Carbohydrates are compounds that are made up of one or more sugar molecule. There are simple and complex carbohydrates. The simplest carbohydrates have only one sugar unit and are called monosaccharides, examples are glucose, fructose and galactose. Carbohydrates with two saccacharides are called disaccharides and examples are lactose from milk and sucrose from sugar cane and sugar beets. Carbohydrates with many sugars linked together are called polysaccharides, examples of polysaccahrides include starches and fiber. Digestible carbohydrates in foods provide energy for the body, while indigestible carbohydrates are known as fiber, being neither absorbed or digested in the small intestine. Although it has no nutritional value, soluble and insoluble fiber has been found to be essential in many ways for maintaining health, as is found in the accompanying Fast Facts section. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002469.htm http://healthletter.mayoclinic.com/editorial/editorial.cfm/i/87/t/Vitamin%20F:%20Is%20fiber%20a%20vitamin%3F/ http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%201-2/CarbChem1.htm

Understanding the effects that carbohydrates have on your nutrition and potential weight loss is an important part of dieting. Many diets have focused only on the caloric content of carbohydrates of foods. The caloric value of carbohydrates, which is measured by complete combustion to of food substances to ash in a device called a bomb calorimeter. Scientists have found that this physical value is not a reflection of the physiological effect that a food can have on your metabolism.

That is intuitively not the case for indigestible fibers in your foods and it turns out that other types of carbohydrates differ in their ability to be digested and absorbed into the bloodstream. For instance, research scientists have worked over 20 years, in an effort to help design diets that work for diabetics, to understand the effects that different carbohydrate sources have on the rise of blood sugar levels.

This research resulted in the glycemic index, which rated foods as either having a low, moderate or high ability to cause blood sugar levels to rise after ingestion, when compared to similar intakes of the pure sugar glucose. Development of the glycemic index has resulted in diet plans based on its principles, such as The New Glucose Revolution and the South Beach Diet. The http://www.glycemicindex.com/ index is also readily available to help individuals develop a deeper understanding of which foods are better to include in diets which help avoid hunger swings and large fluctuations in blood sugar levels.http://www.exo.net/~pauld/activities/food/countingcalories.html http://www.glycemicindex.com/