Carbohydrates by definition are sugars, starch and fibre, what most people refer to commonly are the glucose and starch components.
I’ve posted a bit of stuff on the corrolation between chronic disease and malfunction of glucose metabolism (blood glucose), this relates to diabetes, CHD, Thyroid and many other modern diseases.
The Glycaemic index is often used as a guide for sugar levels, many people don’t realise that bread has a higher GI than pure sugar, the starches in flour are readily converted to glucose and are a straight hit to blood glucose levels, whereas sugar is a di-saccharide of Glucose & Fructose and hence is only about 55% Glucose.
Regarding the Pasta Potato thing, there is another factor at play there, pasta (&cereals) is what is known as an acellular carbohydrate, basically pure uncontained starch, potato on the other hand is a cellular carbohydrate, starch contained within cell walls This simple distinction means the carbohydrate in potato is absorbed slower as the body needs to break down cell walls (fibre) to get access to the sugars, in addition potato also contains a lot of solouble and insolouble fibre which travels to the lower intestine and feeds our precious microbiota ecosystem that converts much of this fibre to short chain fatty acids which the body absorbs and uses for energy as well, that’s another story.
I do believe most western societies have a problem with carbohydrates, but I don’t think carbohydrates are bad, IMO the problem lies in the continuous drip feeding of carbohydrates, which means our bodies lose some of their ability to manage fat metabolism and we effectively become sugar “addicts”.
Carbohydrate consumption needs to be managed better, you don’t need to be low carb, but try to restrict carbohydrate consumption to one meal per day, this leaves rest of day for your body to burn fat for energy.
One of the biggest issues is how saturated fat has been demonized in our modern society, yet there is no tangible data to connect it to any of the diseases that it has been associated with, another story, but as a teaser try look up “Ancel Keys” and “Lipid Hypothesis”, you should find some interesting reading.
Eat lots of wholesome food, more Fruit, Veg, variety of meats and don’t be too afraid of fat, except be wary of vegetable and seed oils, they’re probably not as healthy as we have been led to believe.
Manage stress as best you can, be good to yourself, strive to have fun and exercise a bit.