Carbohydrates and the Glycemic Index

You may have heard about the glycemic index and wondered what it is all about. The glycemic index is a ranking of carbohydrates based on their immediate effect on blood glucose (blood sugar) levels. It compares foods gram for gram of carbohydrate. Carbohydrates that breakdown quickly during digestion have the highest glycemic indexes. The blood glucose response is fast and high. Carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the blood stream, have low glycemic indexes.

Foods with a high glycemic index convert into sugar very quickly, with negative physical effects. Foods with a low glycemic index turn into sugar gradually, helping maintain your body's chemical balance. In general, foods with a low index are preferable.

Glycemic Load measures the amount of sugar a food actually releases in the body. Foods with a low glycemic load usually have a low glycemic index, yet still have a low glycemic load. Other foods have both a high index and a high load. You should avoid high load foods as a regular part of your meal plan.

When you choose carbohydrate foods, check both their glycemic index and glycemic load. Detailed tables with this information are widely available. Use the chart below to get started.

High Glycemic Index

# Fruits and Vegetables

* Corn
* Cranberry juice
* Orange juice*
* Raisin

# Starches

* Bagel
* Bread (white)
* Refined cereal
* Granola
* Muffin
* Pasta
* Potato
* Pretzel
* Rice
* Tortilla (flour)

Medium Glycemic Index

Fruits and Vegetables Starches
Apricot* French Fries
Grape* Oatmeal
Pineapple* Pita Bread
Watermelon Waffle

Low Glycemic Index

Fruits and Vegetables

* Apple*
* Asparagus*
* Broccoli*
* Brussels sprout*
* Cauliflower*
* Celery*
* Cherry*
* Cucumber*
* Grapefruit*
* Green Bean*
* Green pepper*
* Kiwi*
* Lettuce*
* Onion*
* Orange*
* Peach*
* Plum*
* Spinach*
* Strawberry*
* Tomato*
* Zucchini*

* * Low glycemic load foods.

Simply eating more fruits and vegetables is not the answer - they must be the right fruits and vegetables. Starchy vegetables such as peas or lentils (200 to 250 calories per cup) are healthy, but they contain more calories than you may want. If you need to eat more to satisfy your hunger, add low glycemic load vegetables. For example, spinach and asparagus are better choices than higher calorie corn and peas. A cup of spinach topped with 1/2 cup of tomato sauce has only about 90 calories, but it gives you nutrients from two colour groups.

Why Not Brown and Beige?

When considering which foods to enjoy sparingly, also use colour as a guideline. Many brown and beige carbohydrates, like pasta, beans and potatoes, while healthy, also tend to be high in calories.

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Why Low Glycemic Foods?

Some currently popular eating plans like The Perricone Prescription, A Week in the Zone and The Protein Power Lifeplan recommend low glycemic foods.

The theory is that sugar and high glycemic carbs that rapidly convert to sugar trigger a release of insulin to control the level of sugar in the bloodstream. Excess sugar in the bloodstream is inflammatory and causes a cascade of free radical damage.

To explain how dangerous this is, Dr, Perricone points out that diabetics with poorly controlled blood sugar age one third faster than nondiabetics and are prone to kidney failure, blindness, heart attack and stroke.

So insulin comes to the rescue to clear the excess sugar from the bloodstream. And what do you suppose the insulin does with all this sugar? It stores it as fat. And worse yet, until the insulin sweeps up the excess sugar, it runs rampant throughout the body causing glycation and cross-linking of the body抯 collagen.

The effect is visible on the skin, which becomes leathery and inflexible as we age. Though it can抰 be seen, the same damage is taking place inside the body where it affects other vital organs including the kidneys, lungs and brain.

So far, so good. Nutritionists have recommended that people cut their consumption of sugar for decades. The surprise when one ranks sugars and carbs by their glycemic index, is that some foods we normally think of as healthy show up as being bad for you.

The glycemic index is a ranking from 1 to 100, with 100 indicating the increase in blood sugar from eating table sugar (or white bread in one scale). Whichever scale is used, the important thing is a rank ordering of a food抯 effect on blood sugar.

The low glycemic food diets mentioned above have different cut off points. For example, Dr. Perricone抯 28-day program prohibits any foods that score above 50 on the glycemic scale. That leaves out such things as bananas, bagels, carrots, corn, potatoes, rice and watermelon.

You can read more about the glycemic index (GI) and view the whole table http://www.mendosa.com/gi.htm here. This site is authored by David Mendoza, a freelance medical writer and consultant specializing in diabetes. The site is a gold mine of information.

Mr. Mendoza points out that a food抯 glycemic index tells you how rapidly a particular carb turns into sugar, but not how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving. In other words, it抯 not just the quality of the carb, but also the quantity, that counts.
The version of glycemic index on his site (courtesy of Professor Jennie-Brand Miller of the University of Sydney) includes a column called glycemic load (GL) as well as a column of serving size in grams. A glycemic load of 20 or more is considered high; 11 to 19 is medium; and 10 or less is low.

Looking at this bigger picture, some of the 揵ad?carbs in low-glycemic food diets turn out to be not so bad. A 120g serving of watermelon has a horrible GI of 74 but a very low GL of 4. A medium banana (129g) has a bad GI of 51 but a medium GL of 13. An 80g serving of carrots has a borderline GI of 47 but a low GL of only 3. The same amount of corn has a GI of 47 but a low GL of 7.

On the other hand, some carb foods look bad whether you go by the GI or the GL. A 70g bagel has a high GI (72) as well as a high GL (25). A 150g serving of boiled white rice has a GI of 56 and a GL of 24. A medium baked potato (159g) has a high GI (60) and a marginal GL (18).

If you decide to concentrate on low-glycemic foods, I recommend you focus on a food抯 glycemic load. Just be careful to adhere to the indicated serving sizes (or adjust the calculation accordingly), GL is a better measure of how much sugar in total is being poured into the bloodstream and the amount of sugar that will be stored as fat.

This article is for informational purposes only. It does not purport to offer medical advice.

For more articles on diet and nutrition, visit http://www.ageless-beauty.com/antiaging-nutrition.html

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