The Glycemic Index is a number that represents how quickly after a food is eaten that it

affects your body in the form of an insulin reaction. Foods that have a high glycemic index
trigger an undesirable insulin response, which is an insulin spike (insulin level is high). This
means that there is an excess amount of insulin in the bloodstream and this promotes fat
storage. Just the opposite, foods that are low on the glycemic index do not elevate insulin
levels. Low glycemic products as said to reduce excess fat storage, increase and sustain
energy levels and increase mental alertness. A high level of insulin is followed by a very
low level of insulin, called a 'crash'. This is when you feel tired and may even think you're
hungry because your body is trying to raise insulin levels back to normal levels.
Most of the glycemic charts we've seen have ranked carbohydrates from 0 - 100. Simple
sugars, that cause an undesirable insulin spike, are higher in number. Examples of foods
with a high glycemic index are flour and sugar. Think of all the foods that have either of
these ingredients: bread, doughnuts, jelly beans, cookies, bananas... the list goes on and
on. Examples of foods with lower glycemic indexes include more complex carbs: yams,
beans, oatmeal and broccoli. These are better food choices because they will not release
insulin into your system anywhere near as quickly.
An important note is that just because a product is low in carbohydrates does NOT mean it
has a low glycemic index. The type of carbohydrates and their relationship to the other
ingredients in the product as well as processing dictates a low glycemic index rating and
how they affect the human body. The only way to determine a glycemic rating for any
product is to subject it to specific analytical testing.

What is Glycemic Index?

Generally it is assumed that simple carbohydrates increase blood glucose levels

rapidly, and complex carbohydrates have a slower effect. However, recent work into
the Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL) has changed the understanding of
the relationship between ingested carbohydrates and blood glucose levels.
The glycemic index (GI) is a measure of how fast a carbohydrate triggers to raise
the blood sugar. Some carbohydrates are slow releasing, while the others are fast
releasing. The higher the number, the greater the blood sugar response. All
carbohydrates can be assigned a value, known as glycemic index, compared to
glucose. The glucose is the fastest releasing carbohydrate so it has been assigned a
glycemic value of 100.
Based on glycemic index values, Maltodextri, a glucose polymer is a complex
carbohydrate, but it has a GI of ~100 . This means that it rapidly raises blood
glucose levels. Fructose, a simple carbohydrate has GI of ~20.
The glycemic index is a better method for classifying good and bad
carbohydrates as it relies upon actual post-meal blood glucose response
A low glycemic index value for a food indicates a slow rise in blood glucose and
insulin levels. Conversely, a high GI value indicates that it results in a rapid rise in
blood glucose levels and hence a spike in insulin response.
What is Glycemic Load?

A glycemic index value tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns
into sugar. It doesn't tell how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a
particular food. Both the things are important to understand a food’s effect on
blood sugar. The glycemic index value alone does not give accurate picture of the
food. The glycemic load (GL) takes both the things into account.
The glycemic load is the glycemic index divided by 100 multiplied by its available
carbohydrate content (i.e. carbohydrates minus fiber) in grams. The following table
lists GI and GL values of certain foods. (The “Serve size (g)” column is the serving
size in grams for calculating the glycemic load.).
_____________________________________________
Value Glycemic Index(GI) Glycemic Load(GL)
_____________________________________________
High 70 or more 20
Medium 56 to 69 inclusive 11 to 19 inclusive
Low 55 or less 10 or less
_____________________________________________
Values are with reference to Glucose.
Take watermelon as an example of calculating glycemic load.
The glycemic index = 72
In a serving of 120 grams, it has 6 grams of available carbohydrate.
The glycemic load = (72/100) x 6 = 4.32 = 4 rounded.
By simply looking at the glycemic index value you will think that watermelon is not
good for you, but its glycemic load is low, so it is safe to eat.
Foods that have a low glycemic index invariably have a low GL, while foods
with an intermediate or high glycemic index range from very low to very high GL.
Therefore, you can reduce the GL of your diet by limiting foods that have both a
high glycemic index and a high carbohydrate content.
To optimize insulin levels, you should eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains
preferably with low glycemic index and low GL values. The fiber contained in these
foods slows down the release of sugars.

