Carbohydrate: A Misunderstood Nutrient
Having a clear understanding of what carbohydrate is and how it effects your body is extremely important to health. There are many misconceptions about carbohydrate. Considering there are at least 100 names for sugar, it’s no wonder it is complicated topic. The low carb community swears that carbohydrates will kill you, and that you literally don’t need them. This is partially true in some circumstances. The US recommends we get 45-65% of our calories from Carbohydrate. The sources can range from candy to lentils.
This page is dedicated to directing you to my posts on this topic via the links found below. Hopefully, after reading the posts you can make informed decision about what you put into your body.
Few people outside of a small community of fitness and nutrition enthusiast know the differences between carbohydrate types. Inside of these communities there is a lot of debate about the timing carb ingestion. Also, which types of carbs are best. It is important to get website that does essays for you this right for your body and activity levels. There are some basic mechanisms that most of us share despite our biological individuality. It is easy to extract information from the literature and draw conclusions because carbohydrate is very well understood. Something to be aware of is carbs are cheap to produce. A business built on selling carbohydrate can be easily profitable. You have to a careful about the source of the nutrition information you are listening to.
What is Carbohydrate?
Nutrition labels can be misleading about carbohydrate content of foods. Fiber is a carbohydrate that is digested completely differently that glucose. Glucose is another name for carbohydrate. Carbohydrate has many synonyms and subtypes. The primary subtypes are starch (complex carbohydrate), simple sugar and fiber. Fiber can be broken up in to two parts: soluble and insoluble. Which can be further broken down to resistant starch, which can be further broken down into resistant starch types. Needless to say it’s a little more complex that you may have thought. Also, you can’t simply say some carbs are good and some are bad. They all serve their own purpose. In general too much of any one type can be problematic.
Here are a few examples of food types that are mostly carbs: bread, pasta, beans, jelly beans and donuts. If you are going to eat carbohydrate, a huge aspect you need to understand is complexity.
The complexity of a carbohydrate determines how quickly it is absorbed into your bloodstream. This has huge implications on weight gain or loss, mental states, and decision making. If you want to be the master of your domain and accomplish what you want, you need to get clear on complexity.
Here’s a video explaining Starch digestion.
This page is dedicated to the post I write with the primary focus on carbohydrate. You will learn all you need to know about the metabolism of each type of carbohydrate. This information could impact your eating patterns. It is optimal to base your carb intake on your bodies needs relative to activity levels, rather than strictly using your taste buds as a guide for intake. I understand that doing this can be hard, but so is dying from complications related to diabetes.
Knowledge is power: read these posts and you will learn strategies to consume carbs in a favorable way. Create a strategy that will help you build a foundation for good choices each day and over long periods of time. What you will quickly learn as you discover more about this topic is relying strictly on taste and no logic can lead big problems for your health. At the same time only eating according to a science based template can lead to problems. Please click on the links below to start your journey to understanding carbs.
Carbohydrate Focused Posts:
The skinny on Carbohydrate Part 1: Glucose
5 suggestions for eating fruit and still being a fat burning beast!
Are Simple Sugars Better Than Complex Carbohydrate?
6 Reasons cycling Carb intake will make you kick more ass
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Elijah Markstrom 