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The Glycemic Index Food Chart

Many diabetics are looking for more natural ways to help keep their blood sugar levels under control, and some have discovered the Glycemic Index. The glycemic index is a food chart which rates the affect various foods have on your blood sugar levels. All glycemic index (GI) ratings are computated based on either standard white bread, or straight glucose. Because two methods are used, some GI charts will vary slightly based on which base food item was used for the computation.

Using the Glycemic Index, diabetics can get a general idea of how quickly their blood sugar levels might rise after eating certain foods. Anything with a GI rating of 54 or less is considered a low GI food, which means it will raise your blood sugar levels slowly. Very low GI foods have a rating of less than 39, medium GI rated foods range from 55 to 69, high GI foods are at 70 or above.

Glucose and white bread have a base rating of 100 on either type of GI food chart - which is high of course - and all other foods are compared against them. There are many foods with higher GI ratings, and many with lower ones.

But this rating system is where things can get confusing. If you try to eat foods based on their standard GI rating only, then you may find you're not having much success with controlling your blood sugar levels. You might also feel that some of the ratings make no sense at all. Many people mistakenly assume they're supposed to avoid everything with a GI rating of 70 or higher, and some even think they're supposed to avoid any foods which rate higher than 55. What they don't know is that the base food GI rating can change given different variables.

Not all oatmeal is the same for instance. Instant oatmeal has a higher GI rating than old fashioned cooked oats does. But that's not the most confusing part... sometimes how you cook your foods will change the GI rating too. Pasta for instance, that's eaten while still firm has a lower GI rating than fully cooked soft pasta does. And if you boil one inch cubes of potatoes, you'll have one GI rating, but simply mashing those cubes with your fork will increase the glycemic load of the very same potatoes.

Many fruits have low glycemic loads, but if you cook or chop those fruits, you're often increasing the glycemic load they'll produce. And some fruits are naturally high in glycemic load. Watermelon for instance, has a GI rating of 72.

So glycemic index charts are simply a starting point to use for controlling your blood sugar levels naturally.

The zone diet uses the principles of the glycemic index when recommending foods to lose weight and control blood sugar levels. You can get more information on the zone diet here.

More Tips For Uisng The Glycemic Index

5. Learn different cooking styles. The GI rating of many foods will change based on how it's prepared. Generally the longer something is cooked, the higher the GI rating is. Raw foods tend to have the lowest blood sugar impact, but not everything can be eaten raw. Many things can be cooked less though. Pasta for instance, can be made "al dente" style, meaning it's still firm when eaten. This will cause the pasta to have less of an impact on your blood sugar levels than fully cooked soft pasta will.

6. Realize your personal blood sugar responses. The best way to integrate the glycemic index into your diabetes or hypoglycemia management program naturally, is to keep a diligent watch on how different foods affect you.

Some diabetics can eat a food and have little to no major impact on their blood sugar levels, while others will see their blood sugar go through the roof. When the food affects you can be different as well. You might notice that when you eat one thing for instance, your blood sugar levels will start rising in less than an hour. Something else however, may not start a rise for up to four hours later.

There are some diabetics who can eat pizza for instance, and have little to no problem with their blood sugar levels afterwards. Others however, may find their blood sugar levels go extremely high just hours after eating the pizza. The same examples abound for people who eat breakfast cereals, rice, breads, pasta, and candy.

Part of the reason for these differences is likely due to portion sizes or cooking methods. There is no one exact universal pizza that everyone eats for instance. Some pizzas have very thick crusts, and that gives you a lot more simple carbohydrates when you eat it. Some pizzas have lots of vegetables on them, which can help balance your GI load.

Some pizzas, sauces or toppings could have added sugar in them too. In many cases however, the response is based mainly on what kind of pizza you have. Some may just have cheese, while others have all meat, or a thin crust, and a whole variation of other differences. And all of these differences will affect your blood sugar levels.

That's why the glycemic index is not a hard and fast "diet" in the commonly accepted definition of the word. You have to understand how different foods make your own body respond, how portion sizes change those responses, and how your cooking methods affect you too.

Managing diabetes using the glycemic index can be a very complicated, sometimes overwhelming process. Given time however, and an understanding about how different food works in different people and situations, you can use it to successfully help manage your diabetes much more naturally.