The following glycemic index table gives glycemic index food list and
glycemic load food list. You can select low glycemic index foods from this list
to make your own low glycemic index diet.
Glycemic Index Food List (GI) & Glycemic Load Food List(GL)
______________________________________________
FRUIT AND FRUIT PRODUCTS

Item GI Serve GL
Size
Apples 38 120 6
Apple juice,unsweetened 40 250 11
Apricots 57 120 5
Apricots, in syrup 64 120 12
Apricots 31 60 9
Banana, ripe 51 120 13
Banana, under-ripe 30 120 6
Banana, over-ripe 48 120 12
Cherries 22 120 3
Cranberry juice 68 250 24
Custard apple 54 120 10
Dates, dried 103 60 42
Figs, dried 61 60 16
Grapefruit 25 120 3
Grapefruit juice, 48 250 9
unsweetened
Grapes 46 120 8
Grapes, black 59 120 11
Kiwi fruit 53 120 6
Lychee, canned in syrup 79 120 16
Mango 51 120 8
Marmalade orange 48 30 9
Oranges, 42 120 5
Orange juice 52 250 12
Paw paw/papaya 59 120 10
Peach 42 120 5
Peach, in natural juice 38 120 4
Peach, in heavy syrup 58 120 9
Pear 38 120 4
Pear halves, in syrup 25 120 4
Pineapple 59 120 7
Plum 39 120 5
Prunes, pitted 29 60 10
Raisins 64 60 28
Rock melon/Cantaloupe 65 120 4
Strawberries, fresh 40 120 1
Strawberry jam 51 30 10
Sultanas 56 60 25
Tomato juice, 38 250 4
no added sugar
Watermelon 72 120 4
_____________________________________________
VEGETABLES

Item GI Serve GL
Size
Broad beans 79 80 9
Green peas 48 80 3
Pumpkin 75 80 3
Sweet corn 54 80 9
Beet root 64 80 5
Carrots 47 80 3
Cassava, boiled 46 100 12
Parsnips 97 80 12
Baked potato 85 150 26
Desiree potato, boiled 101 150 17
White potato, cooked 50 150 14
French fries, frozen, 75 150 22
reheated
Instant Mashed potato 85 150 17
New Potato 57 150 12
Sweet potato 61 150 17
_____________________________________________
 LEGUMES AND NUTS

Black-eye beans, boiled 42 150 13

Butter beans, cooked 31 150 6
Chana dal, dry, 5.3 50 1
Chickpeas (Bengal gram), 28 150 8
boiled
Haricot/Navy beans 38 150 12
Kidney Beans, boiled 28 150 7
Black bean, cooked 20 150 5
Lentils, green, boiled 30 150 5
Lentils, red, dried, 26 150 5
Lima beans, frozen, 32 150 10
reheated in microwave oven
Marrow fat peas, boiled 39 150 7
Mung bean, cooked 42 150 7
Peas, dried, boiled 22 150 2
Pigeon Pea soaked, 22 150 4
boiled
Pinto beans, dried, 39 150 10
Romano beans 46 150 8
Soya beans, boiled 15 150 1
Split peas, boiled 32 150 6
_____________________________________________
OTHER ITEMS

Coca Cola 63 250 16

Smoothie, raspberry 33 250 14
Happiness™ bread 63 30 9
Muesli bread 54 30 7
Wonder white bread 73 30 10
All-Bran (Kellogg's) 38 30 9
Corn flakes 81 30 21
Raisin Bran (Kellogg's) 61 30 12
Rice, boiled white 64 150 23
Rice, boiled Long grain 56 150 23
Jasmine rice, 109 150 46
Basmati rice, boiled 58 150 22
Brown, steamed 50 150 16
Semolina, roasted 55 150 6

Going with the (Whole) Grain

We've come a long way from the days when one of the knee-jerk
answers to the question "What should I eat?" was "Get a lot of
carbohydrates." We now know that the staple of most diets,
carbohydrates, aren't all good or all bad. Some kinds promote
health while others, when eaten often and in large quantities, actually increase the risk for
diabetes and coronary heart disease.

