Healthy Eating

Healthy eating is difficult to achieve because wethe food fiber and the particle size. For example
have so many health factors to consider andless gelatinized products like al dente spaghetti and
food choices to make. We know antioxidants areoatmeal have lower GI values and stone ground
good for us so we want to eat lots of colorfulflours have lower GI values than finely ground
fruits and vegetables because they containflours. The fibrous coat surrounding beans and
phytochemicals like carotenoids and flavonoidsseeds stop enzymes from getting at the starchy
which neutralize the free radicals that cause thecarbs inside and will slow the digestion of grainy
age-related degenerative diseases. We know thatbreads, legumes and barley. The acidity of foods
we may not get all the antioxidants that we needalso slows down digestion and vinegar, lemon
in our food so we take supplements to ensure anjuice, pickles and sourdough bread will result in
adequate supply of antioxidants. But what aboutlower GI meal values.
the actual food we eat. One of the majorThe Glycemic Index is important not only to
problems with our modern diet is that the fooddiabetics but also to non-diabetics because we
we eat is a tasty combination of saturated fatsneed to know what foods will keep our blood
and highly processed and quickly digestedsugars on an even keel and not raise them too
carbohydrates. However in the last several years,high and then have them plummet down again
people have become so concerned about fats incausing hunger. The slow digestion of low GI
their diet that they have substitutedfoods and the gradual rise and fall in blood-glucose
carbohydrates and avoided even the goodresponse helps people with diabetes control their
unsaturated fats in lean meat, olive oil and otherblood sugar levels and increase their sensitivity to
plant oils. Now everybody seems to be eating ainsulin. Low GI foods will help healthy people delay
medium- to high-carbohydrate diet without givinghunger pangs and promote weight loss in
proper attention to the type of carbs that theyoverweight individuals. In addition low GI
eat.carbohydrates can reduce blood cholesterol levels
Not all carbohydrates behave the same in ourand also reduce our risk of heart disease. High
bodies. We have been told for years to avoidblood glucose spikes can result in oxidative stress
simple carbs like honey and white bread and eatleading to the formation of plaque that can cause
complex carbohydrates that our body doesn'tatherosclerosis and even blood clots. So keeping
digest and turn to glucose as quickly. Howeverour blood sugar levels fairly level and low seems
determining whether a food containinglike what we should be trying to achieve through
carbohydrates is absorbed and raises our bloodhealthy eating. How do we go about achieving
sugar quickly or slowly is not at all intuitive.this?
Scientists have done a lot of rigorous testing overThe first step is to look at what carbohydrates
the past several years and have found that whitewe are consuming and the GI levels of the meals
bread and baked potatoes raise our blood sugarthat we are eating. Then we should try and
level much faster than honey, jams and chocolateensure we have at least one low GI food in each
bars. These scientists developed a numerical indexmeal to keep the overall meal GI close to 50.
called the Glycemic Index or GI to compare theMost fats and proteins have no effect on the GI
ability of different carbohydrate containing foodslevel of our meal because they don't contain
to raise the body's blood sugar levels - or in othercarbs. However watch out for saturated fats and
words the speed of conversion to glucose. GItoo many calories. Let's look at some meals and
values are determined by feeding human subjectssee what substitutions we could make. The GI
who have fasted overnight a fixed amount of thevalues are shown in brackets.
food and then measuring their blood glucose levelsBreakfast
at fixed intervals of time. Pure glucose is set atCut back on Corn Flakes (92), Rice Krispies (82)
100 and then other foods are compared to thisand substitute All-Bran (32) or switch to a cereal
profile. Testing is time consuming and the testsbased on oats, barley or bran. Stop eating white
have to be averaged for a number of individuals.bagels (72), white bread (70) or whole-wheat
However these studies have yielded somebread (77) and switch to pumpernickel (50) or
surprising results such as the fact that thesourdough (55). Fruits are mostly low GI foods
starches in rice, bread, potatoes and many typesand surprisingly orange juice (46) is very good.
of cereals were absorbed and raised blood sugarsLunch and Dinner
very quickly but the sugars in fruit, candy,Eat your colored vegetables and make your salad
chocolate and ice cream did not result indressings with olive oil and vinegar. Avoid parsnips
prolonged rises in blood sugars. In other words(97) and substitute pastas like al dente white
many of the starchy foods had a much higherspaghetti (38), linguini (46) or macaroni (47) for
Glycemic Index than many of the sugary foods.Instant white rice (87) and potatoes - baked (85),
Needless to say these results seem counterred-skin peeled and boiled (88). Except for
intuitive and have caused a lot of controversy inparsnips and potatoes most vegetables have a
the food industry. The rate of absorption is verylow GI value.
dependant on how the carbs are bound up with