All carbohydrates are sugars

Whether a carbohydrate is sweet (like table sugar or in fruit) or not (such as in bread or vegetables), all carbs are made from sugar. Sugar chains more than 2 sugar molecules long are not sweet on the tongue, whereas single sugars and pairs of sugars are sweet. Fruit is not sweet before being ripe because the sugars have not broken down into the individual sugars yet. Usually the single sugars and pairs of sugars are simply referred to as “sugar” whereas longer chains are referred to as “complex carbs.”

Complex carbs are not healthier than simple carbs or “sugars.” Without fiber, complex carbohydrates, such as pasta, white bread and rice, digest so fast that the resultant sugars enter your bloodstream nearly as fast as if you had eaten sugar. Eating a bowl of plain white pasta is like eating table sugar but without the benefit of enjoying the sugar. Neither is advisable.

Fiber slows down digestion, so when you eat carbs (whether complex or not), the sugar enters the bloodstream slower, reducing body fat and increasing health.

Do not let people fool you into thinking that “complex carbs” are healthy. The US population has become dramatically over-weight using the mind-set that complex carbs are ok, and even healthy, to eat.

Fiber is what is healthy. Vegetables and to a lesser extend fruit and whole grains.

Fiber is also made from sugar, but the chemical structure is slightly different so it does not bind to digestion enzymes in our intestines. As a result, we can’t break it down and it slows down the digestion process, which is good! Fiber also comes with the majority of the vitamins and antioxidants (phytonutrients) so eating foods low in fiber not only increases obesity but they increase the chances of other disease states such as cancer.

Do NOT juice your food, whether that be fruit or vegetables or anything else. BLEND IT. Keep all the fiber and consume it. The pulp left behind in the juicer contains most of the health value. And using the pulp to make bread just breaks down the nutrients with heat in the oven. You need the original fruit and vegetables, not just the sugary watery part.

If you cook (a few minutes microwave or steaming) vegetables this helps break down the cell walls of the plant so that the nutrients inside become more bioavailable, increasing the health value of the vegetables. If you cook vegetables any more than this, you are just breaking down the nutrients with no more benefit from cell wall break down because the cell walls have already broken down as much as they are going to. Boiling vegetables leaches more nutrients out than microwaving or steaming. Microwaving food does not mutate it; it simply vibrates the water molecules inside to heat up the food.