Topic 4 Part 1
Carbohydrates
Friend or Foe?
Scientifically, Carbohydrates are made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, a ratio of 2:1 hydrogen to oxygen. There are 3 groups of these carbohydrates; their scientific names are monosaccharides, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides.
Sugars (monosaccharides, oligosaccharides (maltose, sucrose, and lactose)), starches and fibers (polysaccharides) are all considered carbohydrates.
Human’s breakdown and digest all forms of carbohydrates, apart from dietary fiber that our digestive enzymes can’t breakdown, into simple sugar, glucose that’s taken up into our blood.
Even though we can’t breakdown dietary fiber, dietary fiber it a vital nutrient to our dietary intake for optimal human health.
The process of carbohydrates being digested as simple sugar, (glucose), into our bloodstream, happens as soon as we put carbohydrates into our mouths. It occurs throughout out whole gastrointestinal tract.
Carbohydrates are so powerful on our minds that the digestive process of them starts even before we put them in our mouths due to us beginning to salivate in the anticipation of eating something sweet or starchy, like the experiments of Pavlov’s on dogs and children.
So, what happens when we digest and absorb these carbohydrates?
Well we digest the carbohydrates as simple sugars, even if the beginning food is not a simple sugar. Our digestive enzymes break all digestive carbohydrate down into simple sugars (monosaccharides) so as to pass through out intestinal wall.
Once these simple sugars/monosaccharides pass through our intestinal wall, they enter the bloodstream and are transported straight to the liver for processing.
The liver takes what it needs for energy use and for storage in the liver, (remember the liver is the primary filter for everything we ingest, nutrients drugs etc. So, if you have a stressed liver, malfunctioning liver or diseased liver, then already you are going to have nutrient issues for the rest of the body. This is why Dr’s often ask from liver tests before they place you on an oral drug, because most drugs increase stress on the liver and increase toxicity on it so can cause it further stress if it’s already compromised).
Once the liver has the sugar it needs for energy and storage, it releases excess sugar into the bloodstream for the rest of the body.
The blood sugar remains pretty constant, this is where we here the term, high blood sugar or low blood sugar. If its high, the excess blood sugar is removed from the blood into storage, either the liver or the muscles, but if these stores are already full, then the sugar that’s high in the blood gets converted to body fat.
So if you have a nutritional intake high in carbohydrates, especially simple sugars, found in a lot of processed foods and sugar added foods, and you don’t use the sugar that’s in your muscles through plenty of exercise, then you will store the excess sugar as body fat, every meal and every day.
When your blood sugar is low, your body will either take sugar out of storage in the body or will signal us to eat carbohydrates to raise the blood sugar back to the level where the body wants it to be consistent and stable.
This is the vicious cycle, the body doesn’t really want to release stored sugar, because, historically, anthropologically wise, the body wants to save and store excess energy it has in times of plenty, for times of drought and famine which our ancestors had to deal with, through winter or hot dry summers. A regression from when we were hunter gathers and food in developed countries wasn’t as readily available as it is now. We only have to hunt and gather to the nearest supermarket, and we don’t even have to walk there, we can park right outside. And then we don’t even need to carry what we “hunt and gather”, we can roll it there on trolley’s/carts.
So, the problem being now is that our bodies haven’t caught up to the fact that we are always, in developed countries, in a time of plenty. So when our blood sugar is low, our brains trigger us to eat carbohydrates, sweet simple ones (sugar, candy, breakfast cereal, bagels, white potatoes, pasta etc.) because they’re easier and faster to digest, and because the food is available we, subconsciously often, feed our cravings and jack up that blood sugar again.
Then, we get high blood sugar again, because these sweet simple carbs go straight into the bloodstream. High blood sugar, lack of exercise and activity, (we drove to, “hunt and gather” and then even pushed the cart), the excess is stored as body fat, remember the body preparing for drought and famine, and then we have low blood sugar again. So here we go again, eat simple sugar so on and so on….. think we should have the picture now.
So these, so called ‘simple sugars’ have a powerful effect on our bodies and minds.
This is where a term most of us should have heard about comes to play, Glycemic Index (GI). This is a measure of how quickly a food can raise blood sugar in relation to refined table sugar (which is given a score of 100). Low Glycemic is a food that slowly raises blood sugar, so has less potential for raising it too quickly and having excess that gets turned to fat. High Glycemic is a food that quickly raises blood sugar, so has greater potential for having too much blood sugar and so the excess being converted and stored as body fat.
As a side note, those of you who read and listened to the pod cast information from last week about wheat, even whole organic wheat, being shown to raise blood sugar faster than refined table sugar. This strain of wheat is the wheat predominantly grown harvested in the US
Unfortunately, Glycemic Index (GI) of a food becomes pretty meaningless when combined with other foods. This is why it’s so important to have a dietary intake of whole foods rather than processed foods.
I hope this was some helpful introductory information on carbohydrates in our nutritional intake. I’m going to leave it there for now, because I think that’s plenty of details and information to take on board for now. Anymore right now may make the whole thing a bit confusing. The next part of this series we’ll look at the insulin relationship to carbohydrates, health, fitness and wellness.
Thanks,
Be Active, Eat Whole, Choose Health.
