As of: March 7, 2024, 2:39 p.m
By: Sarah Isele
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Carbohydrates are part of a healthy meal and should not be ignored.
But what are actually the healthiest carbohydrates?
They are present in almost every side dish for meals and are essential for a healthy diet: carbohydrates.
Yes, the saccharides are controversial.
Some love them as sources of energy, while others hate them as fattening foods.
Black and white painting has no place here.
HEIDELBERG24 explains what the healthiest carbohydrates are.
What exactly are carbohydrates?
Carbohydrates are our body's main source of energy and fuel our brain to work.
Since carbohydrates are metabolized into sugar (hence the name saccharides) during digestion, they quickly enter the blood and thus the entire body.
Like protein and fat, they belong to the so-called macronutrients and make up the majority of our food.
Unlike fats, carbohydrates can be utilized by the body relatively quickly and are therefore an indispensable energy component in our diet.
In fact, the majority of carbohydrate energy is used for the body's basal metabolic rate (breathing, heartbeat, metabolism, brain activity and more).
What are good carbohydrates?
Various types of grains are great sources of carbohydrates.
Foods containing carbohydrates consist, for example, of wheat, rye, oats, rice or corn.
Fiber, found in fruits, vegetables and legumes, is a long-chain carbohydrate and has many positive effects in the body.
Depending on the number of sugar building blocks, carbohydrates are divided into three groups.
On the one hand there are the monosaccharides (simple sugars).
These include fructose and glucose.
These get into the blood particularly quickly.
Mono- and disaccharides (double sugars) are mainly found in sweets and lemonades.
With the exception of fruit, they are mostly just energy sources that contain hardly any vitamins or minerals and can quickly cause blood sugar levels to skyrocket.
This promotes food cravings.
With multiple sugars (polysaccharides), the body needs more time to break them down.
This keeps the blood sugar level more constant and fills you up better.
The following table shows a list of good and bad carbohydrates:
very good carbohydrates |
still cheap carbohydrates |
bad carbohydrates |
Muesli without sugar |
Whole wheat bread |
cornflakes |
Whole grain bread |
Millet, couscous |
sweet cereals |
coarse wholemeal bread |
Whole grain rice, basmati rice |
Instant oatmeal |
pumpernickel |
Pasta, gnocchi |
baguette |
Legumes (peas, lentils) |
Jacket potatoes |
White bread/light rolls |
Bulgur (wheat meal) |
sweet potatoes |
Long grain rice |
Whole wheat pasta |
shortbread |
baked baked potato |
Parboiled rice |
Beer |
Microwave potatoes |
Milk/soy milk |
fruit yoghurt |
Mashed potato powder |
Nuts and seeds |
Bananas, melons, mangoes |
French fries |
salads and vegetables |
Papaya, pineapple |
gummy bear |
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What is the best source of carbohydrates?
The very good carbohydrates from the foods in the left column make you feel full, but not fattening.
The “middle” ones can be eaten in moderation.
It's better to stay away from the foods in the right column and only eat them if there is really no other option.
The German Nutrition Society (DGE) recommends that with a normal diet, around 50 percent of the calories consumed should come from carbohydrates.
If you want to eat healthily and stay full for a long time, you should always choose complex carbohydrates.
These can be easily found in whole grain products or potatoes.
Their molecular structure is longer than that of simple sugars.
This means the body needs more time to break them down and get energy from them.
Even the healthiest yogurt contains carbohydrates that are very good for the body.
The complex carbohydrates in the HEIDELBERG24 ranking:
1st place: legumes (peas, lentils, beans)
2nd place: nuts, almonds
3rd place: potatoes
4th place: whole grain bread
What has a lot of healthy carbohydrates and which should you avoid?
If you would like to top up your carbohydrate intake with nuts, you should always choose the healthiest nuts.
If you eat carbohydrates in the right quantities and (almost) exclusively use complex carbohydrates, you can regulate your weight and lose weight.
In addition to nuts, legumes such as the best lentils, grains, some vegetables and seeds also have healthy carbohydrates.
The body does not have to convert “bad” carbohydrates into sugar, unlike the good ones.
They can enter the blood immediately as sugar and are available as energy shortly after the meal.
This causes blood sugar to rise rapidly and then fall just as quickly.
These bad sugars are the mono- and disaccharides.
These include beet sugar, fructose, glucose, lactose and maltose.
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