“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.”
– Edith Wharton
What are examples of carbohydrates? and What are Carbohydrates?
What Happens to the Carbohydrates You Eat?
When you eat plant foods, your body breaks down the carbohydrates for energy. Let’s look at how your body digests a meal of pasta (starch), milk (lactose), and a handful of cherries (sucrose and fiber).
You Digest Carbohydrates in Your Mouth and Intestines
The digestion of carbohydrates starts in your mouth. The act of chewing mixes the saliva in your mouth with the food. Your saliva delivers a powerful enzyme called amylase (ase = enzyme), which starts breaking down the starch, specifically the amylose and amylopectin, in the pasta into smaller starch units. Some of the starch is broken down to the disaccharide, maltose.
This mixture of starch and amylase, along with the disaccharides maltose, lactose (in the milk), and sucrose (in the cherries), and the fiber (in the cherries) travels down to your stomach. The amylase continues to break down the starch until your stomach acids deactivate this enzyme. Once the food leaves your stomach, it moves through your small intestine. The arrival of the food in the small intestine signals the pancreas to release another enzyme, pancreatic amylase. The pancreatic amylase breaks down the remaining starch units into maltose.
All the disaccharides-maltose, lactose, and sucrose-are absorbed in your small intestine. The disaccharides brush up against the lining of your digestive tract. A variety of enzymes such as maltase, lactase, and sucrase, called brush border enzymes, are housed in the microvilli in your small intestine. These enzymes break down the disaccharides into monosaccharides, specifically glucose, fructose, and galactose. The monosaccharides are now ready to be absorbed into the blood. These absorbed monosaccharides travel in your blood to the liver.
There the fructose and galactose are converted to glucose. The glucose is either stored in the liver or shipped back out into the blood for delivery to your cells. The fiber continues down to the large intestine, where some of it is metabolized by bacteria in your colon. However, the majority of the fiber is eliminated from your body in stool.
From Carbohydrates to Glucose in Your Body
1. Sucrose and fiber
Starch
Lactose
2. Mouth
Starch breaks down to smaller units
2. Stomach
Starch, disaccharides, and fiber
3. Small intestine
Dissaccharides broken down to monosaccharides
5. Liver
Monosaccharides converted to glucose
6. Blood
GGlucose distributed throughout body
7. Fiber leaves body
