Morning Carbs? Evening Carbs? All-Day Carbs?

Spaghetti, baked potatoes, rice, chips, hash browns, lasagne, macaroni, sweet potatoes, mash, roasties: all of the best foods are carbs. Luckily, they can be good for us thanks to their super filling power if we eat them in moderation as part of a balanced diet.

January always sees pretty much everyone turn themselves into an authority on healthy eating, with some claiming you should avoid carbs at all costs, treating them as warily as you would a 12-foot spider, some saying you should never eat them after 12pm and others preaching that they’re only okay every second Wednesday at 2.14pm precisely – that’s how it can seem, anyway.

To try to put a stop to all of this nonsense, scientists have been investigating whether it really matters what time of day you fill up on carbs. Spoiler: All those so-called ‘experts’ are wrong.

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The BBC’s Trust Me I’m a Doctor programme worked with Dr Adam Collins of the University of Surrey to conduct an experiment into the best times to eat carbs. Genuinely gutted we weren’t asked to take part – imagine being asked to eat loads of pasta and spuds in the name of science? Sigh.

A lucky bunch of people were asked to follow some strict eating rules for a period of five days; they had to eat a high-carb breakfast to set them up for the day, but their evening meal had to be low in carbohydrates.

After five days of this, they had to swap, tucking into a low-carb brekkie followed by a high-carb dinner.

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Following each five-day period, their blood glucose response levels were measured. These are basically all about how well the body is breaking down and using the sugar contained in those carbs. The doctors wanted to see if the body was better at this in the morning or the evening.

Well, interestingly, there was no massively significant difference in the body’s ability to break down carbs at different times of day. While there was a slight difference in blood glucose response units just after breakfast compared to in the evening, it wasn’t enough for Dr Collins to declare either time of day better for eating carbs – ha, put that in your sandwich and chew it, ‘experts’.

Instead, he believes that consistency is a more important factor than time for your body to break carbs down properly, rather than store them as fat. So if you prefer eating a high-carb meal in the morning, carry on, just make sure you’re not eating loads of carbs during the rest of the day – other foods are nice too, trust us.

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Same if you prefer saving your carbs for the evening – try to eat low-carb meals beforehand so you’re not having too many. Everything in moderation, remember.

Dr Collins says that leaving a gap between your carb consumption – whether that’s for sleep or while you go about your day-to-day business – is one of the most important factors, as it means your body is ready to deal with carbs again.

Now, we might feel like our bodies are always ready to deal with carbs, but this does all sound like pretty sensible advice, so we’ll listen to the real experts on this one!