Are Carbs Good or Bad: Why Should Carbohydrates Matter?

Bagels, beans, bread, pitas, brown bread, corn, yam, oatcakes, peas, lentils, potatoes are all carbohydrates. One of my close friends is always dieting. He is constantly watching what foods he eats. I told him that carbohydrates are good for nutrition purposes and health. He gazed at me with a blank stare, and then told me if I could do some research on the topic. Gladly agreeing to his favor, I started researching. I started looking up carbs and dieting.

Well I started off by finding the definition of a carbohydrate. What classifies itself as a carbohydrate? According to weightlossforall.com all carbohydrates are broken down into glucose. Glucose is a monosaccharide, and to take it out of its technical terms it's a simple sugar. Simple sugars are known as grape sugar, blood sugar, or corn sugar. Once glucose is broken down it produces adenosinetriphosphate (energy molecule) also known as ATP. Energy production comes from bran, wheatgerm, barley, maize, buckwheat, cornmeal, and oatmeal. These are the main carbs good for your diet and health. Those four natural complex carbs are good for your diet.

Good complex carbohydrate intake is great for exercise and can effectively make each workout you complete and effective source of weight loss. If you increase your metabolism you will lose weight faster. Foods that increase your metabolism are apples, blueberries, watermelon, grapefruit, tangerines, limes, carrots, beets, cabbage, broccoli and celery. There are a lot more vegetables and fruits that help increase your metabolism as well!

Good Carbs

1. Good carbs foods are fruits, vegetables and whole grains! Fruits and vegetables have lots of nutrients, vitamins, minerals and are low in calories. Individuals that eat more fruits and vegetables are at lower risk for diseases such as cancer. If you want to use good carbs, for good nutrition you want to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. The fruits and vegetables can be fresh, canned, frozen, raw, or cooked!

2. Whole grain foods like pasta, wheat, rye, barley, corn are great for your body because they provide energy and natural nutrition that your body needs for a healthy diet. Foods like whole grains are high in fiber. High fiber foods are good for your diet because they leave a long-lasting full feeling. The people that live the longest happen to be in Asia, and they are known to encourage rice in their diets everyday.

3. Potatoes are another high-starch carb. Potatoes are fat free and they are high in vitamin C (just in case you don't like oranges), fiber, and potassium.

Try to look for pastas and foods that can be whole grain.

Bad Carbs

Refined and processed foods are bad carbs, and should not be in your diet at all. Processed foods are altered from their natural state. This is done because these bad carb foods are not good for your diet. Manufacturers can, freeze, refrigerate, and dehydrate these foods because of safety reasons. Bad foods would be canned foods with a lot of sodium, white breads, paste made with refined white flour, snack foods, chips, cheese snacks, packaged cookies, meal mixes, frozen food, sugary cereals, processed meat, and fast food!

I hope that I was able to answer some of your questions. Let me know if you have some other great sources and website to find good and bad carbs!

Works Cited:

http://www.weightlossforall.com/complex-carbs.htm

http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/processedfoods.htm