What is the Glycemic Index?
The Glycemic Index, or GI, is a term that ranks carbohydrates according to how they affect blood glucose levels.
Low GI carbohydrates produce only small fluctuations in blood glucose and insulin levels. Choosing them is felt by some to be important in reducing your risk of heart disease and diabetes, as well as key to sustainable weight loss.
How to Eat a Low GI Diet
To focus on eating low GI foods, you don’t need to count anything or make any difficult mental calculations or carry a special calculator with you. According to some researchers:- Instead of white bread, eat wholegrain breads.
- For cereals, concentrate on oats, barley and bran.
- Eat all kinds of whole fruits and vegetables, except for potatoes, which are considered a high GI food.
- Use Basmati rice instead of white rice.
- Eat lots of salad with a vinaigrette dressing.
| Classification | GI Range | Examples | | Low GI | 55 or less | Most fruit and vegetables (except potatoes, watermelon), whole-grain breads and pasta, legumes, nuts, milk, fish, eggs, meat, oils | | Medium GI | 56-69 | Wheat bread, whole wheat products in general, brown rice, basmati rice, sweet potato, table sugar | | High GI | 70-99 | Corn flakes, baked potato, some white rice, croissant, white bread, candy | | 100 | Straight glucose |
Popular Diet Craziness - There are Other Things to Consider
A lot of popular diets focus their programs on eating foods with a low glycemic index, often recommending eating more fat and protein—meat, poultry, eggs, and cheese. As is well known, these foods are the ones that cause damage to your arteries, kidneys, and bones, increasing the likelihood of strokes, heart attacks, cancer, kidney stones, kidney failure, and osteoporosis. It’s important that you don’t ignore the healthful benefits of high carbohydrate foods, like
fruits
and potatoes. The GI Index is simply another way to describe one aspect of foods, such as what’s the main macronutrient (for example, high fiber, low fat, etc.) or what’s the satiety index (potatoes are found to be twice as satisfying as cheese or meat).In addition, the GI is complex and changeable. Cooking, cooling, grinding, mixing with other foods, the degree of ripeness, removing the fiber—all of these things affect the glycemic index too much to make it a practical tool. Once again, common sense wins out. The healthiest diet isn’t complicated. Simply choose a whole food, plant-based diet for optimum health.
Return from Glycemic Index to Nutrition Facts.
|
