Glycemia

Fit and Healthy Online HOME

Eat from the top of the Hourglass

Hour Glass Diet Home
	Contactus
	Crook and fat
	Fibre supplement
	Glycemia
	Glyconutrient
	Garbohydrates
	Health shake
	Hourglass Diet
	How sweet it is
	The inner hunger
	Junk food
	Too much, too little

Click on the book cover

to purchase the book

Want to know more about the effects of a diet based on flour and sugar go to www.mercola.com

You've probably seen the books - where the words 'revolutionary' 'new' and 'glycemic index' all appear in the same sentence.

Lets get something clear from the outset. The concept of the glycemic index is not new and it's certainly stretching the definition of the word to say that it's 'revolutionary'.

All of the popular 'low carb' (not 'no carb') diets are, in essence, low glycemic index diets - meat-fish-chicken etc, combined with low energy-dense carbohydrates, particularly vegetables (excluding peas, pumpkin, potato and corn) and to a lesser degree fruit. It's all about eating from the top of the Hourglass.

For instance, 40 years ago, this was how Lelord Kordel structured his diet. Nidetch, Atkins, Sears, Phillips, the Eades (Protein Power) and dozens of others have all done the same.

Go to the Diet Bookshelf at the Health and Fitness Bookstore and see for yourself. If you're not used to this concept, buy some books. Protein Power and The Zone are a good ones to start with.

THE GI SIDESHOW

As I see it, there are ten reasons to suggest that the GI model, (concept or theory) about how to eat wisely is a side show.

1. The first and most significant reason is that the glycemic index bar has been set too high.  The 'Official' standard for the glycemic index is

• low GI is less than 55

• medium GI is 56 - 69

• high GI is 70 or more

I recently wrote to Norganic Foods, manufacturers of a 'low GI' breakfast muesli to ask them what the actual GI content of their Crunchola product. They said it was 'low; and defined the GI standards that they use as

• low is less than 40

• medium is 40 - 50

• high is more than 5040.

I think this is somewhere around the paddock.

My own GI standard suggestion is a bit lower.

GUIDE TO THE

GLYCEMIC INDEX

The problem with the 'official' standards, (and I'm not sure who's in charge of setting the standard) are that if 'low GI' is good, then 'medium GI' is not bad, which means that the current rash of glycemic index books read like an apology for industries that refine cereals into manufactured food - bread, pasta, breakfast biscuits, white rice ..., and foods with added sugar.

It's a last ditch attempt to make manufactured, cereal-based foods appear respectable. The dieticians should be moving heaven and earth to steer people away from eating anything that comes in a cardboard box or a plastic bag. This glycemic nonsense is just encouraging people to eat junk food.

2. When you read the GI books you'll detect that here is a dichotomy between what are low glycemic index foods and those that make up the bulk of the menus. You have to dig hard to find meals designed around the lowest of the GI foods, fat and protein. Fat and protein take second and third place to high density carbohydrates.

Here are the GI readings for

• beef (0)

• lamb (0)

• pork (0)

• salami (0)

• tuna (0)

• eggs (0)

• avocado (0)

• broccoli (0)

• cabbage (0)

• cauliflower (0)

• cucumber (0)

• french beans (0)

• spinach (0)

You could make a pretty good meal out of all that - breakfast, lunch or tea!

The cooked breakfast and cooked lunch have gone the way of button-up boots. Breakfasts are just dreadful concoctions of flour, sugar and caffeine.

Despite the common knowledge that, in order to maintain good health, we need to obtain about 20% of our calorie intake in the form of fat, the menus are all low fat and fat free. No wonder there is an epidemic of depression in the community.

Ordinary milk has about 5% fat. That's low fat to begin with. It has a GI of 31. And yet you'll never see it in any published menu.

One of the reasons for the success of the low-carb diets is that they recognise that eating foods with a GI of lower than 30 not only helps people to lose weight but also helps to get the right balance between insulin which stimulates the production of fat and glucagon which stimulates fat loss.

