Think carbs are bad for you? These are the 7 a nutritionist wants you to eat more of
- Jo Williams
Published: September 24, 2026 at 9:55 AM
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No more banishing carbs from your diet – here's what you should really be eating
Carbohydrates have spent the best part of two decades as the food enemy. From low carb diets to the enduring idea that bread, pasta, and potatoes are responsible for weight gain, carbohydrates have become one of those foods we are told to avoid. Here's why that's a mistake, and the starchy foods worth putting back on your plate.
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For more, check out our healthy carb recipes for plenty of recipe inspiration.
The trouble with treating carbohydrates as a single villain is that they include a huge variety of foods. Grouping everything under the one name makes as much sense as putting olive oil in the same camp as hydrogenated palm oil simply because they are both fats.
Carbohydrates are one of the body’s main sources of energy, and cutting them out completely can mean missing out on fibre, vitamins, minerals and other beneficial plant compounds. I advocate for eating carbohydrates, but recommend being a little more selective about the ones that make it on to your plate. In other words there is a big difference between a bowl of sugary cereal with milk, and a hearty serving of wholegrain porridge topped with nuts, fruit and yogurt.
The evidence doesn't really support the extremes either. A 25-year study following more than 15,000 adults, found the lowest risk of death sat with people getting roughly half their energy from carbohydrates. And fibre, which comes almost entirely from carbohydrate foods, has some of the most convincing evidence in the whole of nutrition behind it: a major Lancet review linked higher fibre and wholegrain intakes to lower rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer, with a clear dose-response effect. Yet UK adults manage around 20g a day or less against a recommendation of 30g.
So instead of another list of things to give up, here are seven carbohydrate-rich foods worth bringing back into rotation.
7 carbohydrate-rich foods to eat more of
Oats
Oats remain a cheap and nutritious source of carbohydrate. They are rich in a type of soluble fibre called beta-glucan that forms a gel in the gut and has been associated with supporting healthy cholesterol levels. A meta-analysis of 28 trials found that 3g of oat beta-glucan a day, roughly what you'd get from a decent bowl of porridge, lowered LDL cholesterol by 0.25mmol/litre. That same gel slows digestion, which is why porridge holds you until lunch in a way that a croissant simply doesn't.
Porridge is the obvious route, but granola or overnight oats can be a handy portable option and oats blitzed into flour make excellent pancakes.
Beans, chickpeas and lentils
People forget that pulses are a carbohydrate food, which is probably why they escaped the anti-carbs backlash. Alongside carbohydrates, they provide plenty of fibre and plant protein, along with iron, folate and potassium.
They are also cheap. Add green lentils to a salad, stir red lentils into a curry or soup, or use them to bulk out a bolognese or shepherd’s pie. If you’re not used to eating many pulses, increase the amount gradually and make sure you’re drinking enough fluids as the gut needs to adjust to the extra fibre. Check out our lentil recipes, chickpea recipes and healthy bean recipes for more inspiration.
Potatoes
Potatoes have somehow found themselves on the wrong side of the healthy food divide, despite being an inexpensive and versatile source of nutrients. Baked, boiled or crushed with olive oil, they are a good source of potassium, vitamin C and, with the skins on, a decent amount of fibre. They also score remarkably well on the satiety scale.
Don’t overlook leftovers. Cooked and cooled potatoes contain resistant starch, which passes through to the colon and feeds your gut bacteria. Yesterday's leftover new potatoes can be beneficial for gut health. We've got over 150 potato recipes to keep you going.
Wholegrain and rye bread
Bread takes more abuse than almost any other food, and undeservedly so. Wholegrain and rye loaves keep the bran and germ, and with them the fibre, B vitamins, magnesium and selenium that get stripped out of white flour. A review of 45 studies found that around 90g of wholegrains a day was associated with meaningfully lower rates of heart disease, cancer and premature death.
Look for a loaf with visible grain and a short ingredients list. A long-fermented sourdough made with wholemeal or rye flour is the gold standard, but a supermarket seeded wholemeal is a perfectly good everyday choice.
Pasta
Pasta is the food people are most surprised to see defended. Made from durum wheat and cooked al dente, it has a lower glycaemic index than most bread or rice, because the protein structure physically slows the release of the starch. Overcook it and you lose some of that advantage, which is one more reason to take it off the heat early.
When Italian researchers looked at more than 23,000 adults, higher pasta intake was associated with a lower BMI and waist measurement, not a higher one. Portion size and what you serve with it matter far more than the pasta itself. Try serving it with tomatoes, spinach, garlic and prawns; or roasted veg, chickpeas and pesto. See our healthy pasta recipes for more ideas.
Bananas
Bananas get side-eyed for their sugar content, usually by people comparing them to a punnet of raspberries rather than a flapjack. A medium banana brings about 3g of fibre, a useful hit of potassium for blood pressure regulation and vitamin B6.
The greener the banana, the more resistant starch it contains, which acts as a prebiotic. The riper it gets, the sweeter and faster-releasing it becomes which is genuinely useful if you're heading out for a run.
Brown rice, pearl barley and the forgotten grains
White rice isn’t ‘bad’ but brown rice has the advantage of retaining more of the grains outer layers, meaning it generally contains more fibre and micronutrients. Pearl barley has quietly slipped out of British cooking, which is a shame. It's rich in the same beta-glucan as oats, holds its bite through long cooking, and is cheap. Cooked like a risotto with mushrooms and stock, it's one of the most satisfying things you can eat.
The same goes for bulgur wheat and freekeh. Variety matters here: different grains feed different gut bacteria, so rotating them does more than sticking loyally to one.
Rather than dividing your diet into rigid categories of good and bad, it can be more useful to look at the bigger picture. With regards to carbohydrate, it's the quality that counts. The foods above are whole foods, minimally processed and come loaded with fibre, vitamins and minerals, which puts them in a completely different bracket from a biscuit, however similar they look on a nutrition label.
Food is supposed to be enjoyable, so if you've spent years avoiding this list, perhaps now you can enjoy some fresh bread with a bowl of soup, or a bowl of pasta after a long day. Including some carbs is a far easier way to eat, and arguably considerably more enjoyable than a life without potatoes.
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Jo Williams
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