A medium glycemic index meal keeps you energetic throughout the day & helps maintain weight.
To begin with what is Glycemic index? It is a food number. This numeric value indicates how fast the carbohydrates in that food are broken down into glucose compared to a reference value. Only foods with carbohydrates have a GI; fat and protein do not have a GI.
Its difficult to know the GI of a food without looking it up, but you can make a good guess about which foods might have a higher or lower GI than other foods. You however use a glycemic index chart to quickly see the GI and often the GI values for different foods.
Food Division based on Glycemic Index
- Low glycemic index (GI of 55 or less): Most fruits and vegetables, beans, minimally processed grains, pasta, low-fat dairy foods, and nuts.
- Moderate glycemic index (GI 56 to 69): White and sweet potatoes, corn, white rice, couscous, breakfast cereals such as Cream of Wheat and Mini Wheats.
- High glycemic index (GI of 70 or higher): White bread, rice cakes, most crackers, bagels, cakes, doughnuts, croissants, most packaged breakfast cereals.
Smart Tips to Manage GI
- Add Protein and fat in your diet for they tend to lower the GI.
- Fiber is a type of carbohydrate, but your body cannot digest it, and fiber tends to lower the GI.
- Processes such as cooking, mashing, and juicing tend to raise the GI.
- Eat less processed foods, such as whole grains, tend to be lower-GI than more processed foods, such as refined grains like white bread and pasta.
Medium GI Foods
Medium-GI foods are somewhere between low and high-GI foods. Examples include:
- Sweet corn and winter squash.
- Bananas, kiwi fruit, and mangos.
- Bran cereal, Total, muesli, and Cheerios, oat breakfast cereals, and multigrain, oat bran or rye bread.
- Whole grain pasta.
- Potato chips.
- Pizza, burgers, and chicken and turkey sandwiches on white bread.
- Ice cream.
- Raw pineapple, raisins.
Select foods based on a glycemic index or glycemic load value to manage your weight because many foods that should be included in a well-balanced, low-fat, healthy diet with minimally processed foods are whole-grain products, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products.