What kind of carbohydrate is starch

They also include the kinds of sugar that are found naturally in fruits, vegetables, and milk. They are complex carbohydrates, which are made of lots of simple sugars strung together. Your body needs to break starches down into sugars to use them for energy. Starches include bread, cereal, and pasta. They also include certain vegetables, like potatoes, peas, and corn. It is also a complex carbohydrate. Your body cannot break down most fibers, so eating foods with fiber can help you feel full and make you less likely to overeat.

Diets high in fiber have other health benefits. They may help prevent stomach or intestinal problems, such as constipation.

They may also help lower cholesterol and blood sugar. Fiber is found in many foods that come from plants, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains. Which foods have carbohydrates?

Common foods with carbohydrates include Grains, such as bread, noodles, pasta, crackers, cereals, and rice Fruits, such as apples, bananas, berries, mangoes, melons, and oranges Dairy products, such as milk and yogurt Legumes, including dried beans, lentils, and peas Snack foods and sweets, such as cakes, cookies, candy, and other desserts Juices, regular sodas, fruit drinks, sports drinks, and energy drinks that contain sugar Starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, corn, and peas Some foods don't have a lot of carbohydrates, such as meat, fish, poultry, some types of cheese, nuts, and oils.

Which types of carbohydrates should I eat? But it's important to eat the right kinds of carbohydrates for your health: When eating grains, choose mostly whole grains and not refined grains: Whole grains are foods like whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole cornmeal, and oatmeal.

They offer lots of nutrients that your body needs, like vitamins , minerals , and fiber. Simple carbohydrates are sometimes called "sugars" or "simple sugars. Monosaccharides contain just one sugar unit, so they're the smallest of the carbohydrates.

The prefix "mono-" means "one. Food carbohydrates have to be broken down to monosaccharides before they can be absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract, and they also circulate in blood in monosaccharide form. There are 3 monosaccharides:. Note that all three have the same chemical formula C6H12O6 ; the atoms are just arranged a bit differently. Here's the chemical structure of glucose:.

In this class, we'll sometimes use a simpler green hexagon to represent glucose:. You're already familiar with glucose, because it's the main product of photosynthesis. Plants make glucose as a way of storing the sun's energy in a form that it can use for growth and reproduction.

In humans, glucose is one of the most important nutrients for fueling the body. It's especially important for the brain and nervous system, which aren't very good at using other fuel sources. Muscles, on the other hand, can use fat as an energy source.

In practice, your muscles are usually using some combination of fat and glucose for energy, which we'll learn more about later. Food sources of glucose: Glucose is found in fruits and vegetables, as well as honey, corn syrup, and high fructose corn syrup. All plants make glucose, but much of the glucose is used to make starch, fiber, and other nutrients.

The foods listed here have glucose in its monosaccharide form. Here's the chemical structure of fructose:. In this class, we'll sometimes use a simpler purple pentagon to represent fructose:. Fructose is special because it is the sweetest carbohydrate.

Plants make a lot of fructose as a way of attracting insects and animals, which help plants to reproduce. For example, plants make nectar, which is high in fructose and very sweet, to attract insects that will pollinate it.

Plants also put fructose into fruit to make it tastier. Animals eat the fruit, wander away, and later poop out the seeds from the fruit, thereby sowing the seeds of the next generation. Animal gets a meal, and the plant gets to reproduce: win-win!

Fructose in nature: A bee collects sweet nectar from a flower, in the process spreading pollen from flower to flower and helping plants to reproduce. Bees use nectar to make honey, which humans harvest for use as a sweetener. Honey contains a mix of sucrose, fructose, and glucose. A kiwi is sweetened in part by fructose. Animals enjoy the sweet fruit and then later poop out the seeds, sowing them for a new generation of kiwi trees. Food sources of fructose: Fruits, vegetables, honey, high fructose corn syrup.

Here is the chemical structure of galactose:. In this class, we'll sometimes use a blue hexagon to represent galactose:.

Food sources of galactose: Galactose is found in milk and dairy products made from milk , but it's almost always linked to glucose to form a disaccharide more on that in a minute.

We rarely find it in our food supply in monosaccharide form. The second type of simple carbohydrates is disaccharides. They contain two sugar units bonded together. There are 3 disaccharides:. Maltose is made of two glucose molecules bonded together.

Carbohydrates are compounds that are based on sugar molecules made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Types of carbs are classified based on their structure or by how many sugar molecules are linked together. Carb structure may be as simple as a single sugar molecule or two sugar molecules linked together.

They may also be hundreds of sugar molecules linked together. There are three types of carbohydrates known as sugars, starches and fibers. Starches are considered complex sugars or complex carbs. Even though it goes through your intestinal tract without being absorbed, fiber plays many important roles. Getting enough carbs as fiber is important to regularize your bowel movements by giving them bulk to keeping things moving.

Some fibers also help slow down the speed at which other carbohydrates are digested to prevent large spikes in your blood sugar levels, which can help you feel more satisfied until your next meal. Fiber is mostly found in unrefined plant-based foods such as non-starchy vegetables, fruits, nuts, tubers and whole grains. The dietary recommendations for fiber correspond to 25 grams a day for adult females to up to 38 grams a day for men.

Almonds have about 3. Aglaee Jacob is a registered dietitian.