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Carbohydrates are the main fuel of our bodies. Cells run on carbon compounds — much like plants create carbohydrate matter within their own matrices, using carbon dioxide and water via photosynthesis, our own cells run their functions based off of carbon.
There are different types of carbohydrates, some agreeable and some disagreeable to the human body. For example, carbs which are very starchy are difficult to digest, like corn, potatoes, rice, and any type of grains (bread, tortillas, chips, crackers, pasta, etc.) are very hard to metabolize, acid-forming throughout digestion, and are mucus-forming, sticky and difficult to eliminate — these carbs are not your friends.
Starches are made from complex sugars which create many problems when your body tries to digest them. Simple sugars are what the body runs on, with the body’s cellular carbon cycle consuming carbonic compounds from the carbon in simple sugars. Fructose (from fruit) is the best, containing the highest energetic levels — this allows the fuel from fructose to pass through the cell membrane wall via chemical diffusion, which saves a great deal of energy. Glucose (from vegetables) requires more cellular energy called ATP as well as insulin to get inside the cell (via active transport), while fructose requires little to none of this process.
Ultimately the body can only use simple sugars. If you feed it complex sugars, your body will first break down those compounds into simple sugars, before it can use them. When you get an overload of sugars in the body of too many different kinds of sugars, it creates excess carbon molecules, creating carbon dioxide and carbonic acid. These both create blowback via acidic reactions within the body which have to then be neutralized, creating extra work and energy for the body.
What about fats? Fats are more of a complex structure, especially compared with simple sugars like fructose or fruit sugar.
Fats are digested partially in the stomach, breaking down the fats with acid, and subsequently in the small intestine. The liver dumps out bile salts, making the fats water-soluble. The fats are then digested by the pancreas and small intestines, via gastric juices and enzymes, and broken down into fatty acids and monoglycerides. These fatty acids are distributed throughout the body and utilized for various functions as well as turned into fat storage, which can be converted back into energy in the future.
Keep in mind that when fats are being digested and transfigured from one elemental form to another, and also when fats are stored as excess energy and the later burned as fuel, this creates more acidic by-products, as compared with the body simply utilizing fructose or glucose (simple carbohydrate sugars) for energy.
Finally, let’s address the importance and role of proteins. This section might as well be called ‘Amino Acids’, because proteins are simply compound structures that are made up of — and broken back down into — amino acids.
The body cannot use a protein. There is nothing that a protein can do inside your body to assist it, feed it, or provide any value whatsoever, until it has been broken down into usable elements — these elements are amino acids.
The stomach must secrete its acidic gastric juices (hydrochloric acid) to ‘pre-digest’ the protein and break it down via an acidic process. Then, the pancreas further digests the food matter, using enzymes, in an alkaline digestive process. Finally, the intestines secrete enzymes which convert the twice-digested matter into its final form, amino acids, which can then be used by the body.
This is an extensive process, requiring much extra amounts of energy by the body. Once again, the body goes through this to ultimately gain amino acids, which are not really energetic fuel for the body, but used for other functions.
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