Simple and Complex Carbs
What are they?
Simple and complex carbs are basically carbohydrates made out of different types and amounts of sugars. The Questions I have been asked a lot is what is the difference between simple and complex carbs and why do we need them…
A carbohydrate is basically one or more of several types of sugar, not the sugar we all know. There are many types of sugars here are some… dextrose, fructose, maltose, glucose and many more.
The only form of sugar your body uses for energy is glucose it`s the simplest sugar of all… no matter What type of sugars the carb contains your body will break it down to glucose which it then uses to fuel various function your body carries out.
When it comes to fitness glucose fuels demanding activities like running and bodybuilding…So the difference between simple and complex carbs is how many sugars they contain…simple carbohydrates contain less and complex carbohydrates contain more…
They are called monosaccharide, disaccharides, and polysaccharides.
Monosaccharide contains just one sugar and the best example here would be glucose which remember is the only form of sugar your body can use as fuel… disaccharide contain just two sugars and a good example here would be table sugar you use for tea and coffees.. Because table sugar is made of fructose and glucose.
The most complex are the polysaccharides… they are also called starches and they mainly occur from plants… so foods that are directly derived from plants, for example breads noodles seeds, potato and so on… contain a lot of complex carbohydrates..
So when you feed your body carbs that are made up of two or more carbohydrates it has to break them down to glucose… so the higher the amount and longer these chains of sugars are that the complex carbs are made up of… the longer your body takes to break them down into glucose. In other words simple carbs that contain only one or two sugar break up and are used much quicker by your body…
And complex carbohydrates with more types of sugars take much longer to break down… so complex carbohydrates make you less hungry through the day gradually releasing energy for longer through the day because they are in your body much longer.
But don’t go thinking I am going to just eat all complex carbs because I want to fight hunger for longer because whatever amount of sugars some carbs have they still all differ in the amount of needed nutrients and vitamins they have. So you have to filter this in when trying to eat the right diet… because not all simple carbs are necessarily bad and not all complex carbs are necessarily good.
This is because our foods are more than just sources for carbohydrates… for example fruit often contains many simple carbohydrates and are digested quicker… but fruits also contain vitamins and nutrients that your body needs and benefits from.
On the other hand white bread contains many complex carbohydrates but it is white because the flower it has been made of has been put through a bleaching process that removes nearly all the nutrients that are in flower and just leaves the complex carbs. So in other words not all simple carbohydrates are bad and not all complex carbohydrates are good. It all depends where you get the different types of carbohydrates from…
So hopefully this will give you a better understanding of what type of carbohydrates you should be consuming… the worst choice would be a food that contains only simple carbohydrates and contains no minerals and vitamins… a good example of this would be something like a candy bar or a chocolate bar… foods like this are sometimes referred to as empty calories.. A good source to have would be whole wheat bread because it mainly consists of complex carbs and the flower it is made from has not been bleached and still contains all the good original nutrients and vitamins.
I hope this has given you a good understanding of simple and complex carbs.
