Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates. From now on, when you hear the word carbohydrate, I want you to use sugar. It's the job of the carbohydrate to provide and store energy for a short period of time. Ever hear of carbo loading? Well, this is when football players or soccer players or any athlete eats a whole bunch of spaghetti or pasta or bread right before a big game. They are loading up on these carbohydrates that they are going to burn quickly during the gang. They're going to use that short burst of energy for what they need to do in a short period of time. But the short term storage also has a downside. Your sugar rush is often followed by a sugar crash. This is why your teacher tells you make sure you eat a healthy breakfast before tomorrow's fake test. Don't go eating some sugary cereal. Your chest gonna crash. You will have a nice rush of energy for about 30 minutes after you eat that cereal. But when the carbs then all burn up, you'll crash and get sleepy, and you'll look like that chick right there. You don't want to do that. The ladies you are about to see are competing in the Iron Man triathlon. They have just swung 2.4 miles in the open ocean. Biked a 112 miles, and run a complete marathon, 26.2 miles. They are within 100 feet of the finish line and all their carbs. Sean Welch is in a desperate spot. Her body has run out of fuel. No calories to burn. Systems shutting down. The laser there, you just can't feel them. The eyes still see, but through a Gauzy veil of delirium. At this point, Sean Welch is aware of two things. The finish line is so close. And someone is so close behind. After more than 140 miles, it's come down to less than 100 feet. To that damn line. Just yards behind, a stalker appears. It's Wendy Ingram. Come on down. This is what happens to your body when you've depleted all of your energy sources. Like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you're eating that. Do you know how many carbs are in that? I so do not do carbs. We've all heard of the low carb craze, lately a lot of people have been low carb crazy. Both the Atkins and the south beach diet claim to help people lose weight if they avoid carbohydrates. So, what are carbs? Carbs are carbohydrates. Foods like potatoes, candy, sugar, bread, pasta, noodles, donuts, cookies, cakes, these are all carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are broken down into three different groups. Okay? We have sugars, starches, and cellulose. The first sugar, some times called simple sugars, are water soluble. Like the sugar you use when you make Kool-Aid, eventually all the sugar will dissolve in the water. The energy and simple sugar is used up very quickly. This would be your sugary cereal in candy. So welcome to my lovely kitchen. I've already put my Kool-Aid packet in my water, and now I'm adding my cup of sugar. See, the sugar I'll collected down there at the bottom. I gotta get my special Kool-Aid spoon. Stir it up. You can see there was old chunky Kool-Aid at the bottom there, but also you can see that the white sugar was in the bottom. His very easily salted liquid. So, because it's a simple sugar. It was very easy for the sugar to dissolve in the water. Next, we have starches, also known as complex sugars. They are known as complex sugars because they are made of long chains of glucose. And what is glucose you ask? Why glucose is a big fancy pants biology word for sugar. So, your starches are your potatoes, pastas, breads, bagels, the cake part of the donut, anything made out of flour. Now these starches are different than simple sugars, because these starches are not soluble in water. No matter how long I stir those two potatoes, they are not going to dissolve in the water the way the sugar did. That's because potatoes and starches are made of long chains of sugar. That's what makes them complex. Where the sugar and my Kool-Aid is made of short chains of sugar. That's why it dissolves so easily in its simple. The third type of carbohydrate is cellulose. Cellulose is a substance that we only find in plants. It's going to make up the walls of our plant cells, and we'll learn about those a little bit later. Now for the elements. What are carbohydrates made out of? Well, carbohydrate literally means carbon water. So for every carbon molecule there is a water molecule that goes with it. Now, because I already know the molecular formula for water, H2O, it makes it really easy. I just add one carbon onto that H2O. One carbon, plus two hydrogens, and one oxygen gives me C, H two O howdy. I'm a potato. I'm a carbohydrate. And I'm here to just bring you the facts on carbohydrates. Carbohydrates provide and store energy. It literally means carbon water. There are three types of carbohydrates, simple sugars, starches, and cellulose. The elements found in carbohydrates are carbon. Two hydrogens and one oxygen.