In recent years, people have become accustomed to calling high-density lipoprotein cholesterol "good cholesterol" and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol "bad cholesterol". This statement is not entirely accurate. Not long ago, "good carbon water" and "bad carbon water" also began to attract people's attention. So, are there any "good" or "bad" types of carbohydrates? Fasting and fasting are not advisable recently, and healthy weight has become a hot topic of discussion among people. The key to controlling weight is to achieve a balance between eating and moving. And many people are more concerned about "eating", so there are two new terms that have attracted a lot of attention: "good carbon water" and "bad carbon water". The term 'carbohydrates' here refers to carbohydrates, named after their ultimate breakdown into carbon dioxide and water, and is also known as' sugar' in nutrition. Sugar, protein, and fat are collectively referred to as the three major energy providing nutrients. Energy supply "refers to providing energy for physical activities, including heartbeat, breathing, digestion, absorption, thinking, memory, metabolism, and all other physiological activities that require it. Among these three major energy providing nutrients, carbohydrates are the most important in terms of both quality and quantity. To put it bluntly, it means' people can skip meat, but they cannot skip food '. With the improvement of living standards, many people pursue the desire for food and drink, but the long-term consequence of "not being tired of fine food and not tired of fine dishes" is that nearly half of the people are overweight and one-third of them are obese. Medical research has found that overweight and obesity are the root causes of diabetes and some metabolic diseases, and such diseases are related to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and even some cancers, which has to draw people's attention. Although overweight and obesity are influenced by certain genetic factors, they mainly stem from excessive energy intake and lack of physical activity. Therefore, to change this situation, we must take the opposite approach and shift from "eating more and moving less" to "eating less and moving more". Being more active is easy, as long as you actively participate in sports, gradually progress, and pay attention to safety. The issue of 'eating less' is quite complex. Because food is of paramount importance to the people, their survival and development cannot be separated from the support of nutrition, which is mainly obtained through eating food into the body. Eating too much is not conducive to health, and eating less essential nutrients also affects health. In terms of energy, excessive intake can lead to overweight and obesity, while insufficient intake will inevitably result in weight loss, weakness, and even disease. It can be seen that the necessary prerequisite for controlling energy is to ensure sufficient nutrient intake. For this, the first thing to pay attention to is fat, because 1 gram of fat can produce 9 kilocalories of energy, much higher than the production capacity of carbohydrates and proteins. So it is necessary to strictly control the intake of fat - less than 30 grams per person per day, and priority should be given to choosing foods containing high-quality fatty acids, such as fish, olive oil, etc. Carbohydrates often appear in people's lives in the form of "staple foods". So, some people blindly believe in fasting or fasting in order to lose weight. There is also a weight loss method called "ketogenic diet", which means not eating carbohydrates. This method can indeed help with weight loss in the short term, but it is difficult to sustain and not conducive to health, which is despised by the mainstream nutrition community. Nutritional studies have shown that there are many types of foods mainly composed of carbohydrates, and people should choose those that are more beneficial to their health. So, what are the healthy and carbohydrate based foods? Firstly, as a beneficial and healthy food, it should contain a wide variety of nutrients. To give a slightly extreme example, glucose is a form of carbohydrate that can only be absorbed by the human body after digestion. A cup of water containing 50 grams of glucose can theoretically produce 200 kilocalories of energy in the body, but it has no other nutrients besides producing energy. People inevitably need to eat other foods in order to obtain other nutrients, and at the same time, they also consume energy, which can easily lead to excessive energy intake. So, from the perspective of human health, glucose water is not a high-quality carbohydrate. Similarly, refined sugar, sugary drinks, and even refined rice, white flour, etc. are not high-quality carbohydrate foods. Nutritionists call them "low in nutritional density" and therefore cannot be considered good carbohydrates. Secondly, carbohydrate foods are digested and converted into glucose, which is absorbed into the bloodstream. As a result, blood sugar levels rise, stimulating insulin secretion and converting it into energy for utilization. If insulin secretion is not timely or sufficient, elevated blood sugar can damage blood vessels and related tissues. Various types of carbohydrate foods have different rates and heights of blood sugar elevation after consumption. Foods with high glycemic index are those that raise blood sugar levels quickly and significantly. This kind of food is not suitable for diabetes patients, nor for normal people. Therefore, carbohydrate rich foods with high nutrient density and low glycemic index can be considered high-quality carbohydrate foods. The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" issued by the Chinese government emphasizes that a certain amount of whole grains (i.e. non processed grains), miscellaneous grains, legumes, and potatoes should be consumed because these foods are all high-quality carbohydrates. Among them, soybeans and other substances also contain a certain amount of fat, and the content of cellulose is relatively high. The 2022 version of the Chinese Dietary Guidelines for Residents recommends that each person should consume 25 to 35 grams of fiber per day. Cellulose can interfere with the absorption of cholesterol in the human body, delay the rise of blood sugar, and provide nutrients for probiotics in the intestine, which is quite beneficial to human health. However, according to surveys, more than 90% of residents in China have insufficient fiber intake, so it is important to emphasize the intake of such high-quality carbohydrate foods. Different groups of people have varying demands for nutrients, for example, the digestive function of the elderly is relatively weak, and their ability to digest the above-mentioned foods may be relatively poor. Nutritionists suggest that for health reasons, such high-quality carbohydrates should account for at least one-third of the total staple food. The elderly can make more efforts in cooking, such as cooking porridge and making rice milk, so as to facilitate digestion and absorption. Carbohydrates themselves are not good or bad, the key lies in the density of other nutrients in carbohydrate containing foods, as well as the intensity of the blood sugar rise reaction caused by consumption. High nutrient density and low glycemic index are considered "high-quality carbohydrate foods". (New Society)