Carbohydrates

What is a carbohydrates? What does it mean? How would you know if you are dealing with carbohydrates? What are the things that compose carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates serve as an immediate source of energy. It is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and Carbohydrates means "sweet carbon". The ending -ose indicates that you are dealing with carbohydrates. The empirical formula of it is: (CH2O)n. There are three groups of carbohydrates: monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides. Monosaccharide is the major source of fuel for metabolism. It is classified based on the placement of carbonyl group, number of atoms and chiral handedness. Aldose if the carbonyl group is an aldehyde and ketose if the carbonyl group is a ketose. Disaccharide is a two joined monosaccharides. While polysaccharides is equal to ten monosaccharides unit.

This topic was the toughest for me. Whew! I really did not get it all because it was discussed too fast. So maybe I could suggest that it will be better if it will be discussed to us slowly and more examples for us to understand further.