What's Your Carb Limit?

According to genetics expert Dr Sharon Moalem, your genes can determine how much carbohydrate you can healthily eat

- Jessica Powell

Ever cut down carbs with your BFF only to watch the pounds slip off her while your waistline stays the same? It’s not surprising, according to Dr Sharon Moalem, a physician and scientist specialising in evolution, genetics and biology, and author of The DNA Restart: Unlock Your Personal Genetic Code To eat For Your Genes, Lose Weight and Reverse aging (£19.99, Rodale). ‘When it comes to carbohydrate, we have a gene called AMY1 that produces amylase, an enzyme that breaks it down,’ explains Sharon. The more copies of that gene you have, the more able your body will be to process bread, rice and pasta. ‘Eat more carbs than your body can handle and this may lead to high blood sugar levels, which can cause your body to store the excess as fat.’ Take the quiz to see how many carbs you should be eating…

PART ONE THE CRACKER TEST

‘If you have a lot of duplicates of the gene that produces amylase, you’ll have a lot more of it in your saliva. So when you eat carbohydrate it will start breaking it down quickly into simpler sugars, so you will notice a sweet taste. If you have little amylase, you won’t notice a taste change,’ claims Sharon.

Place a plain cracker in your mouth, start the timer on your phone/a stopwatch, and start chewing. Don’t swallow.

Pay close attention to when you detect a change in the taste of the cracker to being slightly sweeter (it can be subtle). Take a note of the time. If you get to 30 seconds without noticing a change in taste, stop timing (and note down ‘30’).