January 1, 2020
SUGAR AND SPICE, AND EVERYTHING CAN BE NICE!
CLEARING UP THE CARBOHYDRATE CONFUSION – Part I
by Susanne Alberto, NSCA-CPT, TPI-CGFI/FP3
As a National Strength & Conditioning Association Certified Personal Trainer, as well as a Titleist Performance Institute Certified Golf Fitness Instructor, my primary responsibility is to design strength/conditioning, mobility/flexibility and cardiorespiratory programs for clients. My involvement with nutrition is legally limited to offering the basic science, so clients can make educated decisions for themselves. However, that doesn’t always seem to work out.
I have a female client in her early ’60s who chose a vegan lifestyle for “health reasons.” The only time I discussed nutrition was to suggest she increase her protein intake to support muscle building from the resistance training we were doing to combat her osteoporosis. So, her diet consisted of mainly plant proteins (carbs), starches (carbs), fruits (carbs) and healthy fats. After her most-recent physical, she was shocked to find out that she is pre-diabetic. After all, she isn’t fat or overweight, and she was eating healthy – right? I explained that even though she was eating healthy, her diet consisted of almost all carbs. And, as humans age, we lose the ability to process them efficiently as we once did.
Since there is so much confusion about carbohydrates – to the point where CARB has become a dirty word to some people – I want to try to clear up some of the confusion.
WHAT IS A CARBOHYDRATE?
A quick search on Wikipedia says, “A carbohydrate is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen-oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula Cm(H2O)n (where m may be different from n).” That is why you’ll see carbohydrate abbreviated as CHO. Wikipedia continues, “The term is most common in biochemistry, where it is a synonym of saccharide, a group that includes sugars, starch, and cellulose.”
THE MAJOR DIETARY CARBOHYDRATES
According to Wikipedia, there are three classes of carbohydrates, based on their degree of polymerization (DP). The DP is a key characteristic of polymers that determine physical properties of polymer materials. Polymers are large molecules that consist of repeating structural (monomer) units.
- Sugars (DP 1-2):
* Monosaccharides – glucose, galactose, fructose, xylose;
* Disaccharides – sucrose, lactose, maltose, trehalose;
* Polyols – sorbitol, mannitol.
- Oligosaccharides (DP 3-9):
* Malto-oligosaccharides – maltodextrins;
* Other oligosaccharides – raffinose, stachyose, fructo-oligosaccharides.
- Polysaccharides (DP >9):
* Starches – amylose, amylopectin, modified starches;
* Non-starch polysaccharides – glycogen, cellulose, hemicellulose, pectins, hydrocolloids.
EXAMPLES OF CARBOHYDRATES
Now that your eyes have finished glazing over … I hope the above list will help you recognize a carbohydrate in all its various forms. In laymen’s terms, carbohydrates are found in a wide variety of natural and processed foods:
* Sugars appear in the human diet mainly as table sugar (sucrose, extracted from sugarcane or sugar beets), lactose (abundant in milk), glucose and fructose – both of which occur naturally in honey, many fruits, and some vegetables;
* Starch (a polysaccharide) is abundant in cereals (wheat, maize, rice), potatoes, and processed food based on cereal flour – such as bread, pizza or pasta;
* Cellulose (a polysaccharide) is found in the cell walls of all plants and is one of the main components of insoluble dietary fiber (helps maintain a healthy digestive system).
Coming next issue: Part II – What Is the Function of Carbohydrates?
