1. Carbs and Blood Sugar
Keeping your blood sugar levels on track means watching what
you eat, plus taking medicines like insulin if you need to. Your
doctor may also have mentioned that you should keep track of
how many carbohydrates (carbs) you eat. But what exactly are
carbohydrates and how do they affect your blood sugar?
The foods we eat contain nutrients that provide energy and
other things the body needs, and one of these is carbohydrates
(pronounced: kar-bo-hi-drates). The two main forms of
carbohydrates are:
1. sugars such as fructose, glucose, and lactose
2. starches, which are found in foods such as starchy
vegetables (like potatoes or corn), grains, rice, breads, and
cereals.
The body breaks down or converts most carbohydrates into the
sugar glucose (pronounced: gloo-kose). Glucose is absorbed
into the bloodstream, and with the help of a hormone called
insulin (pronounced: in-suh-lin) it travels into the cells of the
body where it can be used for energy.
But people with diabetes have problems with insulin that can
cause blood sugar levels to rise. For people with type 1
diabetes, the pancreas does not make enough insulin, and for
people with type 2 diabetes, the body can't respond normally
to the insulin that is made.
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2. Carbs Can Be Part of a Healthy Diet
Because the body turns carbohydrates into glucose, eating
carbohydrates makes blood sugar levels rise. But that doesn't
mean you should avoid carbohydrates if you have diabetes.
Carbohydrates are a healthy and important part of a nutritious
diet.
Some carbohydrates have more health benefits than others,
though. For example, whole-grain foods and fruits are healthier
choices than candy and soda because they provide fiber,
vitamins, and other nutrients.
Fiber is important because it helps you feel full and keeps your
digestive system working properly. In fact, eating lots of fiber
can even help to slow the body's absorption of sugar when
eaten together with sugar in the same food. Everyone needs
fiber, and most people don't get enough. Some experts think
that people with diabetes should eat more fiber than people
without diabetes to help control blood sugar.
Sugary foods, like soda and candy, don't usually have fiber and
typically contain "empty calories." That means they have
calories but little nutritional value, and eating too many of
them might leave little room for healthy foods. Eating too many
empty-calorie foods can also make a person more likely to be
overweight or obese. These foods can also cause tooth decay.
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3. What Are Simple Carbohydrates, Complex
Carbohydrates, and Dietary Fiber?
Carbohydrates are a necessary part of a healthy diet, offering
your body nutrients it can convert to glucose to power muscles.
Carbohydrates come in three varieties: simple carbohydrates,
complex carbohydrates, and dietary fiber. All are composed of
units of sugar. What makes one carbohydrate different from
another is the number of sugar units it contains and how the
units are linked together.
• Simple carbohydrates: These carbohydrates have only
one or two units of sugar.
○ A carbohydrate with one unit of sugar is called a simple
sugar or a monosaccharide (mono = one; saccharide =
sugar). Fructose (fruit sugar) is a monosaccharide, and
so are glucose (blood sugar), the sugar produced when
you digest carbohydrates, and galactose, the sugar
derived from digesting lactose (milk sugar).
○ A carbohydrate with two units of sugar is called a double
sugar or a disaccharide (di = two). Sucrose (table sugar),
which is made of one unit of fructose and one unit of
glucose, is a disaccharide.
• Complex carbohydrates: Also known as polysaccharides
(poly = many), these carbs have more than two units of
sugar linked together. Carbs with three to ten units of sugar
are sometimes called oligosaccharides (oligo = few).
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4. • Because complex carbohydrates are, well, complex, with
anywhere from three to a zillion units of sugars, your body
takes longer to digest them than it takes to digest simple
carbohydrates. As a result, digesting complex carbohydrates
releases glucose into your bloodstream more slowly and
evenly than digesting simple carbs.
○ Raffinose is a trisaccharide (tri = three) that’s found in
potatoes, beans, and beets. It has one unit each of
galactose, glucose, and fructose.
○ Stachyose is a tetrasaccharide (tetra = four) found in the
same vegetables mentioned in the previous item. It has
one fructose unit, one glucose unit, and two galactose
units.
○ Starch, a complex carbohydrate in potatoes, pasta, and
rice, is a definite polysaccharide, made of many units of
glucose.
• Dietary fiber: This term is used to distinguish the fiber in
food from the natural and synthetic fibers (silk, cotton,
wool, nylon) used in fabrics. Dietary fiber is a third kind of
carbohydrate.
Dietary fiber is not like other carbohydrates. The bonds that
hold its sugar units together cannot be broken by human
digestive enzymes. Although the bacteria living naturally in
your intestines convert very small amounts of dietary fiber
to fatty acids, dietary fiber is not considered a source of
energy.
Like the complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber (cellulose,
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5. ○ Like the complex carbohydrates, dietary fiber (cellulose,
hemicellulose, pectin, beta-glucans, gum) is a
polysaccharide. Lignin, a different kind of chemical, is
also called a dietary fiber.
