A Glycemic Index Example
Some Starchy Foods Trigger Overeating
Ever wonder why you feel hungry a few hours after eating a big meal? Chances are you ate carbohydrate-containing foods that caused a rapid spike in your blood sugar. This musters extra insulin into the blood. The high insulin, in turn, makes blood sugar crash and suppresses the fat fuels as well. As a result, you get that famished feeling that leads to overeating.
That's what happened in a study of obese teenage boys by researchers at Children's Hospital in Boston and the USDA center in Boston . It's the first solid evidence that carbohydrates with a high glycemic index (GI)—those that are rapidly digested and absorbed—contribute to obesity.
On three separate days at least a week apart, researchers fed the boys breakfast and lunch having either a high, medium or low glycemic index. The boys ate almost twice as much after the high-GI meals compared to the low-GI fare. The high-GI meals induced a sequence of hormonal and metabolic changes that promoted overeating, the researchers reported in the electronic edition of Pediatrics at: http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/103/3/e26. They suspect the findings apply to the middle-aged and elderly as well. About one-fifth of U.S. children and one-third of adults are now significantly overweight, despite a significant drop in fat intake over recent years.
Most starchy foods commonly eaten in North America , chiefly refined grain products and potatoes, have a high GI. Moreover, many of the low-fat foods that have flooded grocery shelves are also high in calories. Some starchy foods have GI's up to 50 percent higher than table sugar. Sources of concentrated sugars, such as sodas and fruit juices, also have a high GI. By contrast, vegetables, legumes and fruits generally have a low GI.
Glycemic Index
Below you will find some guidance values for different foods based on the glucose standard glycemic index. For more information on what the glycemic index is, please refer to this article: the glycemic index.
Low Glycemic Index Values are considered those under 20.
Medium Glycemic Index Values are considered those between 20 and 60
High Glycemic Index Values are considered those over 60.
Since Airola doesn’t have a chart like this I will compare to my Nutrapoints book which charts everything:
Food |
Glycemic Index Value |
Glucose |
100 (Don’t eat!) |
Baked Potato |
98 (Eat occasionally for nutrients - best with the skin on) |
Cooked Carrots |
92 (Don’t eat!) |
Honey |
92 (Nutripoints charts honey as -5.5 for 2 Tablespoons – however, I still use about a Tablespoon in my homemade oil and vinegar salad dressing a couple times a week, I use organic honey because of the bioavailability and health benefits. My grandfather had honey bees and I believe there is a medicinal quality of organic honey) See this article: http://www.theorganicreport.com/pages/461_organic_honey.cfm |
Instant White Rice |
91 (Don’t eat!) |
Cornflakes |
84 (Don’t eat!) |
White Bread |
72 (Don’t eat!) |
Wholewheat Bread |
69 (Nutripoints shows this as 3.5 per 2 slices) |
Table Sugar |
64 (Don’t eat!) |
Raisins |
61 - Nutripoints 4 per ¼ Cup |
Oatmeal |
61 - Nutripoints 5.5 dry ½ Cup |
Pita Bread |
57 - Nutripoints 3.5 per 1 piece |
Popcorn |
55 (yeah Somersize says none of these either) |
Banana |
53 (yeah Somersize says none of these either – Jenny Craig says only 1/2 a banana at a time - raw foodists use lots of bananas in raw smoothies and desserts) |
Potato Crisps |
51 - Nutripoints 0 per 5 chips - basically there's no nutrition in a potato chip - Duh! |
Peas |
51 - Nutripoints canned 7.5 per 1 Cup |
Ice Cream |
50 (yeah somersize says no to this too!) |
Rye Bread |
42 - Nutripoints 3.0 per 2 slices of Pepperidge Farm |
Pasta |
41 (Somersize says only semolina – I only eat Quinoa, Rice or Kamut grain pasta) |
Apples |
39 - Nutripoints 4.5 for one whole fresh apple |
Plain Yogurt |
38 - Nutripoints 9 per 1 Cup of Dannon plain |
Chickpeas |
36 - Nutripoints 8 per ½ Cup cooked |
Strawberries |
32 - Nutripoints 19 per 1 cup |
Tomatoes |
28 - Nutripoints 30 per 1 fresh whole tomato only 23 per ½ cup cooked |
Peaches |
26 - Nutripoints 11 per 1 whole fresh only 5.5 per 4 pieces of Sun-Maid dried peaches and 0 if they are canned in heavy syrup 10.5 if they are canned unsweetened |
Cherries |
24 - Nutripoints 5.5 per 10 cherries if fresh sweet |
Fructose |
20 (I do not eat anything with HFCS high fructose corn syrup in it!) |
Soya Beans |
15 - Nutripoints 7 per ¾ Cup cooked |
Peanuts |
13 - Nutripoints 1 per 1 oz of Planter’s cocktail peanuts, if honey roasted only .5 per 1 oz |
