Food chemistry
Comprising 75% of the biological world and 80% of all food intake for human consumption, the most common known human carbohydrate is Sucrose. The simplest version of a carbohydrate is a monosaccharide which contains carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in a 1:2:1 ratio under a general formula of CHO where n is a minimum of 3. Glucose is an example of a monosaccharide as is fructose. Combine them in the picture shown to the right and you have sucrose, one of the more common sugar products around.
Low-carbohydrate diet
The ADA say low-carbohydrate diets can be useful to help people with type 2 diabetes lose weight, but that these diets were poorly defined, difficult to sustain, unsuitable for certain groups of people and that, for diet composition in general, "no single approach has been proven to be consistently superior". Overall, the ADA recommend people with diabetes should be "developing healthy eating patterns rather than focusing on individual macronutrients, micronutrients, or single foods". They recommended that the carbohydrate in a diet should come from "vegetables, legumes, fruits, dairy (milk and yogurt), and whole grains"; highly-refined foods and sugary drinks should be avoided.