Carbohydrates are good for you

Do you avoid plates of pasta and sandwiches because you assume that’s better for your body? Don’t do that anymore! Recent research shows that you live longer with carbohydrates.

American researchers followed 15,000 participants over a period of 25 years, and what did they find? People who eat an average amount of carbohydrates have a higher life expectancy than people who eat very few or very large amounts of carbohydrates. Once again, this makes it clear how true the motto ‘everything in moderation’ is.

So how many carbohydrates should you eat? If you get about half of your calories from carbohydrates, you’re doing just fine. At the age of 50, these people have a life expectancy of 83, compared with 82 for people who eat lots of carbohydrates and 79 for people with a low carbohydrate intake. That’s a difference of four years compared with a diet low in carbohydrates. Four years filled with pasta, bread and fried potatoes.

Going back for seconds

Next time, you’ll know what to do. Go ahead and serve yourself some extra rice and scrape the last of the macaroni from the pan, because your life will be considerably longer—and even much tastier.