○ Some kinds of dietary fiber also contain units of soluble
or insoluble uronic acids, compounds derived from the
sugars fructose, glucose, and galactose. For example,
pectin — a soluble fiber in apples — contains soluble
galacturonic acid.
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6. Simple Carbs vs Complex Carbs
High carb foods are defined as simple or complex based
on their chemical structure.
The “simpler” that structure is, the faster your body will
digest and absorb that food (think sugar, candy, soda,
etc.).
The more “complex” that structure is, the slower the
digestion and absorption process will be (think
vegetables, beans, grains, etc.).
And this digestion/absorption rate stuff is important
because, the faster this process takes place within your
body, the more it spikes your blood insulin levels.
For this reason, diets high in simple carbs have been
shown to increase our risk of diabetes and heart disease,
while diets high in complex carbs have actually been
shown to help do the opposite.
Simple carbs also tend to be highly processed junk that
lacks any nutritional value of any kind, while complex
carbs are typically unprocessed, high in fiber, and high in
various other important nutrients, vitamins and minerals.
And overall health and nutrition aside, simple carbs are
also less filling, which means you’ll be hungrier sooner
after eating them. Not to mention, that large spike in
blood sugar will result in a crash soon after, and that
crash signals hunger and food cravings.
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7. So, as you can clearly see here for many obvious reasons:
• Simple carbs should typically be greatly
limited/avoided.
• Complex carbs should comprise the majority of your
daily carb intake.
HOWEVER…
There’s just one tiny problem with all of the above. The
classification of “simple” and “complex” doesn’t tell the
whole story.
It turns out that certain foods that technically fit the
“complex carb” label can actually end up causing a rapid
spike in blood sugar levels. Similarly, there are some
foods fitting the “simple carb” label that really don’t have
much of an effect on blood sugar at all.
Confusing, right? Well, to un-confuse this whole carb
situation, a little something called the Glycemic Index
was created.
The Glycemic Index: High GI vs Low GI
The glycemic index classifies carbs based on how quickly
and how high they raise blood sugar levels when
compared to pure glucose (sugar), although white bread
is now used as the reference food in its place.
And despite the fact that the glycemic index was
originally created for diabetics as a way of figuring out
which foods would be best for them, it quickly became
used by bodybuilders, athletes, and regular people who
just want to look good and be healthy.
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8. just want to look good and be healthy.
Why? Because the glycemic index allows us to maintain
steady blood glucose levels throughout the day by
choosing the right types of high carb foods.
This of course is useful for many reasons, the most
important of which are controlling hunger, maintaining
energy levels, improving the way our bodies
look/perform and preventing a variety of health/medical
issues associated with frequent and sustained spikes in
blood sugar levels (like type 2 diabetes and heart
disease).
How exactly? Quite simply:
A carbohydrate with a high glycemic index (high GI)
breaks down quickly during digestion and therefore
releases glucose into the bloodstream rapidly. Some
common foods with a high GI rating include white bread,
white rice, corn flakes, crackers and most sugary and/or
highly processed snack foods.
A carbohydrate with a low glycemic index (low GI)
breaks down more slowly therefore causing a much
slower and more gradual release of glucose into the
bloodstream. Some common foods with a low GI rating
include most fruits, vegetables, and beans.
What this all loosely translates into in plain English is:
• High glycemic foods typically = bad for a variety of
reasons.
• Low glycemic foods typically = good for a variety of
reasons.
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9. List of Complex Carbohydrates Foods
Carbohydrates are a macronutrient that your body needs in
high doses on a daily basis for proper functioning. When you
eat carbohydrates, they get converted to glycogen and either
used immediately for energy, providing a steady dose of blood
sugar, or they are stored in the muscles and liver for energy at
a later time. Simple carbs, by contrast, cause a spike in blood
sugar that quickly dissipates. For sustained energy, eat foods
rich in complex carbs.
Whole Grains
Whole grains are high in fiber, have moderate protein levels,
are low in fat and are also a good source of complex carbs.
Specific examples include millet, oats, wheat germ, barley,
wild rice, brown rice, buckwheat, oat bran, cornmeal and
amaranth. Any product that is made from these grains is also
complex as well. Whole grain bread, bagels, buns and rolls are
examples of these. Also pasta, macaroni and breakfast cereals
that are made from whole grains are complex carbohydrates.
Fruits
Fruits are high in water content, fiber, vitamins and they have
virtually no fat at all. Fruits packed with complex
carbohydrates include apricots, oranges, plums, pears,
grapefruits and prunes.
Vegetables
Vegetables are high in water, low in fat, have multiple
vitamins and minerals, and most varieties are complex carbs.
Broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, turnip greens, eggplant,
potatoes, yams, corn, carrots, onions, all types of lettuce,
celery, cucumbers, cabbage, artichokes and asparagus are all
examples of these.
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10. Legumes
Legumes are oftentimes called pulses. These are characterized
by seeds that have an exterior pod surrounding them. Beans
are a type of legume that is a complex carbohydrate. Specific
examples include lentils, kidney beans, black beans, peas,
garbanzo beans, soy beans and pinto beans.
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