Carbohydrate intake has many factors including 'speed of processing' which is retarded by the presence of fiber and fat. So while a serving of muesli might 30g of carbohydrates it also will have 5g of fat and fiber and protein, which affects how fast your insulin levels rise and how high the spike.
There is nothing wrong with carbohydrates, it's over consuming them that's the problem. Müsli without added sugar can easily be a part of a well balanced diet. It's basically just a different form of oatmeal.
Carbohydrates are just sugar your body has to work a little bit to unlock first, but they’re just sugar. They’re really not much better for you than raw sugar, they’re just slow dose. They’ll spike your insulin a little less, but ask a diabetic, the overall difference isn’t a ton.
Fiber is a carbohydrate the body can’t digest so you can generally subtract them when figuring, but beyond that carbohydrates alone are just sugar as far as your body is concerned.
As is everything in biochemistry, the absorption rate sets the response. 5g of sugar that can only be digested over the course of hours is much different than 5g of sugar that can be digested in minutes.
But the fiber content makes you feel sated sooner, so you are likely to eat less of it than sugar.
And musli isn't processed as much as other breakfast cereals. We don't know what causes it yet, but there's a clear correlation between eating highly processed foods and obesity.
If muesli were simply a slightly better carb, that would make fruit the same. The fiber and more complex sugars are what make you feel fuller and glucose levels less volatile.