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Tips For Using The Glycemic Index Guide Without Depriving Yourself

If you'd like to try the glycemic index diet, or you'd simply like to try eating foods based on their glycemic load to see how well it can help you naturally manage your blood sugar levels, there are many ways to get started. The first thing you'll need to do is get a copy of a Glycemic Index (GI) food chart to use for reference. There are many GI chart resources available freely on the Internet too, so you might be able to simply print those out and stick them on your fridge.

If you're a diabetic or hypoglycemic taking medications to help manage your blood sugar levels, you'll also need to inform your doctor that you'll be trying the GI diet, or integrating some of the GI principals into your eating plans. This way your doctor can help monitor your blood sugar levels, and adjust your medications as needed. Diabetics who take insulin regularly will need to keep a close eye on their blood sugar levels too, and call their doctor if you start noticing frequent blood sugar lows.

Now here are some simple tips for trying the glycemic index food charts in your daily eating plans:

1. Realize there is almost always an alternative food choice. If you happen to like having oatmeal for breakfast, you can lower the glycemic load and speed of blood sugar impacts by eating old fashioned cooked oatmeal instead of instant. You can try sweet potatoes, or yams, instead of white potatoes. Try boiled white potatoes instead of baked, and try pumpernickel or whole grain breads instead of white.

2. You don't have to avoid most high GI foods, you simply need to eat them in moderation. Eating smaller food portions will help lower the GI load on all foods, and only eating high GI foods occasionally will help minimize the overall impact those foods have on your everyday blood sugar levels.

3. Think in terms of meals instead of foods. If you choose to eat a food which has a higher GI rating, you can help minimize the overall impact on your blood sugar levels by having lower GI foods in the same meal. So if you want to have instant oatmeal for breakfast for instance, you can help balance it out a bit by sprinking some fiber bran on top and having strawberries.

Adding proteins, fiber, and good fat food sources can lower the overall GI load of your meal too, as can adding acidic foods such as lemons or vinegar. These foods help reduce the speed at which carbohydrates are absorbed into your body, thus creating a more gradual rise in blood sugar levels instead of quick high ones.

4. Realize that the Glycemic Index is a guideline to help you. It's not a set in stone diet that says what you can or cannot have. Some foods are very high in nutrition even though they may have a moderate to high GI rating. Don't avoid those foods, just eat them in smaller portions. You need the nutrition they provide.

For an herbal approach to helping regulate blood sugar levels, try these natural remedies for pre-diabetes.

Glycemic Index Guide For Diabetes

The glycemic index is a food chart which tells you how quickly certain foods raise your blood sugar levels after eating them. This method of controlling blood sugar levels is still a bit controversial, and it's highly misunderstood too.

When you eat anything - meals, snacks, drinks, anything - your body responds. If you eat or drink something with high levels of simple, quick sugars, your body will respond by quickly showing a rise in blood sugar levels. In healthy people, the body will immediately release insulin to lower those blood sugar levels fast. In diabetics however, the high blood sugar levels can be dangerous.

Now the whole premise of the Glycemic Index, is to learn which foods raise your blood sugar quickly, which raise it at more moderate levels, and which raise it slowly. The slower your blood sugars rise after you'e eaten, the better you're able to manage, maintain and regulate your Diabetes. Foods which raise your blood sugar more slowly also tend to help keep you feeling full and satiated for longer periods of time, and are often lower in fat or higher in fiber too.

The most common misunderstanding most people have with the glycemic index, is that they think they're supposed to only eat certain things and avoid other things. Most diets and eating plans work this way. The glycemic index however, is designed to help you make better eating choices, not tell you what to eat or not eat.

Most people also don't realize that there are conditions which can change the glycemic load of certain foods. Boiled potatoes for instance, have a GI rating which is lower than instant mashed potatoes. But if you mash those boiled potatoes with a fork, you've instantly created a higher GI food.

Glycemic index ratings are also based on certain portion sizes. Many people for instance, think they're not supposed to eat carrots when using the Glycemic Index for diabetes to control their blood sugar levels, because carrots have a GI rating of 71. But that rating is for cooked carrots only. Raw carrots have a much lower GI rating, and you'd have to eat an entire pound to get that large of a glycemic load from them.

