: Dietary fibre and carbohydrates When dieticians speak of carbohydrates, do they include dietary fibre? Also, what are carbohydrates? Saccharides and polysaccharides?

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Carbohydrates can be categorized according to how well they are digested or absorbed:

a) WELL-DIGESTIBLE (4 Cal/g):

Sugars:

Monosaccharides (glucose, fructose, galactose, mannose...)
Disaccharides (sucrose, lactose, maltose...)

Oligosaccharides (fructo-oligosaccharides, galacto-oligosaccharides...)
Polysaccharides:

Starch
Glycogen

b) POORLY DIGESTIBLE/ABSORBABLE (2 Cal/g):

Sugar alcohols or polyls (maltitol, mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol...)

c) NON-DIGESTIBLE (2 Cal/g):

Dietary fiber (various oligo- and polysaccharides, such as oligofructans and cellulose)

Diabetics who want to calculte how carbohydrates will affect their blood sugar levels need to subtract the amount of fiber from total carbohydrates.

Source: Calories in specific carbohydrates (Nature.com)

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This is from Uviv. Cal. San Francisco, "Understanding Fiber",

To summarize – you need to take the total amount of carbohydrate in a serving MINUS the carbohydrate in the fiber.(Source: Diabetes Teaching Center at the University of California, San Francisco)