A simple guide to understanding how low-carb diets deplete nutrients

It's not just that you'll feel deprived because you've had to give up bread, fruit and all the rest. Your body will also be deprived of foods and nutrients that are essential for good health. Here are some of the problems associated with low-carb diets, and a simple way to balance the carbs in your diet.

1. Whole grains. These protect against metabolic syndrome, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.
2. Fruits and vegetables. Produce helps prevent heart disease, stroke and some cancers. Most fruits and vegetables are very filling while providing few calories, so they can help you cut calories without deprivation. Indeed, the more fruits and vegetables people eat, studies show, the thinner they tend to be.
3. Beans. Rich in protein, complex carbohydrates and B vitamins, beans have no saturated fat and lots of soluble fibre. They also contain plant chemicals that protect against heart disease and cancer.
4. Low-fat dairy foods. Sure, you can have butter and cream on a carb-restricted diet, but you won't get much calcium or protein from them. Fat-free and low-fat versions of milk and yogurt are excellent sources of those nutrients.
5. Fibre. Getting fibre from these foods (except dairy) helps reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Beans and many fruits and vegetables are particularly rich in soluble fibre, which helps lower blood sugar, curbs hunger and lowers LDL cholesterol.
6. Vitamins, minerals and health-protective plant chemicals. Whole grains, for example, are rich in components such as lignans, which may protect against diabetes independently of their effects on blood sugar. And without fruits and vegetables, you'd be awfully hard-pressed to get enough vitamin C or other disease-fighting antioxidants.

Instead of cutting out carbs altogether, learn how to balance carbs and protein with these helpful hints.

• You'll lower the GL of a typical portion of any carb dish by mixing in almost any vegetable or fruit (again, potatoes don't count). If you add tomatoes, carrots and spinach to a pasta salad, for example, you'll eat less pasta. If you add chopped broccoli to a rice side dish, you'll eat less rice; the same goes for adding strawberries to hot or cold cereal.
• Let's consider a rice side dish. 200 grams (one cup) of cooked long-grain white rice has a GL of 23, making it a high-GL food. But 250 millilitres (a cup) of green peas has a GL of only 6, so if you mix an equal amount of peas with the rice, a cup of the side dish would have a GL of only 15, changing it from a high to a medium GL food.
• Really, mixing any vegetable into your rice — chopped cooked onions or carrots or asparagus — similarly lowers its GL.

Choose least often:

• hot dogs
• chicken with skin
• whole milk
• butter
• cream
• full-fat cheese
• lean beef
• extra-lean ground beef
• lean pork

Choose more often:

• lean ham
• lean lamb
• soy foods
• fish and shellfish
• poultry without skin
• nuts
• seeds
• low-fat cheese
• fat-free or 1% milk

Choose most often:

• fat-free or low-fat yogurt
• eggs
• split peas
• lentils green peas
• all dry beans (except black-eyed peas)

Note: Beans are about 1/3 protein and 2/3 carbohydrate. Similarly, milk and other dairy foods also contain some carbohydrate.

Low-carb diets are incredibly popular but they can end up restricting your intake of essential vitamins and minerals. Keep this guide in mind to help balance your diet, and remember to consult your doctor before making any dietary changes.