Glycemic Levels
The glycemic levels of foods indicate how much your blood sugar increases after you eat foods that are rich in carbohydrates. Protein or fat do not have much of an influence on your blood sugar.
• There is a common belief that simple carbs are bad and complex carbs are good and this is mostly accurate but certain complex carbohydrates do also affect your blood glucose negatively. Sugar is not the only thing that you need to avoid. Fructose is a simple carbohydrate with a GI value of 20 and maltodextrin is a complex carbohydrate with a GI value of 100- the highest value any food can have.
• Having been originally developed for diabetic patients, glycemic index has implications in management of diabetes and other chronic diseases, weight loss, fitness performance and an overall healthy living.
• High glycemic foods are believed to cause obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
• The theory about low glycemic index foods being linked to obesity is to do with high GI foods causing a quick rise in blood sugar and promoting fat storage, particularly when the person does not live an active lifestyle.
• Carbohydrates with high glycemic index values cause rapid rise in your blood sugar followed by a sudden drop, making you feel lethargic and leaving you craving for more of unhealthy foods. Low glycemic carbohydrates do the exact opposite and contribute to the stability in your blood sugar.
• Carbohydrate rich foods are given scores from 0 to 100 on the glycemic index scale. 70 and more is high GI, 56- 69 is medium GI and 55 and below is low GI. Please refer to Glycemic Index Chart if you’d like to find out which foods are low, medium or high in glycemic index values.
• So far we know the glycemic levels of about 800 foods that contain carbohydrates. The focus is on choosing the right carbohydrates rather than avoiding carbs completely. It is neither a low-fat nor a low-carb diet.
• You may want to start with having porridge or oatmeal / low sugar muesli mix for breakfast, whole meal or whole grain breads, eating lots of vegetables and lower sugar fruits, switching to sweet potatoes from potatoes and reducing your consumption of rice and noodles if you’d like to eat more of low glyemic foods.
• Low glycemic foods tend to be usually high in dietary fiber too. By also adding lean protein and healthy fats into your diet, you will eat less and decrease the total glycemic index value of your meal.
• Dietary fiber, salt, sugar, type of fat, amount of carbohydrates and glycemic levels should all be taken into consideration when selecting what to eat.
• Although glycemic levels of carbohydrate rich foods do not usually tell you everything about a food, it is certainly a very useful information and a great tool that will help you eat generally healthier.
• There may be a bit of a confusion over GI values of foods: different values for the same item. This is partly because of glycemic levels being assessed by taking glucose or white bread as reference= 100.
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