The resurgence of the Atkins diet and the rise of the South Beach and other low-
carbohydrate diets have put the focus on the carbohydrates. While it may be true that
easily digested carbohydrates from white bread, white rice, pastries, and other highly
processed foods may contribute to weight gain and interfere with weight loss, that doesn't
mean all carbohydrates are suspect. Regardless of what you've read or heard about the
dangers of carbohydrates, they are an important part of a healthy diet. Carbohydrates
provide the body with the fuel it needs for physical activity and for proper organ function.
The best sources of carbohydrates - fruits, vegetables, and whole grains - deliver essential
vitamins and minerals, fiber, and a host of important phytonutrients.

What are Carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates come from a wide array of foods - bread, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes,
cookies, spaghetti, corn, and cherry pie. They also come in a variety of forms. The most
common and abundant are sugars, fibers, and starches. The basic building block of a
carbohydrate is a sugar molecule, a simple union of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
Starches and fibers are essentially chains of sugar molecules. Some contains hundreds of
sugars. Some chains are straight, others branch wildly.

Carbohydrates were once grouped into two main categories. Simple carbohydrates
included sugars such as fruit sugar (fructose), corn or grape sugar (dextrose or glucose),
and table sugar (sucrose). Complex carbohydrates included everything made of three or
more linked sugars. Simple sugars were considered bad and complex carbohydrates good.
The picture is much more complicated than that.

The digestive system handles all carbohydrates in much the same way - it breaks them
down (or tries to break them down) into single sugar molecules, since only these are
small enough to cross into the bloodstream. It also converts most digestible carbohydrates
into glucose (also known as blood sugar), because cells are designed to use this as a
universal energy source.

Fiber is an exception. It is put together in such a way that it can't be broken down into
sugar molecules, and so passes through the body undigested.

Carbohydrates and the Glycemic Index

A new system for classifying carbohydrates calls into question many of the old
assumptions about how carbohydrates affect health. This new system, known as the
glycemic index, measures how fast and how far blood sugar rises after you eat a food that
contains carbohydrates. (1).

White bread, for example, is converted almost immediately to blood sugar, causing it to
spike rapidly. It's classified as having a high glycemic index. Brown rice, in contrast, is
digested more slowly, causing a lower and more gentle change in blood sugar. It has a
low glycemic index.

The most comprehensive list of the glycemic index of foods was

published in the July, 2002, issue of the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition (2). A searchable database maintained by the University of
Sydney is available online.

Diets filled with high-glycemic-index foods, which cause quick and

strong increases in blood sugar levels, have been linked to an increased risk for both
diabetes (3, 4) and heart disease. (5, 6) On the other hand, lower GI foods have been
shown to help control type 2 diabetes. (7)

One of the most important factors that determine a food's glycemic index is how highly
processed its carbohydrates are. Processing carbohydrates removes the fiber-rich outer
bran and the vitamin- and mineral-rich inner germ, leaving mostly the starchy endosperm.
(See Fiber for more information on whole-grain foods.)

Other factors that influence how quickly the carbohydrates in food raise blood sugar
include:

• Fiber content. Fiber shields the starchy carbohydrates in food immediate and
rapid attack by digestive enzymes. This slows the release of sugar molecules into
the bloodstream.
• Ripeness. Ripe fruits and vegetables tend to have more sugar than unripe ones,
and so tend to have a higher glycemic index.
• Type of starch. Starch comes in many different configurations. Some are easier to
break into sugar molecules than others. The starch in potatoes, for example, is
digested and absorbed into the bloodstream relatively quickly.
• Fat content and acid content. The more fat or acid a food contains, the slower its
carbohydrates are converted to sugar and absorbed into the bloodstream.
• Physical form. Finely ground grain is more rapidly digested, and so has a higher
glycemic index, than more coarsely ground grain.

All these elements lead to sometimes counterintuitive results. Some foods that contain
complex carbohydrates, such as potatoes, quickly raise blood sugar levels, while some
foods that contain simple carbohydrates, such as whole fruit, raise blood sugar levels
more slowly.

