What on Earth is Glycemic Index?

Hello again.
Hope you’re all having a great week so far and enjoying your families.

We have recently learnt to make pavlova in my household as I feel that every self respecting Australian and New Zealand woman should know how!
It’s actually quite easy - Giorgia can now do it pretty much single handed!

Unfortunately pavlova is not a low GI food and as such is on the party food list, but hey, Christmas is just around the corner and I plan to make several, topped with cream, berries and grated chocolate!

So this week Glycemic Index…

You’ve probably heard a lot about eating low to moderate GI foods for good health and weight loss. In fact a great book about GI that I recommend is ‘The New Glucose Revolution’ by Jennie Brand Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell and Stephen Colagiuri – if you’re interested in learning more.

But keepin’ it simple - what is GI?
Basically a food is assigned a GI measure – low/medium/high - when tested to see how quickly it causes your blood sugar to rise when digested.
SO, if a food has a high GI, it will cause your blood sugar to rise quickly. High GI foods include Rice Bubbles and baked potatoes.
Foods that are low-medium GI have a slow-medium affect on blood sugar, examples are pasta, lentils and yoghurt.

So that’s great I hear you say, but what does that mean??

Well, the state of our blood sugar affects our moods, (we’ve all seen the kids at birthday parties) our health, our weight and the potential for disease.

Saving the high GI foods for party time and sometimes, helps keep our blood sugar even, the hunger pangs to a minimum and keeps us healthy.

Eating high GI foods daily has been linked to hypoglaecemia, diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
Inturn, regular consumption of low-medium GI foods has been found not only to help prevent these conditions, but have a positive affect on reducing symptoms.

I’m not a stickler for structuring meals around the GI of each food eaten by my family – I prefer the everyday, sometimes and party time concept - but I do make sure we are eating low-medium GI foods as part of the everyday, at some point.

Do some research yourself to get a better understanding if you’re interested, but here is a little list just to get you started.
Also, as we talked about last week, check the labels of the foods you’re buying, often they will say low or medium GI (they’re not likely to admit to high!).

Low – Medium GI foods
Bananas
Apples
All Bran
Legumes
Wholemeal and mutligrain breads
Porridge
Yoghurt

High GI foods
Baked potatoes
White bread
Many breakfast cereals
Soft drinks
Jasmine rice

Sometimes GI can be confusing, fatty foods have low GI’s (because they take longer to digest) and yet are not good for our bodies. Watermelon has a high GI, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t eat it, just eat other fruit too.
For these reasons, and with a plethora of other information and diet tips out there, I promote the idea of everyday/sometimes/party foods, I like to keep it simple.

I just wanted to explain the basic GI idea so you can contribute to the conversation next time it comes up over morning coffee!

Eat fruits and veggies everyday, good sources of carbs, proteins and fats, lots of water, limited party food….and you’re good to go!

With summer on its way, it’s a great time to throw some good quality meats, chicken and fish on the barbie, toss up a few salads loaded with greens and then round off with a fruit platter….yum-mo!!

Enjoy!
Lv Jane











PS. Getting back to the pav….Some great tips I received include:
Use a metal bowl
Make sure eggs are room temperature
Place wet paper towels underneath the baking paper, then when the pav is cooked tip it upside down onto the serving plate and peel the paper off. This will make it sink into itself and help give you that great crusty outside, smooshy inside feel!
We had bananas (they’re FJ$2 for about 8 here!) and passionfruit on ours last night…too good!
©thefamilyroom 2006