Asp N G
Department of Applied Nutrition and Food Chemistry, Lund University, Sweden.
Am J Clin Nutr. 1994 Mar;59(3 Suppl):679S-681S. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/59.3.679Sa.
Dietary guidelines for Western countries encourage a considerable increase in carbohydrate intake. Because of new developments regarding nutritional properties of various food carbohydrates, these guidelines should include more precise recommendations of the carbohydrate composition. Small-intestinal digestibility is, nutritionally, the most important property of food carbohydrates. This was recognized early by British scientists, who differentiated between "available" and "unavailable" carbohydrates. Dietary fiber is generally defined as undigestible polysaccharides and lignin. Resistant starch is a newly discovered undigestible component included in such fiber definition, although current analysis methods do not recover all forms of resistant starch. The term "complex carbohydrates" has been used to mean digestible polysaccharides, ie, starch, in the United States, and to mean all polysaccharides, ie, both starch and nonstarch polysaccharides, in Europe. The term's usefulness is questionable because chain length of digestible carbohydrates is not related to specific nutritional advantages.
西方国家的饮食指南鼓励大幅增加碳水化合物的摄入量。鉴于各种食物碳水化合物营养特性方面的新进展，这些指南应包含更精确的碳水化合物组成建议。从营养角度来看，小肠消化率是食物碳水化合物最重要的特性。英国科学家很早就认识到了这一点，他们区分了“可利用”和“不可利用”的碳水化合物。膳食纤维通常被定义为不可消化的多糖和木质素。抗性淀粉是最近发现的包含在这种纤维定义中的不可消化成分，尽管目前的分析方法无法检测到所有形式的抗性淀粉。在美国，“复合碳水化合物”一词用于指可消化的多糖，即淀粉；而在欧洲，它指的是所有多糖，即淀粉和非淀粉多糖。该术语的实用性值得怀疑，因为可消化碳水化合物的链长与特定的营养优势并无关联。
