My View of the Glycemic Index
The glycemic index is a scale that ranks carbohydrate-containing foods based on how quickly they are digested and become blood glucose. Slower foods have a lower GI, and are considered good carbs because they do not spike your blood sugar (as a high-GI food does). GI is unrelated to food amount; it is a characteristic of the food.
There are actually two GI scales. If I recall correctly, one scale compares everything to white bread (so on that scale, white bread would have a GI of 100), and the other scale compares everything to sucrose, which is table sugar (and on that scale, sucrose would have a GI of 100).
Many things can affect GI, including how ripe a fruit is (riper is sweeter, and higher GI), how coarse or fine the food is (chunky pasta is lower GI than really fine angle hair), and how well-cooked it is (al dente pasta is lower GI than fully cooked soft pasta).
Another term you may see is glycemic load, which is related to the amount of carb you consume. For example, carrots used to be considered a no-no on the South Beach diet (this healthy eating plan encourages low-GI foods) because they were deemed to be relatively high-GI. However, their glycemic load (i.e., the amount of carbohydrate in them) is fairly low--so you have to eat a lot of carrots to spike your blood sugar.
Foods like fat, acid, protein and fiber take longer to digest and can slow the digestion and metabolization of any foods they’re eaten with. So one strategy is to make sure than if ever you choose to consume a high-GI carb, you make sure to consume it with one (or more) of these (fat, acid, protein, or fiber), so as to effectively lower the overall GI of your meal.
Best Low GI Diets
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