncoming sugar deluge.
Insulin’s main job is to quickly shuttle sugar molecules
out of your blood and into your fat and muscle tissue. By
the time sugar makes a quick pit stop in your stomach and
hops on the ten-minute subway ride to your bloodstream,
your body’s endocrine (hormone) system is already in full-
on energy storage mode. But energy storage is just one part
of the story—this process is also responsible for controlling
the damage caused by having too much sugar in your
blood.