Welcome to Dr. Bill's Nutrition Site.

CARBOHYDRATES

Carbohydrates are composed of the elements - carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

They can be classified as MONOSACCHARIDES, DISACCHARIDES AND POLYSACCHARIDES.

Monosaccharides - literally one sugar. They can be classified by the number of carbon atoms in the molecule - examples - trioses (3 carbon sugars); pentoses (5 carbon sugars); hexoses (6 carbon sugars).

Focusing on the hexoses (6 carbon sugars), we see 3 primary examples: glucose, fructose, and galactose.  These three are the primary examples of the monosaccharides.                                                                Disaccharides are the two sugar hexoses. There are 3 primary examples: maltose = glucose bonded to glucose; sucrose = glucose bonded to fructose; and lactose = glucose bonded to galactose.

Polysaccharides (means many sugars), for our purposes, think of many glucoses bonded together. Two major types of polysaccharides are important. One is glycogen (so-called animal starch); digestible by animals - even if found in plants. Two forms of glycogen: one is amylose and the other is amylopectin. Amylopectin holds more glucoses per unit than amylose. The second type of polysaccharide is plant starch, typically represented by cellulose = non digestible by animals. Typically found in plants as structural components of cell walls.

nutrition2.html - proteins

Bonus page.