Crakk said:
OK! Thanks Irene. Im not dumb,
I was just wondering. I thought the body burned protein in all cases, not just when the body went into starvation mode. So if you eat more complex carbs, your body will burn more?
I'll try to explain it the best I can without being boring: When you eat, you get a combination of carbs, fat, proteins and other things such as minerals and vitamines, I'll concentrate in the first three. The carbs, fats and proteins contained in food are complex molecules our digestive tube can't absorb, so digestion consists in transforming them into smaller molecules. Carbs are transformed into glucose, fructose and galactose (which are always transformed into glucose before they can be burnt for enery). Fats are transformed into fatty acids. Proteins are transformed into amionacids. All of these are absorbed and end up in the portal vein, which communicates the digestive system with the liver.
The liver is extremely important because it distributes nutrients in our body. First thing we use is glucose (carbs), our cells prefer it more than anything else and they need insuline to be able to pick it up from blood (with a few exceptions like neurones). When we eat, the liver distributes a small amount of glucose throughout the body and it also accumulates a small part in the form of glycogen (is the way we store carbs). Glycogen is stored in the liver and in the muscle, but the glycogen in the muscle is only for muscular use, glycogen in the liver is for general use.
All of this happens to a small part of the glucose we eat. What's the reason for it? Some cells, such as brain cells, can't function with anything but glucose (this is not entirely true, they can use other things but only in the case of starvation and it has side effects), so it's extremly important that levels of glucose in blood are constant. If our body consumed all the glucose we eat, brain cells would die. That means than just after we eat there's a big secretion of insuline but then insuline levels decrease and our cells start using fat for energy in order to leave the carbs that are left just for the brain.
Fat is "better" than carbs since a single molecule of fatty acid provides a lot more energy than a molecule of glucose (but if our cells could choose they'll always chose glucose! there's no logical explanation for it). This is the main reason why we store energy as fat and not carbs, because in the same amount of fat there's a lot more energy than in carbs. So, about two hours after a meal insuline levels decrease and all our cells except neurones start working only with fat.
Summary: carbs are the fuel we use just after a meal but then we start using fat and leave carbs for brain cells and as a storage in the form of glycogen. If we eat too much carbs, since the liver can't store big amounts of glycogen and blood levels of glucose can't be too high, we transform it into fat in order to store it.
Proteins don't have to do with any of this. They are absorbed as amionacids. There are two kinds of aminoacids: essential and non-essential. Essential amionacids are the ones our body can't create, so that means we can only get them from the diet. Non-essential amionacis can be created by our cells. So, when we eat proteins the amionacids are degraded in order to create our own or, if they are essential, are used just the way they are. With amionacids we create our own proteins and they have loooooooots of very important functions in our body, from merely structural to immunologycal. Amionacids are never used as fuel unless our body has no carbs and fat (well, it will have fat, but it's mostly used to create ketonic bodies, the other thing brain cells can use to get energy), and that happens only in very advanced starvation.
To answer your question, your body burns what it needs and it doesn't have anything to do with how complex are the molecules you need. Eating more complex carbs it's not different than eating simpler ones in terms of energy, because in the end they are all reduced to glucose before they are absorbed.
Hope I've explained myself crearly and in case it's considered to be against the rules I can always PM you.
Those mini coconuts look good....why does coconut taste so much like walnut anyway. Mmm..nut...
You're funny!
it's like their little eyes are looking at you 
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