As a Diabetic, for Us, a Simple Carb is one that is digested very quickly, causes a near immediate blood sugar spike and has almost no nutritional value all by itself

A simple carb can still be a "couple" of different sugars together (Honey has both Fructose and Glucose in it's structure) and "most" simple carbs are ADDED during food processing to make things "taste better"

During digestion your system only needs to isolate the sugar(s) to absorb them - it's "easy" for our digestive system to split say those two sugars (Fructose and Glucose) found in Honey and get them into the blood stream quickly - there is nothing to "slow down" the uptake

A complex carb (technically has a longer sugar chain) - the sugars/starches along with fiber and/or saccharides are bonded together - so for example an apple (fructose/fiber) - the digestive system has to deal with (both)

The fructose is a quick uptake BUT since the fiber is not digestible our system "tries"

So instead of 100% resources getting that Fructose into our blood stream the Fiber is hogging some of the ability and it will take longer to get the "sugar part" into our blood stream

Multi-Tasking means that "everything" gets done a little slower than it would take to do the tasks individually and we want to "multi-task" our digestive system when carbs are involved

Generally the more "natural" (not processed) the carb the more "complex" it will be

Whole Grain = complex (slower to digest) - process the crap out of it to turn it white = simple (quickly digested)

Apple = complex - squeeze all the juice out and add extra sugar for taste = simple

And then there is resistant and non-resistant starches, but that is another topic 😁

@A DiabetesTeam Member
Julian,Simple carbs are sugary foods. Complex carbs are veggies, beans, whole grains. But you can read GrahamLambs post on here. He gives an excellent example.

Mentioned Users

A Diabete...

You are right Amanda. It takes longer to digest,more filling,healthier. Whole grains,veggies,beans. So are white starches like pasta,rice,white bread. Still need to limit intake. Considered a steady source of energy.👏👏👏 you done good Amanda.

Is a simple carb like orange juice & converts to sugar almost immediately & a complex carb like whole grain bread, has fibre & takes longer to convert to sugar?

@A DiabetesTeam Member thank you leaning is great

Mentioned Users

A Diabete...