The garbohydrates stimulate the production of insulin, which in turn stimulates the conversion of excess carbohydrate into fat. The best book for this is Protein Power by Michael and Mary Eades

3. Let's not forget that many of the foods currently listed as low and medium GI are the root of all manner of body system dysfunctions. I think I'll drink more milk 'full, fat and fresh' (31) or start drinking sweetened chocolate milk. With a GI of 43 it must be good! If you were a naturopath, the last thing you'd recommend people to eat would be products loaded with flour, milk and sugar.

4. The GI concept doesn't make a clear enough the distinction between eating fresh food and junk food. Fresh food should always take precedence over junk food. As it stands a handful of peanut M&M's (33) look a better food choice than a handful of raisins (64).

Here's how to eat wisely on the junk food diet according to the glycemic index [published  in The New Glycemic Revolution - complete guide to GI values by Brand-Miller et al.)

• Wild berry Fruity Bix™ bar (51)

• Plain milk chocolate (43)

• Coca Cola™ 53

• Corn chips, plain salted (42)

• Ice-cream, premium ultra chocolate, Sara Lee (37)

• Fristies ™ sugar coated Cornflakes (55)

• Vanilla cake with icing (42)

• Nesquik ™ (35)   Nesquik™ out of the tin contains 90% sugar.

• Milo™ (30) Milo™ out of the tin contains circa 50% sugar

• Milk, full-fat (31)

• Peanut M&M's® (33)

• Nutella (33)

• Snickers bar® (41)

• Milky bar® (44)

• Sustagen® (43) - out of the tin contains 54% sugar.

Really looks like a well balanced diet to me! Kids'll love it.

5. There are more factors involved in choosing foods to nourish the cells of your body than the GI.

I wrote to the American Diabetic Association and they wrote back saying

'The ADA does not recommend the use of the glycemic index as a primary strategy in food/meal planning. This is based on a review of over 20 studies in which subjects with type 1 or type 2 diabetes ingested a variety of starches or sucrose, both acutely and for up to 6 weeks, with no significant differences in glycemic responses if the amount of carbohydrate was similar.'

As I've already said, some foods have a higher propensity to stimulate body system dysfunction than others - particularly milk, wheat flour and sugar. (In fact there should be a warning on the packet for these three.)

Some foods have high nutritional value and should be encouraged. Bet you have to wait a long time until you see lambs fry, brains or steak and kidneys on any of the GI menus.

Some of the vegetables should be promoted for all they're worth, instead of the usual ploughman's loaf and Barry and Martin Rice.

Some of the manufactured foods are full of crap, designed to make them last longer, look better and taste sweeter. With respect to looking better and tasting sweeter that's just another nutritional hoax designed to deceive fools and children.

The manufactured foods are frequently packed to the gunnels with food additives - flavourings, preservatives, colourings, emulsifiers, fillers, sugar, aspartame ..., and calories. They are frequently the foods to which large numbers of people are intolerant or allergic.

And yet, when you rake through all the lists of foods in the GI books, the manufactured junk foods are the most prominent. It's the same with the National Heart Foundation. Unless I'm mistaken, the main criteria for the tick is that the food comes in either a tin, packet, cardboard box or plastic bag.

Even some of the foods that no one in their right mind would recommend to their worst enemy come up smelling like roses underneath the GI veneer of respectability.  (You can bet that pretty soon you'll see packets of chocolate confectionery with the words LOW GI printed on the packet)

The best diet advice you could give anyone about diet would be to tell them to eat food which is fresh and natural, and be circumspect about, or lay off the manufactured stuff.

6. The GI concept doesn't take into account the difference in energy density between the various carbohydrate groups, vegetables, fruit, cereals and sugar. You can still eat recommended 'low and medium GI' foods and fatten yourself up. Just take a look at the energy density of pasta compared with apples. Or look at the energy density of a Jatz biscuit next time you're in the supermarket. At over 1900Kj/100gms this is a high energy wallop. A Ritz biscuit is over 2300Kj/100 gms. (And you don't just have one at a time do you?)

