The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies - Meri Raffetto [97]
Chapter 15: Low-Glycemic Cooking Tips and Techniques
In This Chapter
Giving your favorite recipes a low-glycemic makeover
Preparing grains and pastas the low-glycemic way
Adding a variety of vegetables to your diet
Embracing beans, a low-glycemic superfood
Cooking — it's a term that either makes you feel at ease or makes you want to run for the hills. No matter which side of the fence you're on, picking up a few basic cooking tips can help you follow your new low-glycemic lifestyle. (Don't worry. You don't need to learn how to sauté in the air, flambé a dessert, or prepare ridiculously difficult meals.)
Many people start various weight-loss programs by cooking all new recipes, especially when they're following menu plans. These recipes are handy to have and can be helpful, but they can also be a lot of work. Having that poached egg for breakfast, chicken salad almondine for lunch, and barley risotto for dinner may sound great, but it ends up being more cooking than the average person is used to, making it difficult to stay on track for long. In a low-glycemic lifestyle, you can still enjoy some of your old standby recipes, just with a few small modifications. In fact, modifying your favorite recipes is a great first step in implementing the low-glycemic guidelines into your daily life.
I cover the basics of low-glycemic cooking for the beginner (and the experienced) cook in this chapter. I also highlight the most nutritious low-glycemic foods so you can begin introducing more of them into your diet for optimal results.
Evaluating and Modifying Your Favorite Recipes
One of the great factors of a low-glycemic diet is that you can still make your favorite standby recipes, no matter whether those standbys include stir-fry, spaghetti and meatballs, burgers, or tacos. The trick is to do a glycemic makeover with your favorites by replacing high-glycemic foods with low-glycemic substitutions.
Many of your current recipes may already follow the guidelines or just need a little tweaking to get there. To figure out whether that's the case, you first need to evaluate what's in your current recipes. Pull out all of your favorites and quick standbys and compare your recipe ingredients with the glycemic load food lists in Appendix A.
If you find some recipes that use only low-glycemic foods, you have a winner! No change necessary.
If you have some recipes that use a combination of low- and medium-glycemic foods, these can also be good choices, but always remember to watch the portion sizes. Eating more than a serving will increase the glycemic load for that meal.
If some of your recipes use high-glycemic foods, don't throw them out quite yet. Put them aside and, in the following section, discover how to modify them to fit your new lifestyle.
Recipe modification tips
The simplest way to incorporate new low-glycemic foods into your diet is by modifying standard recipes. Follow these suggestions to modify your current recipes to make them more appropriate for losing weight with a low-glycemic diet:
Replace higher-glycemic foods with lower-glycemic ones. For example, instead of having a high-glycemic bagel, you can choose a low-glycemic, 100-percent-whole-grain bread. See? Going low-glycemic can be simple!
Use smaller portion sizes of medium- and high-glycemic foods to help lighten the load. If you like potatoes (a high-glycemic food) as part of your meal, you can still enjoy them. Just eat half a potato in one sitting as opposed to the whole thing.
Add healthy low-glycemic foods. Instead of eating a pasta dish that's heavy on the pasta (okay, a dish that's all pasta!), toss