What is the difference between Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load?
What is considered high and low GI and GL?
Does cooking have an impact on GI?
Do psyllium seeds lower the GI of a meal?
Types of carbohydrates in beans, lentils and potatoes
Discomfort after eating high GI foods
What is the difference between Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load?
Answer:
Glycemic Index is a tool we use to make the various foods’ ability to influence our blood sugar, visible. In scientific studies
this is done by having a group of test subjects eat the amount of a food containing 50 grams of carbohydrate and then compare
each test subject’s blood sugar response to the blood sugar response obtained by eating the corresponding amount of carbohydrate
in the form of pure glucose, which is used as a reference. The blood sugar response obtained after eating glucose is set to
100; it means it has a GI of 100. If a food gives the same blood sugar response as the glucose, if the response is just half
as high, the GI is 50. Glycemic Index compares the effect on blood sugar of 50 grams of carbohydrate in various foods, not
50 grams of food.
Glycemic Load does not only consider the food’s GI, but also the food’s content of carbohydrate and the portion size. This
means that a food like watermelon, which has a high GI, will not have a high GL because the watermelon contains very few carbohydrates
per 100 grams compared to many other foods with similar GI. GL is therefore much more interesting because it tells us about
the total impact on blood sugar for a certain amount of food. As long as you choose low GI foods there is no need to think
about GL, because the meal’s GB will always be low.
Best regards, Dr. Lindberg
What is considered high and low GI and GL?
Answer:
GI below 35 is low, 35-50 is medium and above 50 is high. However, this does not mean that all low GI foods are healthy. Chocolate,
for example, has a low GI, but is not the healthiest thing one can eat.
It is the total GI of a meal that is important. If all ingredients in a meal have a low GI, the whole meal will have a low
GI. It is also possible to combine a high GI ingredient with low GI ingredients and get a medium GI meal.
GL depends on the amount of food. As a general rule we can say that a GL of 10 per 100 grams is low, between 10-20 is medium
and above 20 is high. The sum of foods with low GL in a meal will give the meal a low total GL.
Best regards, Dr. Lindberg
Does cooking have an impact on GI?
Answer:
In foods that contain starch, GI will be higher the longer the food is cooked. Vegetables like for example broccoli will not
have their GI altered by cooking, since they contain very little starch.
Best regards, Dr. Lindberg
Do psyllium seeds lower the GI of a meal?
Answer:
Psyllium seeds are very rich in fiber. This is what lowers the GI of the rest of the meal.
Best regards, Dr. Lindberg
Types of carbohydrates in beans, lentils and potatoes
Potatoes contain 16.4% of carbohydrates, while lentils contain 48.5% and beans 29%. How come you recommend beans and lentils rather than potatoes?
Answer:
The percentage off carbohydrate in beans and lentils are for the dry products. When you cook them, the percentage of carbohydrate
is reduced dramatically. The type of carbohydrate found in beans and lentils is also very different from the one found in
potatoes. Beans and lentils also contain a lot of soluble fiber and protein, which potatoes do not.
Best regards, Dr. Lindberg
Discomfort after eating high GI foods
Whenever I eat high GI foods, my heart starts beating harder and faster, my temperature rises, and my fingers feel stiff as if filled with liquid. I also get a bad taste in my mouth and bad breath. My doctor can’t find anything wrong with me.
Answer:
The symptoms you describe could be caused by postprandial reactive hypoglycemia. This means that your blood sugar falls rapidly
when influenced by insulin. This usually happens 30-90 minutes after intake of high GI carbohydrates. Hormones adrenaline
and cortisol are released when blood sugar falls rapidly, and this may cause the rapid heartbeat and the temperature rise.
Symptoms like stiff fingers and bloating may be caused by the high insulin.
If you get symptoms after intake of sugar, but not white bread, it could be that you have fructose intolerance. This is genetic
and is only found in a small percentage of the population. Try eating 2-3 teaspoons of pure fructose and see if you have this
reaction. if not, your symptoms are most likely caused by what I described first.
Best regards, Dr. Lindberg