Another example is pasta. Most people think they're not allowed to eat pasta when using the Glycemic Index to help regulate their diabetes, but this is not always the case. How well you cook your pasta will change the Glycemic Index rating for it. Undercooked pasta, also known as "al dente" pasta, has a lower GI load then pasta that is cooked until fully soft. Instant rice has a much higher GI rating than long grain or wild rice, and instant oatmeal has a higher GI rating than old fashioned cooked oatmeal. Even the differences in ripeness of a banana can dramatically change the glycemic load from eating that fruit.

The glycemic index is not the only option open to people looking to control their diabetes naturally. This article talks about some of the other natural health strategies.

Of Rats And Men - And Obesity

The furor started with some studies that seemed to point out that high fructose corn syrup was processed differently in the body, leading to a greater storage of fat. The associative evidence was that there has been a rise in obesity as well as increases in drinking sweetened drinks like soda. Thus, the blame was laid at the feet of soft drink manufacturers who tend to use high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar in their drinks.

Soft drink manufacturers and producers of corn syrup claimed they were being unfairly targeted, that they were not uniquely responsible for the obesity epidemic. The battle for the minds of the public thus began!

The Corn Refiners Association (CRA), in association with the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research at the National Institute of Health, and the American Beverage Association, co-funded some new research that presents some different information.

Before I go into any of the details, I'd like to address the issue of funding. Whilst it might seem like the interested parties are buying their own truth through funding research, if the studies are designed well, and they can be replicated, then this need not be the case. It is no less a distortion of science when interest groups seize preliminary research and associative studies and draw conclusions that may turn out to be wrong (based on good science). As with anything, the quality of the research needs to be considered.

Back to the studies that started it all. The first point is that the studies on the way corn syrup is processed were done on rats. Animal studies are preliminary studies. They may be a starting point for research with people, but until their is evidence that humans metabolize corn syrup differently, all we have is an unsupported hypothesis. It may well turn out to be true - or it might not. Either way, it is not conclusive.

Secondly, the association between soft drink consumption and obesity may be flawed. It could be that other dietary and lifestyle factors are in the very least contributing to the problem.

Given that we are more sedentary now, and that we actually eat a lot of other things that are high in calories - or simply eat more food than we did in years gone by - it seems premature to single out soft drinks. And even more premature to single out one ingredient in soft drinks, when the fact is, both corn syrup and sugar are full of calories. Excess calories in relation to activity levels mean weight gain. That's not rocket science. It seems easier psychologically to blame something else than one's own habits of consumption.

Now the recent research. This research was actually done in people (a big bonus!), though it was only a small group - 37 volunteers. They were each given cola drinks with the same number of kilocalories (215). Some were sweetened with sucrose (sugar), or with varying percentages of high fructose corn syrup (42% and 55%). The researchers looked at what effect these different drinks had on hunger, satiety (feeling full), and energy intake (how much one ate as a consequence afterwards).

There were three controls which the results with the cola drinks were measured against. One was diet cola with 2 kilocalories, another was milk with 1% fat (215 kilocalories), and the final was no drink at all. Measurements were taken at 20 minute intervals after the drinks were consumed.

Nutraingredients quote the researchers: "We found no differences between sucrose- and HFCS-sweetened colas in perceived sweetness, hunger and satiety profiles, or energy intakes at lunch."

HFCS is an abbreviation of 'high fructose corn syrup'.

It was also reported that all of the drinks with calories (sugar sweetened soda, HFCS sweetened soda, and milk) were associated with a partial reduction in the amount of energy (kilocalories) consequently eaten at lunch. The diet drink, and having no beverage did not impact this.

There are no doubt still questions that need answering. Do humans process corn syrup differently? If this turns out to be true, there may indeed be a long term association that was not measurable in this study. But as it stands now, there are many questions about the assumptions made by those who have jumped on the earlier preliminary research by blaming corn syrup wholesale.

At the end of the day, no matter how we metabolize things, if you eat too many calories without burning them off through activity, you are highly likely to put on weight. Some foods may turn out to be greater culprits than others, but if you want to lose weight, the first place you should look is calorie control and exercise levels. Nothing quite boosts your metabolism like exercise.