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Sugar! Friend or Foe?

March 2, 2011

Hey, folks,

Have you heard of the two categories of sugar — simple and complex?  Probably many of you have, and perhaps some of you have not.  But, which sugar should you avoid?  Simple sugars?  Complex ones?  Both?  Neither?  Also, when should you eat simple or complex sugar?  Never?  For breakfast?  For dinner?  Whenever you want?

These are all good questions.  We’ll get to the answers to them in this and future posts.  For this post however, let’s start with this:

All sugars are carbohydrates, or “carbs”, for short.  When you eat carbs, they ALL break down, through digestion, into a simple sugar called glucose.  Glucose is then absorbed by your small intestine where it then can be

(1) used directly for energy by your cells, or
(2) stored in your muscles and liver as “glycogen” for later use, or
(3) stored as energy in the form of FAT.

Carbs that wind up in categories 1 or 2, above, can help us out.  Carbohydrates that hit the number 3 category can hinder us when we store too much of it.

Contrary to what some say, all carbs (i.e. sugars) are NOT bad. Some carbs are quite helpful in fact.  Your body needs carbs and will manufacture them, through a process called gluconeogenesis when you don’t eat enough of them.

This is the first of several short articles that will discuss carbohydrates — what they are, when to eat them, when to avoid them, etc.

If you have specific questions concerning carbs, let me know and I’ll cover those questions in this series on carbohydrates.

Talk with you soon.

Darryl

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