I saw my friend eating a banana, and he said “I’m trying to eat more fruits instead of junk like bread and crackers”, and my other friend said “that doesn’t matter. Carbs are carbs.”
Now at face value, it seems a bit silly: we are all brought up to believe that fruits have other nutrients that are beneficial to us. But in the end, are the carbs in both sources the same? Similarly, can one say that the sugars one obtains in a fruit are the same as those obtained in a candy bar?
My intuitive understanding is, while “sugar” is in fact just sugar (irrespective of the source), the reason we consider fruits or vegetables important is because of the other nutrients and vitamins they contain, giving them an overall better nutritional profile than their processed counterparts. In addition, I think that the chemical modifications that manufacturers make to their goods are considered unhealthy. But In the end, is it fair to say that a “carb is just a carb”? Or sugar a sugar?
In: Biology
So carbohydrates are a category that includes starches and sugars. Both if them have sub categories, like complex starches which are chains of simple starches, and there are many types of sugars, glucose, fructose, maltose, etc.
Different types of foods will have different ratios of those.
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