All foods, not just carbohydrates, stimulate insulin. Thus, all foods can cause weight gain. And hence we get major confusion with calories. High-protein foods can cause weight gain—not due to their caloric content, but rather to their insulin-stimulating effects. If carbohydrates are not the only or even the major stimulus to insulin, then restricting carbohydrates may not always be as beneficial as we believed. Substituting insulin-stimulating proteins for insulin-stimulating carbohydrates produces no net benefit. Dietary fat, though, tends to have the weakest insulin-stimulating effect.
