Carbohydrate deficiencies
Carbohydrates are not an essential nutrient in the sense that energy can also be derived from fat and protein.
However, diets that are low in carbohydrates are also low in dietary fibre and high in fat or protein (or both), therefore a risk of a deficiency of these nutrients is associated with a diet low in carbohydrate.
Another important consideration is that glucose is the brain’s only source of fuel so although the body can make energy from fats and proteins, this is an inefficient process which jeopardises the brain’s only source of fuel.
Symptoms of glucose deficiency can include dizziness, shaking, tremors, fatigue and energy crashes, hunger and cravings for sweets.
So many people think straight away carbohydrates are bread, pasta and rice etc. Let’s just categorise these for a better understanding.
Carbohydrates are made up of sugars, starches and dietary fibre. Without going into all the chemical structure side of things you best understanding of carbohydrates are:
Complex carbohydrates – include vegetables, legumes, beans, fruits and grain products.
These foods tend to contain little or no fat or simple sugars and can therefore promote weight loss by providing less calories per serve. They will stabilise the blood glucose levels longer and prevent hunger.
Simple sugar/Refined carbohydrates – where sugars are higher such as obviously sugar, milk, white bread, white pasta, white flour, cakes biscuits, confectionery, pastries etc.
These foods contain a lot of calories (energy) and are not essential to the human diet.
The more the food has been processed down the less nutrients it contains.
This is where so much focus now is on fresh produce and “clean eating” comes in.
More on that another time.. For now just understand complex carbohydrates are very important in your daily diets.
