Carbohydrates 101 - The Different Types of Carbohydrates

With the global rate of being overweight on the rise, there is fascinatingly a developing concern among people concerning making good food decisions as part of their attempt in avoiding this scourge. Nonetheless, a good majority of individuals still are unaware of the specifics of exactly why particular carbohydrate-containing foods are regarded as being nutritious and others aren't.

Carbohydrate is one food class which has been really misunderstood in particular with regards to its connection with weight reduction. This mix-up has resulted in carbohydrate-containing foods getting vilified by a lot of weight-loss seekers who are unwittingly leaving out this important macronutrient off their diets in their effort to drop some weight.

Mother nature herself has by design, considering the vital role of carbohydrate-containing foods in human and animal nourishment, made this category of foods probably the most plentiful organic ingredient of all the food groups. Carbs are essentially solely from plants, grains, and vegetables aside from dairy which is the only animal-based product that contains a substantial quantity of carbohydrate.

Carbohydrates as a class are comprised primarily of cellulose, sugars, starch, dextrin, and glycogen - all very important components of human diet. The body by design actually needs carbohydrate-containing foods more than all other macronutrients for both its nourishment and ideal function.

For example, glucose which is the end product of the breakdown of all carbohydrate-containing foods plays very important roles in numerous body operations for instance in the preservation of tissue protein, metabolism of fat, and very significantly, the supply of energy fuel to the central nervous system. Of significant importance is the undeniable fact that muscle tissues and the human brain are built in a way as to operate essentially on the glucose coming from carbohydrates.

Kinds of Carbohydrates
The chemical compounds that make up carbs are principally oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen atoms and they are generally found in a "simple" or "complex" structural makeup. Irrespective of whether a carbohydrate food is "simple" or "complex", its content has four (4) calories per gram, and it is processed by the body to make glucose.

Using the number of sugar groups a carbohydrate-containing food consists of, it is usually grouped as being a monosaccharide, a disaccharide, or a polysaccharide.

Simple Carbohydrates
This category of carbohydrates consists of the single sugars (monosaccharides), as well as the double sugars (disaccharides). They normally contain one or two sugar molecules.

The monosaccharides comprise of glucose, fructose (usually found in fruits), and galactose (found in milk). The disaccharides comprise of sucrose (made up of glucose and fructose - found in table sugar), lactose (made up of glucose and galactose - found in milk), and maltose (made of two units of glucose - found in beer and malt liquors).

All of the monosaccharides and disaccharides are usually considered as sugars. They are all readily soluble in water, usually capable of turning into crystals, are odorless, and colorless. Honey, dairy products, and fruits carry lots of simple carbohydrates. Simple sugars are usually sweet in flavor and as well make food taste sweet - much like the sweet flavor in sweets and cakes.

Although the most essential simple sugar is glucose, the most widely known is table sugar, also called sucrose, a disaccharide. Because of their simple molecular design, simple carbohydrates tend to be more easily metabolized by the body and so are as a result the most convenient supply of energy for the body.

Complex Carbohydrates
Carbohydrate-containing foods in this class are generally known as polysaccharides and they are comprised of a number of smaller simple sugars. These are categorized as complex mainly because their molecular structure calls for the body to split them into their particular constituent sugars before their energy stores can be released for usage by the body. As an example, while glycogen comprises of around 10 monosaccharides, starch however is made up of around 25.

Whilst complex carbohydrates are found more or less exclusively in foods of plant origin, they do not on the other hand taste sugary like the simple carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates are furthermore broken down into two groups as follows:

1. Starch
Starch forms section of the cell walls in plants and constitute section of the firm plant fibers. It equally functions as the main energy fuel supply in vegetables, roots, and cereals. Starch is as well the main type of digestible complex carbohydrate and its oxidation to carbon dioxide and water releases energy (adenosine triphosphate, or ATP). Good sources of starchy carbohydrate-containing foods consist of potatoes, cereals, pasta, breads, some fruits and vegetables, and plantain.

2. Fiber
Non-starchy complex carbohydrates makeup what is termed dietary fiber and also constitutes the indigestible part of plant foods. Cellulose by way of example is made of many hundreds of glucose groups. Fiber is normally the coarser components which makes up the structural components of vegetation such as the outer coating of a seed.

The body does not have the digestive enzymes to split the intricate sugar structure of fiber and as a result causes the majority of eaten dietary fiber to move across the digestive system practically unchanged. On account of this, dietary fibers are typically known as non-nutritive fibers simply because they cannot be digested by the human body.

Dietary fibers are generally either soluble or insoluble in water. Dietary fibers give such health gains as decrease of blood cholesterol levels, support of intestinal regularity, and normalization of blood sugar levels.

Complex carbohydrates are broken down and assimilated by the body at a pace that assist to sustain healthy cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Complex carbohydrates can be found in whole-grain bread, pasta, cereal, rice, beans, and most vegetables.