Nutrition 101: Sugars + Carbohydrates
Sugars and carbohydrates are hot topics in an everlasting debate over their health benefits, and so extremely that some remove many foods from their diet. A sustainable approach includes moderation and understanding how your body benefits from natural sugars and carbohydrates. Knowing these key benefits and how to best manage your intake allows for a simplified approach to your daily nutrition and a more enjoyable food experience.
Important Education Takeaways
Carbohydrates (aka carbs) are an important part of a healthy diet. They are one of the three major macronutrients that provide our bodies with energy and are essential in almost every bodily function. Choose mostly complex carbs and controlled amounts of nutritionally beneficial simple carbs
Helpful facts about carbs:
4 calories per gram.
Though our muscles function from both fats and carbs (i.e., glucose – your blood sugar), carbs are the primary energy source for our bodies.
Our brains actually prefer carbs for best functioning.
Important bodily functions relying on carbs: breathing, temperature regulation, digestion, muscle contraction, blood sugar regulation, and insulin metabolism.
When your body has more energy than needed, it stores excess in your muscles and in the liver for later use; this stored energy is known as glycogen.
Adequate consumption allows for “protein sparing” in preventing the unnecessary breakdown of muscles.
Other important molecules supporting your bodily functions use carbs as their building blocks, proteins and lipids for example.
Carbohydrate foods are a valuable source of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
Simple versus complex carbohydrates:
Simple: Provide quick energy because of rapid digestion and absorption. And due to the nature of their quick absorption, these often cause blood sugar spikes. Choosing less processed foods and natural sugars offers more nutritional benefits.
Examples: unprocessed/natural (fruit, dairy); processed/added (table sugar, candy, cookies).
Complex: Offers sustained energy with slower digestion and absorption and helps you feel fuller longer. Choose mostly complex carbs from unprocessed foods for their enhanced nutritional benefits such as fiber intake and cholesterol control; limit low quality refined foods.
Examples: unprocessed (whole grains like brown rice, steel-cut oats, quinoa), vegetables, beans, legumes; processed (bagels, white breads, baked goods, chips, white rice, pasta).
Be sugar (and sugar substitute) savvy. Know and understand the differences in naturally occurring and added sugars to support a healthy, balanced diet. Be aware of the artificial sweetener's pros and cons.
Naturally occurring sugars (fruits, dairy) are simple carbohydrates without the negative implications of processed, added sugars.
Limit foods and beverages that contain refined and added sugars (sweetened yogurts, sugary breakfast cereals, granola bars, candies, flavored coffee drinks, sports drinks, and soda).
Artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose are chemically derived food additives. These often taste hundreds of times sweeter than table sugar but contain no calories and no beneficial nutrients.
Sugar alcohols, including erythritol, sorbitol, and xylitol, are synthetically derived from sugars. These taste less sweet than table sugar and they do not contain as many calories. They can cause GI upset if consumed in large quantities.
Novel sweeteners, such as monk fruit, stevia, and allulose are synthesized from plants. They often taste as sweet or sweeter than table sugar but may provide fewer calories.
Fuel your body with appropriate amounts of carbohydrates and sugars. Excessive carb intake can lead to weight gain, glycemic and metabolic issues, and an increased risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Carbohydrates can make up anywhere from 45-65% of our daily caloric intake. Your carbohydrate needs may vary depending on your age, sex, weight status, activity levels, and medical conditions. In general, 50% of calories from carbs would equate to:
250 grams per day for a 2000 calorie diet
200 grams per day for a 1600 calorie diet
Limit added sugars to 10% or less of your daily calories.
36 grams (equal to 9 tsp) for men
24 grams (equal to 6 tsp) for women
Monitor your carb intake to ensure you are consuming the appropriate amount. Try using the methods below:
Counting carbs or macro track
Reading food labels
Weigh or measure food portions
Checking the glycemic index of foods
Follow the healthy plate method. You can learn more about it in this 4-minute video.
Instead of avoiding all carbs, focus on reducing your intake of highly refined foods and beverages that have added sugars and/or artificial sweeteners.
Balance your meals and snacks by combining your carb foods with some lean protein or healthy fat for better blood sugar response.
Recipes
Recipe of the month: Sicilian Olive Oil Cake
As always, this recipe is the showcase of our live taught, virtual cooking class. Our chef and registered dietitian bring the recipe to life as they walk you through food prep, swaps to meet dietary or taste preferences, plus tips and tools to support you being your own healthy chef at home.
Bonus recipe: DIY Granola Bars
From Jamie’s kitchen to yours, our monthly bonus recipes are published on our website and social media the 4th Wednesday of each month. We invite you to browse our recipe collection and come back often to find more flavorful and heart-healthy recipes.
We invite you to join us for the live taught, virtual nutrition classes each month to gather more information on our nutrition topics. This is also an opportunity to ask topic-related questions of our experts as well as connect socially with attendees for idea sharing. As a registered participant for our In the Kitchen program, you receive a few reminders ahead of each scheduled monthly classes, but here’s an easy to remember schedule: Nutrition Education (30-minutes, 2nd Wednesday, 12pm), Cooking Class (up to 60-minutes, 3rd Monday, 12pm).
Contributing authors: Jamie Libera, RD, LD, CCTD, registered dietitian, Providence.