When I looked more closely at the side panel on the Norganic Cruchola, I noticed that it contained 25.2% sugar. Some of it is naturally occurring sugar from the fruit juice concentrate and diced apple. But strewth, if you want to eat sugar there are cheaper ways of doing it than buying breakfast muesli! The other thing the side panel reveals is that it contains 1640Kj/100gms. That's high density food in anyone's language, particularly when the humble, ordinary, every day, common or garden spud contains around 275Kj/100gms.

7.  You've always got to watch the amount of food you're eating.

8. It doesn't take into account individual differences. The diet that keeps some individuals, cultures and regional groups fit, healthy and close to their ideal weight can have the opposite effect on others.

Some people can exist quite comfortably on a diet high in garbohydrates. Many can't. They get fat and dysfunctional.

You only have to look at what happens to aboriginal populations to see what happens when they forsake their traditional diet for a western diet.

9. The science behind the GI concept appears to be founded on the selective evidence-based research that promotes the view that we exist better, are healthier and more likely to be close to our ideal weight if we eat a diet high in refined, cereal based carbohydrates. That's why the bar has been set so high. There's plenty of research around ( this will keep you busy for a while and so will this ) to indicate that this view of the world is not the only one.

If it weren't for adherence to the high carbohydrate principle, the authors could have simply told people not to eat any of the refined, cereal based, manufactured junk food with a GI above 50, turned off the light, left the room, shut the door and gone home.

10. Finally, diabetics deserve better advice on nutrition (and, of course exercise).  My advice to diabetics is to

   - set your normal diet guidelines at a GI of 30 or below.

   - be circumspect about what you eat in the range between 30 - 50

   - eschew food with  GI of 50 and above

   - don't eat food with added sugar

   - don't eat manufactured food

   - lay off the grog.

Plus, anyone giving diabetics advice should, at the same time point out that the major cause of adult onset diabetes is insulin resistance in muscles due to lack of regular vigorous physical activity.

Want to know more about the amount of exercise - what type, how often, how long and what effort level - that is needed to stimulate the uptake of glucose into the muscles?  The Fitness Prescription is an integral part of the Lifestyle Prescription which stands head and shoulders above all other prescriptions for keeping yourself fit and healthy.

To conclude, in the workshop of ideas about how to eat to

      -    maintain good health

      -    nourish the cells of your body

      -    maintain a normal level of body fat and

      -    fix up certain body system dysfunctions,

the glycemic index, in it's present form, standards, research base and application is yet another limp and useless tool.

JOHN HERBERT MILLER'S 'NEW' AND 'REVOLUTIONARY' GI STANDARDS

If wish to live by the GI index here is a revised standard.

Certainly if you consistently eat foods below a GI of 40 there's a good chance you'll be eating well and be close to your ideal weight. If you're a diabetic or pre-diabetic this is the recommended way to eat. You'll get your carbohydrate intake from the low glycemic index carbohydrates.

This is the basis of the diet recommended by the Eades in Protein Power. It's the basis of the Atkins Diet. It's the basis of many other well known diet regimes, particularly the ones touted by film stars. If you want to look like a film star, perhaps you could start by eating like one. If you really want to peel off fat you'll spend a month eating below the GI 30 level.

If you eat below a GI of 40, you'll also eat healthily and have just that bit more variety in your diet, but recognise that the calorie value has increased.

If you read the tables you'll find that confectionery rears its ugly head in the list of GI foods between 40 and 50. In this zone, if it's a vegetable or fruit and you don't have a weight problem, enjoy it. It will do you good. If it's chocolate, chances are it will be loaded with 50% sugar and 30% fat and 100gms is about a quarter of your daily energy requirements. If it's corn chips (42) it will have more than 2000 Kj/100gms. It's junk. It's the fat content that's lowering the GI.

You can't cloak the junk food wolf with the sheep's skin of GI respectability. There have to be questions asked about the desirability of various foods, regardless of their GI. Not to do so gives some people the impression that some of the 'low GI' foods are good for them, when they're patently not.