There is one thing that a food's glycemic index does not tell us: the relative amount of
carbohydrate in a given food. Take watermelon as an example; the sweet-tasting fruit has
a high glycemic index. But a slice of watermelon has only a small amount of
carbohydrate per serving (as the name suggests, watermelon is made up mostly of water).
Looking at the glycemic index alone may not tell us everything we need to know about a
food's impact on blood sugar levels. So researchers have developed a new way of
classifying foods that takes into account both the amount of carbohydrate in the food and
the impact of that carbohydrate on blood sugar levels. This measure is called the
glycemic load. (8, 9) A food's glycemic load is determined by multiplying its glycemic
index by the amount of carbohydrate it contains. (For a listing of low, medium and high
glycemic load foods, see the sidebar, Carbohydrates and the Glycemic Load.)

Although the fine points of the glycemic index and glycemic load may seem complicated,
the basic message is simple: Whenever possible, replace highly processed grains,
cereals, and sugars with minimally processed whole-grain products. And only eat
potatoes - once on the list of preferred complex carbohydrates - occasionally because of
their high glycemic index and glycemic load.

When Sugar Management Goes Awry

Digestible carbohydrates are broken down in the intestine into their simplest form, sugar,
which then enters the blood. As blood sugar levels rise, special cells in the pancreas churn
out more and more insulin, a hormone that signals cells to absorb blood sugar for energy
or storage. As cells sponge up blood sugar, its levels in the bloodstream fall back to a
preset minimum. So do insulin levels.

In some people, this cycle doesn't work properly. People with type 1 diabetes (once called
insulin-dependent or juvenile diabetes) don't make enough insulin, so their cells can't
absorb sugar. People with type 2 diabetes (once called non-insulin dependent or adult
onset diabetes) usually start out with a different problem - their cells don't respond well to
insulin's "open up for sugar" signal. This condition, known as insulin resistance, causes
both blood sugar and insulin levels to stay high long after eating. Over time, the heavy
demands made on the insulin-making cells wears them out, and insulin production slows,
then stops.

Insulin resistance isn't just a blood sugar problem. It has also been linked with a variety
of other problems, including high blood pressure, high levels of triglycerides, low HDL
(good) cholesterol, heart disease, and possibly some cancers. (10)

Genes, a sedentary lifestyle, being overweight, and eating a diet filled with foods that
cause big spikes in blood sugar can all promote insulin resistance. Data from the Insulin
Resistance Atherosclerosis Study suggests that cutting back on refined grains and eating
more whole grains in their place can improve insulin sensitivity. (11)

No Carbohydrates?

Some popular diets, particularly the Atkins diet, treat carbohydrates as if they are evil, the
root of all body fat and excess weight. While there is some evidence that a low-
carbohydrate diet may help people lose weight more quickly than a low-fat diet (12, 13),
no one knows the long-term effects of eating little or no carbohydrates. Equally
worrisome is the inclusion of unhealthy fats in some of these diets.
If you want to go the lower carb route, try to include some fruits, vegetables, and whole-
grain carbohydrates every day. They contain a host of vitamins, minerals, and other
phytonutrients that are essential for good health and that you can't get out of a supplement
bottle.

Adding Good Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, and grains should give you the bulk of your
calories. For optimal health, get your grains intact from foods such as whole wheat bread,
brown rice, whole-grain pasta, and other possibly unfamiliar grains like quinoa, whole
oats, and bulgur. Not only will these foods help protect you against a range of chronic
diseases, they can also please your palate and your eyes.

Until recently, you could only get whole-grain products in organic or non-traditional
stores. Today they are popping up in more and more mainstream grocery stores. Here are
some suggestions for adding more whole grains to your diet:

• Start the day with whole grains. If you're partial to hot cereals, try old-fashioned
or steel-cut oats. If you're a cold cereal person, look for one that lists whole
wheat, oats, barley, or other grain first on the ingredient list.
• Use whole-grain breads for lunch or snacks. Check the label to make sure that
whole wheat or other whole grain is the first ingredient listed.
• Bag the potatoes. Instead, try brown rice or even "newer" grains like bulgur,
wheat berries, millet, or hulled barley with your dinner.
• Pick up some whole wheat pasta. If the whole-grain products are too chewy for
you, look for those that are made with half whole-wheat flour and half white flour.