A healthy eating diet plan (not as diet to lose weight) consist of the following proteins, carbohydrates, healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, and proper water intake. Everyone of these are equally important and needed for a healthy body. This month we will talk about Carbohydrates.
CARBOHYDRATES [The Optimum Body Fuel]
Until recently complex carbohydrates – in such starchy foods as bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, and cereals were generally frowned upon by nutritionists because their starch content was held to be a major cause of obesity. Many sugary foods are still considered to be unhealthy because of their high fat content. But carbohydrates in their more complex form are now seen as satisfying rather than fattening and as an essential source of energy.
Although starchy and sweet foods look and taste different, they are all primary made up of the same building block [sugar], they body’s best source of energy. Your body burns glucose, it’s the primary source of energy and is found in carbohydrates. Glucose is the only food that feeds the brain.
Glucose occurs naturally only in fruits and honey, and it is the only carbohydrate used by the body to generate energy. Most carbohydrates are broken down into glucose when they are digested; the rest are changed to glucose in the liver. If the body does not need the carbohydrates right away it is stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen, and any extra glucose is eventually converted to fat and stored in the body.
There are two groups of carbohydrates with identical chemical components; they are simple sugars and complex. Many foods contain both simple and complex carbohydrates, but you will want to add more complex-carbohydrates foods to your diet while cutting back on fatty and sugary carbohydrate foods. Since foods high in complex carbohydrates are filling, chewy, and full of fiber and other nutrients, they are ideal for people who want to lose weight.
Throughout the day, your energy level rises and falls as the sugar from the carbohydrates you eat enters your bloodstream and are used to provide energy. Simple sugars are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream after consumption, resulting in a sudden increase in blood sugar (glucose) concentration. Most complex carbohydrates have fiber, particularly soluble fiber in which glucose reaches the bloodstream more slowly. Soluble fiber helps to ensure that glucose is absorbed from the intestines into the bloodstream at a steady rate.
REFERENCES
Reader’s Digest. (1995). Eating for Good Health, Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.
Reader’s Digest. (2004). Foods that Harm, Foods that Heal, Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.