The degree and frequency with which you go above the GI 50 level will be the degree to which you run the risk of becoming fatter and unhealthier. The reason? Most of the food above a GI of 50 is high energy-dense, cereal-based junk. And that's the dietician's blind spot, an inability to acknowledge that for large numbers of people, a diet high in grains causes all manner of body system dysfunctions and leads to obesity. Naturopaths have a much broader perspective on what foods are likely to be good for you, which ones are associated with particular body system dysfunctions and which ones will trim you down.

When you cast your eye over the foods in various GI lists and menus you'll see that the 'Low GI' bar has been set at 55. You still get lots of junk, including chocolate, banana cake, potato, bread, ice cream, potato chips, cola drinks, rice, pasta, chocolate milk ... Why anyone with an obesity or diabetic problem is being encouraged to eat 'medium GI foods', Which go up to a GI of 70; foods like rice, potato, bread, and foods with a high sugar content is beyond all comprehension.

I'll stand corrected, but I think any food over a GI of 50 is a high GI food.

When you read the GI books, the list of foods reads like a junk food litany - predominantly high energy-dense foods manufactured from white flour; bread, breakfast biscuits, sweet and dry biscuits ... By its inclusion in 'low GI' foods, sugar gets a sympathetic wrap as does chocolate - just the thing every diabetic likes to hear. Go ahead 'low GI'!

Could you believe any dietician who'd think that any product loaded with more than 50% sugar is good for you?

A limiting factor in this debate is lack of a good definition of junk food. It would be helpful if the GI proponents would let people know what foods fall into the junk food classification, and tell them to steer clear of it. (The short definition of junk food is any food that's been through the mill, the oven or the fat bath, comes in a plastic bag or a cardboard box and is advertised to fools and children.)

If you look at some of the GI menus you'd be forgiven for thinking that you could go all day existing on high density garbohydrates - toast, breakfast biscuits, orange juice, coffee, bread and pasta. No wonder the Western world is getting fat and depressed.

The Australian Government's food guidelines recommend you have 8 or 10 slices of bread a day. No wonder people are over weight if that is the sort of information they are being fed.

As it stands, as it's promoted, and when it's all stripped down, the GI concept is just another apology for people to eat high energy-dense, predominantly cereal-based, manufactured garbohydrates, filling up their stomachs rather than nourishing the cells of their bodies.

You can just about write the rules for healthy eating on a postage stamp - 'as the basis of your diet, eat fresh foods with a GI of less than 40 and steer clear of products that are full of sugar, white flour, alcohol and aspartame.' Eat from the top of the Hourglass.

You don't need pages and pages of tables and thousands of people lining up to have their fingers pricked to tell you that. It's bleedingly obvious.

If you are going to eat cereal-based foods out of plastic bags or cardboard boxes, understand that the number of calories, along with the GI is likely to be very high. As well as fattening you up, you may find they irritate your guts, elevate your blood pressure, stress your pancreas, make you tired and give you headaches ... That's just for starters.

The GI books are full of menu suggestions encouraging people to eat junk. You'll be agog with disbelief when you see that the recommended (junk) food for a day in the life of a diabetic includes

-     breakfast of porridge with brown sugar, toast, orange juice and

      hot chocolate

-     lunch of a sandwich on the run

-     dinners of pasta, potato, pitta bread, a bread roll, chips and

      washed down with a glass of red wine,

all just big glucose dumps, the net result of which is exacerbating rather than diminishing the condition they’re supposed to alleviate.

You know something's fishy about the glycemic index when you read in the glycemic index tables that a bar of chocolate, potato crisps and peanuts look like better food choices than a few peas or some apricots!

On the other hand I can’t see in the suggested menus any reference to fried sausages (despite the book saying they only have a GI of 28).

The fat police in this country have just about eliminated the cooked breakfast, let alone a good lambs fry, brains or tripe - the offal meats that are the basis of nutrition for aboriginal groups around the world. And eggs? Well everyone knows that if you eat a few eggs a week your heart arteries will immediately clog up with cholesterol, your eyes will start bulging and you’ll drop dead!!!

