Whole Wheat vs. White - What's the big deal?

The difference between whole wheat bread and white bread is a lot more than color!

There are a lot of buzz words surrounding carbs right now, since many of the fad diets have made carbs the fall guys for obesity. Of course, many of the fad diets have it VERY wrong, which is why they are fads. Unfortunately, during the craze there is a lot of misinformation that goes around and sticks.

So, let me start by saying CARBS ARE GOOD! They are an important part of a balanced diet. They provide our bodies with the fuel it needs to go to work, think, type, exercise, drive a car, you get the idea. Carbs are our energy source. The problem lies when we take in more carbs than we are going to burn or store in our liver (as glycogen). Our bodies, the hoarders that they are, convert those carbs over to fat (as with any other macromolecules that we eat in excess and don't use), saving them for a rainy day. Fortunately, because we don't have mass starvation and hopefully no major illnesses, that rainy day never comes, we continue to consume more energy than we spend and it results in a lot of stored up energy - fat.

Oh yeah, I have enough energy packed on this body that I could power a small city for a few years.

Ok, joking aside. Why are carbs not created equal? To explain this we are going to have to dip our toe into biochemistry. Just a toe, as I don't think I could fully swim in the subject, but I can share what I've learned over the last two years in my higher level science courses.

Monosaccharides (Simple Carbs)

Monosaccharide

When our body breaks down our foods into the nutrients it uses to fuel our bodies it uses energy. Yes, just eating will cause you to burn calories to process the food. Some foods require more energy to break them down than others. That energy is spent, primarily, by breaking bonds of elements that are joined together to form the molecule (or chains of moledules). Carbohydrates have a basic molecular formula of C6H12O6 for one molecule. When you have a monosaccharide (a simple carb) it takes your body less energy to digest as there are less bonds to break.  When I look at white bread now, I think about the processing it has already gone through. That processing used energy that my body otherwise would have spent, to make it refined.


Disaccharides and Polysaccharides (Complex Carbs)

Polysaccharide

Complex carbohydrates are multiple glucose molecules, joined together (polysaccharide is a string of three or more), so they have more bonds for our bodies to break. This is why they maintain a more consistent level of glucose in our bloodstreams, as our bodies spend a longer time breaking them down, releasing the glucose steadily rather than in one quick burst.

In addition to that, fiber is present, giving the complex carbohydrate more bang for it's buck. Our bodies cannot digest fiber, however, it does great things while moving around within us! First and foremost, it fills our bellies longer due to the fact that it can't be broken down. It sits there, churning, keeping us more satisfied as our other foods are digested and broken down. Additionally, fiber molecules eventually hit our bloodstream where they act as little cleaners, scrubbing buildups of cholesterol and other fats off the lining of our arteries. But, their work isn't done in those little tubes, they continue to clean as they recycle back into the GI tract where they scrub and clean our intestines and colon.

So, when I'm shopping I now look for the products that will allow my body to do the work, rather than allowing machines in the food processing plant to do them for me. I'm going to eat anyway, I might as well make my body work harder in the process, get some cleaning action from it!

The key is moderation and making sure your carb has its good buddy protein, as the two work well together.