19 complex carbohydrates you should incorporate into your diet
Get to know the difference between simple vs complex carbs
If you’re thinking about cutting carbs out of your diet for health reasons, stop right there — carbs, despite what you may think, are not the enemy, and ditching them completely means you might miss out on some serious benefits.
What are complex carbs?
Of course, not all carbs are created equally. There are two main categories: simple and complex. Complex carbohydrates are commonly found in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. While simple carbohydrates are found in sugary items like fizzy drinks, cakes, and some fruit juices and cereals.
Made up of long, complex chains of sugar molecules, complex carbs are considered ‘good carbs’ (even though we don’t typically like to label food ‘good’ or ‘bad’) because they take longer to digest, avoiding the blood sugar spike you'd probably get with simple carbs, says Ha Nguyen, registered dietician and founder of Yummy Body Nutrition. Plus, according to the National Library of Medicine, they provide vitamins, minerals, and fibre that are important to your health.
Simple carbs (think: processed or refined sugars) like juice, ice cream, chocolate and white bread are delicious in moderation, but most of your carb intake should consist of complex carbs like whole grains, beans, and starchy veggies. To make it super easy to add more carbs to your plate, keep this complex carbs list on hand for your next trip to the supermarket.
19 complex carbs you should probably be eating more of
Samantha (she/her) is an Assistant Editor in the Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen, where she writes about tasty recipes, must-try food products and top-tested secrets for home cooking success. She has taste-tasted hundreds of products and recipes since joining GH in 2020 (tough job!). A graduate of Fordham University, she considers the kitchen to be her happiest place.
Jackie Lam is the senior health editor at Women’s Health where she oversees health and weight loss content for the website and the Mind section of the print magazine. Originally from Hong Kong, she’s a journalist with more than 10 years of experience and a proud graduate of Cornell University and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. When she’s not at her laptop, she can be found experimenting with Japanese recipes in her kitchen with her husband as her main taste tester, discovering the latest in K-Pop, and dreaming up her next trips to Japan.
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