Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Starches
They are complex carbohydrates, which are made of lots of simple sugars strung together. Your body needs to break starches down into sugars to use them for energy. Starches include bread, cereal, and pasta. They also include certain vegetables, like potatoes, peas, and corn.
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Sugars
They are also called simple carbohydrates because they are in the most basic form. They can be added to foods, such as the sugar in candy, desserts, processed foods, and regular soda. They also include the kinds of sugar that are found naturally in fruits, vegetables, and milk.
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Types of carbohydrates
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Functions
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Biological sources
Fatty acids are found in biological systems either as free molecules or as components of more-complex lipids. They are derived from dietary sources or produced by metabolism, as described below. Digestion of dietary fatty acids The main source of fatty acids in the diet is triglycerides, generically called fats. In humans, fat constitutes an important part of the diet, and in…
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Chemical properties
The most chemically reactive portion of fatty acids is the acidic carboxyl group (COOH). It reacts with alcohols (R′OH) to form products known as esters (RCOOR′) and releases water in the process. This ester bond is the principal covalent bond linking fatty acid moieties to other groups in the more-complex lipids discussed in other sections of this article. A second chemical bond, occurring…
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Physical properties
Pure fatty acids form crystals that consist of stacked layers of molecules, with each layer the thickness of two extended molecules. The molecules in a layer are arranged so that the hydrophobic (water-fearing) hydrocarbon chains form the interior of the layer and the hydrophilic (water-loving) carboxylic acid groups form the two faces. For a specific fatty acid…
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Substituent groups
In addition to the very common fatty acids with straight saturated or unsaturated acyl chains, many fatty acids are chemically modified by substituents on the hydrocarbon chain. For example, the preening gland of ducks secretes a fatty acid 10 carbons long with methyl (CH3) groups substituted for one of the hydrogens on carbons 2, 4, 6, and 8. Some…
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Unsaturated of fatty acids
Unsaturated fatty acids have one or more carbon-carbon double bonds. The term unsaturated indicates that fewer than the maximum possible number of hydrogen atoms are bonded to each carbon in the molecule. The number of double bonds is indicated by the generic name—monounsaturated for molecules with one double bond or polyunsaturated for molecules with two or more double bonds. Oleic…
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Saturated of fatty acids
The simplest fatty acids are unbranched, linear chains of CH2 groups linked by carbon-carbon single bonds with one terminal carboxylic acid group. The term saturated indicates that the maximum possible number of hydrogen atoms are bonded to each carbon in the molecule. Many saturated fatty acids have a trivial or common name as well as a chemically descriptive systematic name. The systematic names are…
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