The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies - Meri Raffetto [47]
Comparing your current food choices to see where you can make swaps
When you want to identify where your favorite foods fall on the glycemic index list, a good approach is to start looking up the glycemic index of the foods each time you eat a meal or a snack. Note how often you choose high-, medium-, and low-glycemic foods. Perhaps lunch most often includes lower-glycemic foods, but breakfast relies on higher-glycemic breads and cereals. Watch for broad patter such as these in the foods you eat regularly.
As you identify your current high-glycemic food choices, think about the low-glycemic foods you also have on hand. Can you substitute a lower-glycemic food for something higher? For example, instant mashed potatoes are high-glycemic (around 97 on average), but boiled new potatoes with their skins are low-glycemic (around 54 on average). Or you can use quick-cooking brown rice (with a glycemic index around 48) rather than potatoes in order to keep dinner preparation quick and simple.
Think about how you can include medium- or low-glycemic foods for snacks. For example, if you love white-flour crackers such as saltines, swap this high-glycemic snack for a whole-grain cracker such as Triscuits, which have a lower glycemic index. Or you can try swapping a lower-glycemic fruit, such as melon, for a higher-glycemic one, such as pineapple.
Look through the list of medium- and low-glycemic foods in Appendix A and highlight the ones your family routinely enjoys. You may be surprised at the number of low-glycemic foods you already include in your daily food choices. As you become more familiar with the glycemic index, you'll be able to choose low-glycemic foods without even having to think about it!
Following a low-glycemic diet doesn't mean you have to toss out all the high-glycemic foods in your cabinets. You can still enjoy them on occasion by thinking of ways to balance them with lower-glycemic foods at the same meal. For example, if you're serving a high-glycemic mixed fruit salad for dessert, include a low-glycemic starch such as brown rice with the main course. The two foods balance each other so that you wind up with a moderate glycemic load for the entire meal.
Replacing High-Glycemic Grains with Low-Glycemic Ones
Grains are one of those foods people love to hate. Many classic comfort foods revolve around grains: fluffy mashed potatoes, creamy white rice, pasta with grandma's secret sauce, and macaroni and cheese. Grains, especially whole grains that are less processed, provide a variety of nutrients your body needs for good health. Yet many popular grains have a high glycemic index. The sections that follow explore several lower-glycemic grains and show you how simple — and delicious — it can be to incorporate these grains in your meals.
Finding some new old favorites
Many of the grains that are new to modern society were very familiar to our ancestors. The best part about these new old favorites is that you can easily add them to your favorite recipes, especially in foods such as hot cereals, soups, and rice pilaf dishes. Allow me to introduce you to these oldie-but-goodie grains:
Spelt is an ancient variety of wheat that was common until industrialization made it less favorable to farmers than other types of wheat. (People who can't handle wheat should avoid spelt because it's part of the wheat grain family.) Spelt has a higher protein, B vitamin, potassium, and iron content than other varieties of wheat, giving it a nutritional edge. Multigrain bread made with spelt fur has a glycemic index of 54, making it a lower-glycemic bread choice.
You can substitute spelt flour for wheat flour in recipes for cakes, cookies, muffins, pancakes, and even bread. Spelt-flour breads don't rise as high as other wheat-flour breads because spelt has a lower gluten content, yet they can produce a delicious bread product in their own right. Note: Spelt flour