With the global rate of obesity on the increase, there is interestingly a growing concern among the population about making good food choices as part of their effort in escaping this scourge.
However, a good majority still lacks the facts of why certain foods are regarded as being healthy and others are not.
Carbohydrate is one food group that has that has been seriously misunderstood especially in terms of its relationship with weight management.
This misunderstanding has led to carbohydrates being vilified by a lot of weight-loss seekers who are unwittingly dropping this essential macro-nutrient from their diets in their attempt to lose weight.
Nature has by design, considering the important role of carbohydrates in human and animal nutrition, made this class of foods the most abundant organic compounds of all the food classes.
Carbohydrates are almost exclusively from plants, vegetables, and grains except for milk which is the only animal-based product that contains a significant amount of carbohydrate.
Carbohydrates as a group consists essentially of sugars, starch, dextrin, cellulose, and glycogen - all important components of human diet.
The human body by design also needs carbohydrates more than any other substance for both its sustenance and optimal function.
For instance, glucose which is the final product of the breakdown of all carbohydrate containing-food plays very significant roles in a lot of body functions such as in the maintenance of tissue protein, metabolism of fat, and very importantly, the provision of energy fuel to the central nervous system.
Of very significant importance is the fact that brain and muscle cells are also designed in such a way to almost exclusively run on the glucose from carbohydrates.
Types of Carbohydrates The chemical compounds that make up carbohydrates are mainly carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms and are usually found in a simple or complex structural form.
Irrespective of whether a carbohydrate is simple or complex, it contains four (4) calories per gram, and is processed by the body to produce glucose.
Based on the number of sugar unit a carbohydrate contains, it can be classified as being a monosaccharide, a disaccharide, or a polysaccharide.
Simple Carbohydrates This group of carbohydrates is made up of the single sugars (monosaccharides), and the double sugars (disaccharides).
They usually have one or two sugar molecules.
The monosaccharides include glucose, fructose (usually found in fruits), and galactose (found in milk).
The disaccharides include 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 monosaccharides and disaccharides are generally regarded as sugars.
They are all readily soluble in water, are odorless, colorless, and usually capable of forming crystals.
Fruits, honey, and dairy products contain large amount of simple carbohydrates.
Simple sugars are sweet in taste and also make food taste sweet such as the sweet taste in candies and cakes.
Although the most important simple sugar is glucose, the best known is table sugar, also known as sucrose, a disaccharide.
Due to their simple molecular structure, simple carbohydrates are more easily processed by the body and are therefore the fastest source of energy for the body.
Complex Carbohydrates Carbohydrates in this group are known as polysaccharides and are made up of several smaller simple carbohydrates.
They are referred to as being complex because their molecular structure requires the body to break them down into their constituent sugars before their energy reserves can be released for use by the body.
For example, while glycogen is made up of about 10 monosaccharides, starch on the other hand is made up of about 25.
While complex carbohydrates are found almost exclusively in foods of plant origin, they do not however taste sweet like the simple carbohydrates.
Complex carbohydrates are further divided into two groups as follows: 1.
Starch Starch forms part of the cell walls in plant and make up part of rigid plant fibers and also serve as the main energy reserve in roots, vegetables, and cereals.
Starch is also the main type of digestible complex carbohydrates and its oxidation to carbon dioxide and water releases energy (adenosine triphosphate, or ATP).
Good sources of starchy carbohydrates include cereals, pasta, breads, plantain, potatoes, and some fruits and vegetables.
2.
Fiber Non-starchy complex carbohydrates make up what is known as dietary fiber and constitute the indigestible part of plant foods.
Cellulose for example consists of several hundreds of glucose units.
Fiber usually forms the rougher material that makes up the structural components of plants such as the outer coat of a seed.
The body lacks the digestive enzymes to breakdown the complex sugar structure of fiber and as a result makes most ingested fiber to pass through the digestive tract virtually unchanged.
As a result of this, dietary fibers are generally referred to as non-nutritive fiber as they cannot be absorbed into the body.
Dietary fibers are either soluble or insoluble in water.
Dietary fibers provide such health benefits as support of bowel regularity, reduction of blood cholesterol levels, and normalization of blood sugar levels.
Complex carbohydrates are digested and absorbed by the body at a rate that helps to maintain healthy cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
Complex carbohydrates can be found in whole-grain bread, pasta, cereal, rice, beans, and most vegetables.