Q: What is the difference between simple and complex carbohydrates?
A: Carbohydrates are typically depicted as the grain family (breads, rice, pasta, popcorn, crackers, etc) and sweets (pies, cakes, cookies, candy, chocolate, etc). But beans, legumes, soybeans, potatoes, fruit, milk, soda, and vegetables are all carbohydrates as well. Carbohydrates are present in almost every food you eat and are a very healthy component of any diet.
Carbohydrates are usually divided into two main categories – simple and complex. This refers of course to the structure of the molecules, not the taste of the carbohydrate (I doubt anyone would argue the rich flavor of chocolate cake is anything but simple!). All carbohydrates, simple or complex, are composed of sugar molecules arranged in chains. And it is the complexity of these sugar chains that determines the type of carbohydrate.
Simple carbohydrates are very small molecules containing only one or two linked sugars. Examples of these include fruit sugar (fructose), corn sugar (dextrose), and table sugar (sucrose). Complex carbohydrates are longer chains of linked sugar molecules (three or more). Examples of these include breads, grains, vegetables… basically all other carbohydrates. So essentially, all carbohydrates are chains of sugar molecules – some contain only one, while others contain thousands. (Side note: Fiber is also a type of carbohydrate.)
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