Understand glycemic index to lose weight, eat healthier, prevent diabetes & feel full longer.

Eat for quick energy, endurance, or even healthy weight gain.

Glycemic Index or "G.I." is a measure of how fast the food we eat raises our blood sugar.

Glycemic Index is a scale that compares how fast your blood sugar rises compared to how fast it rises when you consume pure glucose. Glucose is assigned a number of 100 and represents a rapid rise in blood sugar.

Any G.I. lower than 100 raises your blood sugar more slowly than glucose, for example sour cherries have a G.I. of 22 , especially compared to most other fruits making it a healthy low G.I. choice.

White potatoes have a high Glycemic Index making them less suitable if your goal is to lose weight or prevent diabetes. As a general rule a rapid increase in blood sugar is undesirable except in the case of engaging in or recovering from intense exercise. So it may be desirable shortly before, during or immediately following an intense or prolonged physical effort.

Low G.I. foods tend to give you an extended supply of energy which will keep you feeling satisfied longer, while high G.I. foods give you a lot of energy quickly, which could be good for intense activity, but the same energy would be stored as fat if you eat it while watching a movie.

I'm currently reading "The New Glucose Revolution" as research for this page, it's in a word, excellent, probably the best book on the subject by one of the leading authority's in this area.

Before reading it I though I was pretty knowledgeable, about Glycemic Index and I was, but I am learning a few things that my "horse sense" about G.I. couldn't predict.

For the most part you can usually guess about the G.I. of a lot of food and get it right, but sometime there's things that effect G.I. that can't be seen or guessed.

Some types fiber lower the the Glycemic Index while others don't effect it. Since I'm still doing research on this, and still compiling the G.I. and Carb Number list, consider this page as in process, current, but expanding.

Another way of thinking of of the Glycemic Index is to ask yourself "how fast will this food digest?"

The more refined or processed a food is the faster it usually digests, and the faster it raises your blood sugar. So the smaller the pieces of food, the less you have to chew it, or on the extreme end the more like baby food or a liquid a food is the faster it digests and therefore raises your blood sugar.

The closer to a natural whole food it is or the easier you can tell what plant or animal the food came from the slower it tends to digest, giving it a lower Glycemic Index.

A whole raw apple with it's skin on is immediately recognizable as an apple, while “fruit leather” is brown, red, or some other color and you can't tell what flavor, or food it's made from without smelling it or reading the package.

You guessed it, it's G.I. is higher than the apple it's made from.

Typically, but not always the sweeter a food tastes, the higher G.I. because it has more sugar. Grapefruit isn't very sweet, while bananas are and they have a higher G.I.

BUT sweetness can be deceiving sometimes. An apple has a G.I. of 38 while it's sweeter relative, the dried apple has a G.I. of 29, probably because it needs to rehydrate in the stomach slowing down it's digestion, and lowering it's Glycemic Index.

Ultimately, you can't predict the G.I. of foods very well because too many things can effect it. Fiber type, whether it's cooked or raw, how long it's cooked, whether it's acidic, how much fat or protein it has.

It's better to just look up the G.I. below, or for a complete database go here. You may be tempted to think dried apple is “better”, and it is if you want sustained energy and a slower rise in blood sugar which is usually good. BUT beware that dried apple IS much higher in sugar than a raw apple.

A cup of raw apple pieces is a healthy snack, while a cup of dried apples is MUCH higher in calories and sugar despite it lower G.I., and as I said before calories ALWAYS matter.

A food can have a low G.I. and a lot of sugar giving it a what's called high “Glycemic Load”. Glycemic load is the G.I. times the total grams of carbs in a food so it can have a high G.I. and / OR a high carb content giving it a high Glycemic Load.

Glycemic Load is the product of G.I. x Total Carbs and high G.L. while may be good for for recovery or sports, while a low G.I. is better for most cases.

Confused yet? don't be;-)

Low G.I. foods are good for:

- losing weight - sustained energy - feeling satisfied longer - general health - prevention of diabetes - management of diabetes

the lower G.I. the better.

High G.I. foods are good for:

- quick energy - sports - an intense workout - energy during an intense and prolonged activity - or recovery after prolonged and/ or intense activity

the higher the G.I. the better.

Neither G.I. or G.L. directly consider for the fat, protein or calorie content of a food, so it's a very useful for making good weight loss food choices, but it still doesn't consider calories which ______ matter!

I thought long and hard about this and developed what I call the “Carb Number” (the science geek in me wanted to call it the “Calcemic Index”, but the teacher in me decided "Carb Number" was easier to remember and less intimidating;-).

The Carb Number considers for Glycemic Index, Glycemic Load AND that which always matters...calories, in a single number.

Any glycemic food (a food which raises your blood sugar) can be rated using this scale. So now we can compare foods on all factors that science says has the greatest impact on weight gain, or weight loss.

The higher the carb number, the more weight gain capacity that food has.

The lower the carb number the more weight loss potential that food has.

Not surprisingly vegetables are the superstars with the lowest carb numbers while high carb foods with lots of fat (like cookies and cake) have very high carb numbers.

Understand that this rating system allows you to compare foods to each other for their potential to produce weight gain. The numbers are NOT calories, G.I., OR G.L. they're calculated using those numbers, but the scale has no meaningful units.

They're ONLY meant to allow you to compare foods using a single number.

I'm currently entering the values and making the Carb Number list sorted from low to high carb number by food group.

I'm also listing ALL foods grouped together and sorted lowest to highest by carb number.

I will post the whole list when it's finished(by or before mid January 2010). All values used to calculate the Carb Numbers come from The New Glucose Revolution Shopper's Guide to G.I. Values 2009. I will update and add any new values when I receive the 2010 edition I have on back order.

More information will be posted over time, the again at least yearly as new G.I. values are published.

You can use low glycemic index or zero glycemic foods to lower the total G.I. of a meal with higher G.I. foods in it by combining them in one meal or by eating the low glycemic index food first.

Proteins and fats have a G.I. of zero and will reduce the effective G.I. of other foods, especially if they're eaten before the carb.

Eating a low G.I. food will also bring down the net G.I. of a higher G.I. food if they're eaten together. You can also eat the low G.I. carb followed by the hi G.I. carb.

BUT AGAIN adding too many calories of low or zero G.I. food will defeat your purpose if the total calories are excessive.