The great man himself said you can’t live by bread alone. If he were alive today he’d also say that you can’t subsist on a diet that’s 97% fat free.

FOOD CHOICES

When making food choices just remember that the fresh vegetables (with the exception of peas, pumpkin, potatoes and corn) have less than 30 calories (120Kj)/100gms.

Fruit contains between 25 and 75 calories (100 and 300kj)/100 gms.

Meat, fish and chicken have less than 250 calories (1000kj)/100gms.

Bread has about 250 calories (1000Kj) , breakfast biscuits, rice and pasta from 375-400 calories (1500 to 1600Kj)/100gms.

Sugar kicks in at 1700.

The good old fashioned, common or garden, everyday Yo Yo biscuit weights in at 1930, the scotch finger at 2100, the Tim Tam at 2160 and the Ritz cracker at 2,370. That is a huge calorie dosage. It's not one that you'd prescribe to your average over weight, unfit punter.

 If you want to purchase a copy of Protein Power by Michael Eades, go to the diet bookshelf and click through to your region.  It provides a reasoned commentary on how to negotiate the garbohydrate maze.

You’ll also find expansive information on cereals, insulin etc at www.mercola.com one of the most frequently visited health sites on the internet.

If the glycemic set were really serious about the foods they recommend, particularly for diabetics, they wouldn't touch some of the mid-range glycemic index foods with a barge pole.

They would also make very definite statements about avoiding sugar, instead of publishing that ‘It’s Ok to include your favourite sweetener or sweet food – small quantities of sugar, honey, golden syrup, jam – to make meals more palatable and pleasurable.’

In the last 100 years, sugar consumption per person has gone from about 1Kg per year to over 70Kg per year, fuelling all kinds of body system dysfunctions.

Nutritionists should be jumping up and down, telling governments to put a warning label on the packet that tells people to steer clear of it. John Yudkin, the eminent British nutritionist described it as 'pure, white and deadly'.

Sugar is the most popular mood enhancing drug in our culture. Want to know how we're being done in by sugar? There should be adverts on TV with a camera following sugar down an artery at the same time the voice-over saying; ‘every grain is doing you harm.’ 

Governments should be warning people about the dangers of sugar and gradually winding down this industry. Instead, the governments of America and Australia prop up the industry with massive subsidies, such is the level of addiction to sugar. 

As it stands, the glycemic index concept bears the finger prints of the bread, pasta and breakfast biscuit industries. Don’t for a moment believe that breakfast cereals are cereals. They’re just biscuits, (albeit funny shaped); flour mixed with sugar (up to 40% by weight) and baked up into a biscuit.

In a nutshell, the GI concept appears to be focused on encouraging people to eat the least worst of the worst food, instead of positively encouraging people to eat fresh, natural food.

If you buy the glycemic index books or look up the glycemic index tables on the internet it's the junk foods, refined, high density, packaged and mass marketed foods that receive most prominence - bread, pasta, noodles, breakfast biscuits, milk products ... In some of the tables you won't see vegetables or meat listed at all. It gives a false impression of what low GI food really is if you don't include very low GI foods on the list.

Someone will say that if you don’t eat cereal-based products you won’t get enough fibre. Bunkum; on two counts.

Firstly the high flour diet is responsible for the epidemic of constipation in our community. All that most people can do is choke off a few rabbit pellets after breakfast. Most of the flour you eat turns into the same sort of clag your mother made to keep you amused before you went to school.

Secondly you can get oodles of fibre if you make yourself up a mix of psyllium husk, raw oat bran and flaxseed and sprinkle it on some cut-up fruit. The back end of your system will work like an absolute charm.

Someone will say that if you don't get enough cereals you will miss out on some essential vitamins and minerals. It makes you wonder how Eskimos lasted so long?

Anyone for a block of chocolate (43), a bag of corn chips( 42) and a Coke (53)?