Why are carbohydrates needed by the body? what are they used for?
1 Answer
Carbohydrates are essential for energy!
Explanation:
Carbohydrates are essentially hydrocarbons, the same stuff you would use in a car or a plane - fuel! Complex carbohydrates (with long chains) can be broken down into simple sugars like glucose which is used in respiration - the biological reaction that supplies our bodies with energy.
This is why you get short and long acting carbohydrates, foods with a high sugar content are full of carbohydrate s with short chains and donate easy to break down and will provide you with lots of energy quickly. Long chains, like starch, take longer to break down so will provide you with less energy for longer.
An excess of carbohydrate can be stored in your body as fat, so that it can be used to supply you with energy when you cannot get it immediately from food.
Hope this helps:)
