Glycemic Index

Glycemic Index of Food 

To eliminate spikes and lower the average blood glucose you need to eliminate the foods that are most likely to cause those spikes. There are two aspects of the food that is triggering spikes that you need to understand.  One is simply their overall carbohydrate content.  The amount of carbohydrate in a food is measured in grams and is actually shown on the food label.  But you can estimate the amount of carbohydrate by (INSERT).  The other aspect of food that will influence a spike is the accessibility of the sugar content.  Some sugars get absorbed very easily in the intestine and appear in the blood stream almost immediately.  Table sugar is the best example of this.  If you eat table sugar, it will be almost immediately aborbed and your blood glucose will rise sometimes in as little as 5 minutes.  There is a way to measure how quickly the sugars are absorbed and compare one food to another by using an index called the glycemic index.  Pure table sugar has a glycemic index of 100 and all food that contains carbohydrate has a value lower than 100 but higher than 0.  Some food contains only protein and fat and has no carbohydrate at all.  Think of something like beef for example.  Beef has a glycemic index of 0.  In our program, we do not recommend eating beef despite its low glycemic index for other reasons which we will review later in the lifestyle experiment.  For now, let’s stay focused on food with high sugar content and high glycemic index.  Use the tables below to better understand the glycemic index of various foods.

Table 1:  Breakfast Foods with a High Glycemic Index

Food	Glycemic Index
Cornflakes	81
Instant Oatmeal	79
Cheerios	74
Golden Grahams Cereal	71
Grape Nuts Cereal	75
Muesli	86
Rice Krispies	82
Total Cereal	76
Rice Chex	89
Waffles	76
Pancakes	67

Table 2: Lunch and Dinner Foods with a High Glycemic Index

Food	Glycemic Index
Potato, Instant Mashed	88
Potato, Mashed	83
White Bread	70
Barley Flour Bread (50% wheat flour, 50% barley flour)	74
French Baguette	95
Kaiser Roll	73
Rice, Instant	87
White rice, Standard	70
Broad Beans	79
Pizza, cheese	80
Pretzels	83
French Fries	75

The foods in the tables above will usually cause a rapid spike in glucose if you consume about a portion or so.  Remember though, that portion sizes matter here and if you consume a small amount of mashed potato and you combine it with other protein and fat, you might be ok.  The other thing to observe is that processing of food tends to make the glycemic index higher.  Notice how instant mashed potato has a higher glycemic index than potatoes that you mash yourself and instant rice has a much higher glycemic index than more slowly cooked rice.  This is because when you process the rice to allow it cook more quickly it makes it easier for the body to absorb it making a higher glycemic index. Think about all these factors as you perform your experiment.

Table 3:  Deserts and Beverages with a High Glycemic Index

Food	Glycemic Index
Corn Syrup, dark	115
Doughnuts, cake	76
Graham Crackers	74
Jelly Beans	80
Vanila Wafers	77
Watermelon	80
Gatorade	78
Coca Cola	63
Pepsi	60
7 Up	60

In our program, we generally ask our patients to avoid highly sweetened beverages of all kinds and anything with corn syrup in it.  Note that the glycemic index of Coca-Cola, Pepsi and 7 Up is not as high as you might think.  It is not low by any means, but you would think it would be higher.  In practice, we have seen that Coca-Cola causes significant elevations in blood glucose in most of our patients.  One of its central ingredients is high-fructose corn syrup and we ask our patients to avoid anything that contains that chemical.

Naked Carbohydrates

The other aspect of carbohydrates that is important is whether or not those carbohydrates come by themselves or come in a meal mixed with protein and fat.  Protein and fat are absorbed more slowly than carbohydrate.  So, when they are combined with the carbohydrate, they slow the absorption of the carbohydrate as well.  Carbohydrates that are consumed by themselves are called “naked carbohydrates”.  Consumption of high glycemic index foods with no protein or fat at all is the most potent way to raise the blood sugar to very high levels quickly.

 .