What are carbohydrates

Worth knowing

The substances inquestion are known to belong to a category of chemical compounds that exist inthe living organisms. Their immense importance is mirrored in the fact thatthey represent main sources of energy that our bodies require, since they arewithout much effort broken down into glucose. The glucose itself is almost instantaneouslyabsorbed in our blood stream. Also, glucose travels further to other body partsand performs the function of an energy booster, i.e. the fuel needed in orderfor many bodily processes to be performed successfully.

The structural makeup

The chemical compoundsin question are polyhydroxy organic compounds at whose basis carbon is found,hydrogen, as well as oxygen. Furthermore, they consist of sugar, starch andcellulose – sugar being the prime unit of any carbohydrate. In the course ofmetabolic processes, these compounds get broken down into their most basicunits and thus provide energy. As far as the inner classification is concerned,there exist two distinct varieties of carbohydrates, one being simple and theother complex carbohydrates.

Simple carbs are thosecarbohydrates that are made of only one or two units of sugar, and are alsofamiliar under the name of simple sugars. They are of sweet taste and digested without any difficulties whatsoever. Simple sugars can also beadditionally categorized in the form of monosaccharides and disaccharides. The mostprominent members of the former are fructose, glucose, as well as galactose,which consist of 3 to 6 atoms of carbon. The latter are comprised of two unitsof sugar, joined covalently and encompass such as lactose, maltose and sucrose.As far as the food varieties that contain them as active ingredients isconcerned, the list looks like this – honey, milk, table sugar, corn syrup,chocolate, candy, yoghurt, fruits, biscuits, sweets, soft drinks, cakes andpizzas

Complex carbs represent lengthier chainsthat are produced by simple units of sugar, kept together by means of covalentties. Unlike their more simple “relatives”, digestion time is fairly longer dueto the fact that they need to be broken down first into the simple sugar unitsby help of digestive enzymes. Also, as a direct consequence of this, theabsorption of sugars takes even more time. The food varieties that are known tobe sources of complex carbohydrates are potatoes, carrots, cucumbers, radish, oatmeal,broccoli, celery, plums, apples, oranges, pears, grapefruit, lentils, brownrice and kidney beans, among others.