Types of Carbohydrate

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Types of Grains

Picking out foods in the store that are whole grain can be confusing. You cannot tell by the color of the food. Some manufacturers add coloring to make pasta look brown for example. Reading the ingredient list is the easiest way to tell if a food is made from whole grains. Look for the first ingredient to be whole wheat flour, brown rice, rye flour, barley, or oats.



When you start reading ingredient lists, you will notice another term on most bread products made in the United States. It is enriched wheat flour. This is not the same thing as whole grain. In the United States, we enrich — or add some vitamins and one mineral back into refined grains. For example, if a whole grain of wheat is ground into flour, you retain the vitamins, minerals, and fiber from all three parts of the grain. But when the germ and bran are removed before making it into flour (refined flour), your food will contain only the starchy part of the grain. So, wheat flour in the United States adds back a few of the nutrients that are removed. You lose about 11 vitamins and minerals, and five are added back. The nutrients added back are iron, and four of the B vitamins — Niacin, Riboflavin, Thiamin, and folic acid.


Enriched wheat flour is a refined grain. You also see enriched wheat flour listed as all-purpose flour, cake flour, bleached flour, and bread flour. You find it in breads as well as baked products like cake, cookies, muffins, and snack bars. Other refined grains are white rice and white pasta.


Often, products that used enriched wheat flour and have added sugar and fat are called processed foods. A good rule of thumb, especially for grains is that the further away a food is from its natural state, the less nutritious. For example brown rice contains more nutrients than a cookie.


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Types of Carbohydrate

Nowadays, we hear about carbohydrate all the time. Did you know there are three main types of carbohydrate? There are starches, sugars, and fiber. You'll also hear terms like naturally occurring sugar, added sugar, low-calorie sweeteners, sugar alcohols, reduced-calorie sweeteners, processed grains, enriched grains, complex carbohydrate, sweets, refined grains, and whole grains. No wonder knowing what kind and how much carbohydrate to eat can be confusing!

The three main types of carbohydrate are:

  • Starch (also known as complex carbohydrates)
  • Sugar
  • Fiber

On the nutrition label, the term "total carbohydrate" includes all three types of carbohydrates. This is the number you should pay attention to if you are carbohydrate counting.

Starch

Foods high in starch include:

  • Starchy vegetables like peas, corn, lima beans, and potatoes
  • Dried beans, lentils, and peas such as pinto beans, kidney beans, black eyed peas, and split peas
  • Grains like oats, barley, and rice. (The majority of grain products in the US are made from wheat flour. These include pasta, bread, and crackers but the variety is expanding to include other grains as well.)

The grain group can be broken down even further into whole grain or refined grain.

A grain, let's take wheat for example, contains three parts. The parts are the bran, germ, and the endosperm. The bran is the outer hard shell of the grain. It is the part of the grain that provides the most fiber and most of the B vitamins and minerals. The germ is the next layer and is packed with nutrients including essential fatty acids and vitamin E. The endosperm is the soft part in the center of the grain. It contains the starch. Whole grain means that the entire grain kernel is in the food.

If you eat a whole grain food, it contains the bran, germ, and endosperm so you get all of the nutrients that whole grains have to offer. If you eat a refined grain food, it contains only the endosperm or the starchy part so you miss out on a lot of vitamins and minerals. Because whole grains contain the entire grain, they are much more nutritious than refined grains.

Sugar

Sugar is another type of carbohydrate. You may also hear sugar referred to as simple or fast-acting carbohydrate. There are two main types of sugar:

naturally occurring sugars such as those in milk or fruit

added sugars such as those added during processing such as fruit canned in heavy syrup or sugar added to make a cookie
On the nutrition facts label, the number of sugar grams includes both added and natural sugars.

There are many different names for sugar. Examples of common names are table sugar, brown sugar, molasses, honey, beet sugar, cane sugar, confectioner's sugar, powdered sugar, raw sugar, turbinado, maple syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, agave nectar, and sugar cane syrup.

You may also see table sugar listed by its chemical name, sucrose. Fruit sugar is also known as fructose and the sugar in milk is called lactose. You can recognize other sugars on labels because their chemical names also end in "-ose." For example glucose (also called dextrose), fructose (also called levulose), lactose, and maltose.

Fiber

Fiber comes from plant foods so there is no fiber in animal products such as milk, eggs, meat, poultry, and fish. Fiber is the indigestible part of plant foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and legumes. When you consume dietary fiber, most of it passes through the intestines and is not digested.

For good health, adults need to try to eat 25 to 30 grams of fiber each day. Most Americans do not consume nearly enough fiber in their diet, so while it is wise to aim for this goal, any increase in fiber in your diet can be beneficial. Most of us only get about ½ what is recommended. Fiber contributes to digestive health, helps to keep you regular and helps to make you feel full and satisfied after eating. Additional health benefits, of a diet high in fiber — such as a reduction in cholesterol levels — have been suggested by some so may be an additional benefit.

Good sources of dietary fiber include:

  • Beans and legumes. Think black beans, kidney beans, pintos, chick peas (garbanzos), white beans, and lentils.
  • Fruits and vegetables, especially those with edible skin (for example, apples, corn and beans) and those with edible seeds (for example, berries).
  • Whole grains such as:
  • Whole wheat pasta
  • Whole grain cereals (Look for those with three grams of dietary fiber or more per serving, including those made from whole wheat, wheat bran, and oats.)
  • Whole grain breads (To be a good source of fiber, one slice of bread should have at least three grams of fiber. Another good indication: look for breads where the first ingredient is a whole grain. For example, whole whe+at or oats.) Many grain products now have "double fiber" with extra fiber added.
  • Nuts — try different kinds. Peanuts, walnuts and almonds are a good source of fiber and healthy fat, but watch portion sizes, because they also contain a lot of calories in a small amount.

In general, an excellent source of fiber contains five grams or more per serving, while a good source of fiber contains 2.5 - 4.9 grams per serving.

It is best to get your fiber from food rather than taking a supplement. In addition to the fiber, these foods have a wealth of nutrition, containing many important vitamins and minerals. In fact, they may contain nutrients that haven't even been discovered yet!

It is also important that you increase your fiber intake gradually, to prevent stomach irritation, and that you increase your intake of water and other liquids, to prevent constipation.

Because fiber is not digested like other carbohydrates, for carbohydrate counting purposes, if a serving of a food contains more than or equal to 5 grams of dietary fiber, you can subtract half the grams of dietary fiber from the total carbohydrate serving of that food.

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