Carbs, Fats and Proteins

There are two main groups of carbs – simple and complex. Simple carbs are high glycaemic index sugars. They are called ‘simple’ because your body breaks them down into energy quickly. Complex carbs take longer to be converted to energy. As your body turns these into energy slower, you get energy for longer. Complex carbs are found in foods like brown bread and other whole wheat products, whole cereals, potato, pasta and rice. Carbohydrates are the type of energy your body finds easiest to use and are essential for brain health. Fruits are a healthy source of carbohydrates as they also supply you with vitamins which are necessary for your health.
It is important to separate carbohydrate food from ‘junk food’. Junk foods are either mostly sugar (one type of carbohydrate) or mostly fat. Junk food has little or no nutritional value because it is often flavoured artificially and made with refined sugar. Junk food includes soft drinks, chips, lollies and deep-fried takeaways, and should not be a part of anyone’s day-to-day eating. That said, once or twice a week, a small amount of this sort of food is okay. 

Fat is what animals use to store energy from food they haven’t used. The same weight of fat contains more than twice as much energy than carbohydrates or protein. The two main groups of fat are saturated fats and unsaturated fats. You can tell them apart normally by whether they are liquid or solid at room temperature (i.e. fats and oils). Butter and the fat on meat are saturated fats. Olive and canola oil are unsaturated fats.
Where possible, it is best to minimise saturated fat intake, by eating lean meat, using small amounts of butter, or replacing butter with an oil-based spread. Like carbs and protein, eating too much fat will cause weight gain. But, also like carbs and protein, including some fat in the diet is important too. Once again, balance is important. Some ‘low- fat’ varieties of food contain extra sugar to make up for the taste lost by removing fat, meaning some ‘low-fat’ foods are still high calorie foods.

Protein is used for energy and to build muscle tissue. Getting enough protein is important to maintain our bodies. Fortunately, there are plenty of good sources for protein in your diet. The single biggest source of protein in most diets is meat. Other sources of animal protein include eggs, cheese, milk and yoghurt.
Protein is also abundant in plant foods. Beans, nuts, grains, tubers and seeds are good sources of vegetable protein. This means foods such as bread, rice, pasta, peanuts, potatoes, baked beans, tofu and other soy products are all abundant sources of protein.
The difference between animal and plant sources of protein is that animal sources contain all of the essential amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) that our bodies require, while most plant foods only have one or more of these nine amino acids. In practice, this is not a problem as long as you eat a few different types of plant food across a day (the amino acids do not need to be eaten in the same meal).