Fats, Carbs & Proteins Most foods are a combo-Healthy eating advice from Herbalife
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Hi, I'm Susan Bowerman, Herbalife Nutritionist.
We have a tendency to define foods as proteins or fats or carbs. It's sort of a shorthand way of classifying them, depending on whether fat, protein or carbohydrate provides most of the calories. We call potatoes carbs and fish protein but, in reality, very few foods are made up of only fat, or carbohydrate or protein -- many, in fact, contain all three.
Say protein to most people, and they're likely to list meats, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products and maybe some vegetarian sources like beans or lentils. But these foods aren't purely protein. When you eat meat or fish or poultry, you're eating some fat calories, too. If you eat foods like milk or yogurt, you are getting protein, and sometimes some fat, but you're also getting carbohydrate from the natural milk sugar. Plant proteins like beans or lentils aren't purely protein either -- they naturally contain small amounts of fat, and they provide carbohydrate, too - mostly in the form of fiber.
When I say carbs, you probably think of bread, rice or pasta. And yes, these grain-based foods are primarily carbohydrate. But grains -- especially whole grains - naturally contain some protein, and small amounts of fat, too. You don't think of veggies as carbs, but most of their calories are carbohydrate calories -- and vegetables also contain small amounts of fat and little bits of protein, too.
We classify foods like oil and butter as fats, but we sometimes call foods like avocado or nuts "fats". Avocado does contain quite a bit of healthy fat, but it also has carbohydrate -- again, mostly from fiber -- and also a little bit of protein. Most of the calories you eat when you eat a handful of nuts are fat calories, but that handful also has about 5 grams of protein and even some carbohydrate.
There are a few foods that don't fit the pattern. With the exception of avocado, which is technically a fruit, fruits have no fat, and only a few have just the barest trace of protein. Oils are 100% fat, and plain sugars -- like table sugar, honey and maple syrup - are all carbohydrate.
Herbalife nutritionist, Susan Bowerman explains why most foods are combo foods that cannot be classified into one type. Foods are not just fat, protein or carbohydrates but they are a combination of all three they are combo foods. Although we define foods in those three categories most foods have a little bit of each in them. Vegetables can contain fat & fruit contains carbohydrates. Find out which foods are combos off all three.