Glucose Diets Learning to Balance and Swap According to the GI Index

If you are trying to control your glucose intake through diet, it is important to understand the Glycemic Index. The Glycemic Index ranks food by how fast their carbohydrates are converted into glucose and are absorbed into your blood stream. The goal of a glucose controlled diet is to keep your body balanced from experiencing a rollercoaster ride of swings in glucose levels from lows to highs and back again.

A balanced glucose diet allows a person to have even physical endurance and also helps reduce hunger. It helps some people both control their weight and lose weight if needed. Balance usually involves some type of swap or exchange. So, for example, instead of white bread, you choose multigrain bread, or an oat based or barley bread. Instead of regular pasta, you choose multigrain or whole grain pasta. Instead of starchy white rice, you choose brown rice, or quinoa.

The Glycemic Index, (nicknamed GI index for short), ranks foods on a scale of zero to 100 according to how much they raise your blood sugar levels.A High GI food is one that ranks 70 or higher on the GI index. A medium GI food is one that ranks 56 to 69 on the GI Index. A low GI food is one that ranks 55 or below on the GI index.

If you want to see how a particular food ranks on the GI Index go to this link and type in the food.

http://www.glycemicindex.com/

I plugged in raw carrots, which came out with a low GI index number of 16. I plugged in potatoes, and potatoes cooked in salted water ranked 52 on the GI Index. I plugged in the word cake and saw puffed rice cakes, caramel flavored ranked a whopping 82 on the GI Index. Doughnuts ranked 76 and plain sponge cake ranked 46. It just goes to show you that calories doesn't have much to do with GI Index as one might think. Afterall, many people of low calorie diets may consider rice cakes as a low calorie and healthy snack, however if you were on a low glucose diet, a sweetened rice cake is nearly off the charts in being high glucose. If you were on a calorie restricted diet, a piece of cake may blow your diet, but on the GI index cake is actually better for you glucose wise over the sweetened rice cakes!

There are dozens of books published about the GI Index and how to choose your foods smartly.

Going tohttp://www.glycemicindex.com/ and click on GI Books, and you will see a listing along with book descriptions and ISBN numbers.

As always, before embarking on ANY major dietary changes, you should ALWAYS consult your physician to discuss the effects of any given diet. This is extremely important because you may have other health conditions that would be worsened by a dietary change, and/or medications you are taking may produce side effects that could compound potential harm that could come from an extreme diet change.