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Diet > Carbohydrates > Glycemic Index

Harvard's new guide to healthy eating:

Glycemic Index: a ranking of foods based on their immediate effect on blood glucose-or blood sugar levels.

• Carbohydrate foods that break down quickly during digestion have the highest glycemic indexes. Their blood sugar response is fast and high.
• Carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the blood stream, have low glycemic index values.

WHY LOW CARB DIETS ARE BAD?

Your body needs to maintain a certain glucose level in the blood to serve the brain and central nervous system. To ensure that glucose is readily available, your body stores it in the muscles and liver. This storage is called glycogen. If you are not eating the right amount of carbohydrates your body will take these glycogen stores, break them down, and convert them to glucose. Once the glycogen is used up, then starts breaking down muscle protein to synthesize glucose for vital organs. This will make you feel irritable, headachy and sick, and it causes a loss of lean muscle, tissue and water, two things that your body needs. It WILL NOT help you lose weight in the long run because the bodies fat stores can not be converted to glucose. So it's all about eating more of the "good" (complex), low glycemic index carbs, rather than lower amounts of carbs that will keep the weight off for good!

RECOMMENDATIONS:

First, to stabilize blood sugar levels, eat smaller more frequent balanced meals. According to some diets, each carbohydrate in your meals must be combined with a quality protein source and some sort of vegetables.

Good quality proteins include: eggs, fish, white meat, whey (by-product of cheese production).

Second, you should not have a diet too low in fat. The whole craze over high fat, high protein diets are to decrease spikes in insulin and to lower the GI index of foods and meals.

Third, you should purposely use mainly high glycemic carbs after you train. A carb drink with a scoop or two of a low fat protein powder will work wonders right after you train.

Finally, I would combine supplements like creatine, 10 grams of glutamine, and a good anti-oxidant with the post-workout drink. This will give you a big jump-start to recovery and glycogen replenishment.

GIs. These are examples of some good quality carbs:

100% stone ground whole wheat bread (GI=51)

Multi-grain breads(GI=49)

Fruits* act as a simple carb when eaten alone, add a fat and protein for it to become complex.

Vegetables

Bulgar

Beans

Lentils

Legumes

All Bran, or other high fiber cereals

Oatmeal

Beans

baby lima 32

baked 43

black 30

brown 38

butter 31

chickpeas 33

kidney 27

lentil 30

navy 38

pinto 42

red lentils 27

split peas 32

soy 18

Breads

bagel 72

croissant 67

Kaiser roll 73

pita 57

pumpernickel 49

rye 64

rye, dark 76

rye, whole 50

white 72

whole wheat 72

waffles 76

Cookies

Graham crackers 74

oatmeal 55

shortbread 64

Vanilla Wafers 77

Crackers

Kavli Norwegian 71

rice cakes 82

rye 63

saltine 72

stoned wheat thins 67

water crackers 78

Desserts

angel Food Cake 67

banana bread 47

blueberry muffin 59

bran muffin 60

Danish 59

fruit bread 47

pound cake 54

sponge cake 46

Grains

barley 22

brown rice 59

buckwheat 54

bulger 47

chickpeas 36

cornmeal 68

couscous 65

hominy 40

millet 75

rice, instant 91

rice, parboiled 47

rye 34

sweet corn 55

wheat, whole 41

white rice 88

wh. rice, high amylose 59

Juices

agave nector 11

apple 41

grapefruit 48

orange 55

pineapple 46

Cereals

All Bran 44

Bran Chex 58

Cheerios 74

Corn Bran 75

Corn Chex 83

Cornflakes 83

Cream of Wheat 66

Crispix 87

Frosted Flakes 55

Grapenuts 67

Grapenuts Flakes 80

Life 66

Muesli 60

NutriGrain 66

Oatmeal 49

Oatmeal 1 min 66

Puffed Wheat 74

Puffed Rice 90

Rice Bran 19

Rice Chex 89

Rice Krispies 82

Shredded Wheat 69

Special K 54

Swiss Muesli 60

Team 82

Total 76

Fruit

apple 38

apricot, canned 64

apricot, dried 30

apricot jam 55

banana 62

banana, unripe 30

canteloupe 65

cherries 22

dates, dried 103

fruit cocktail 55

grapefruit 25

grapes 43

kiwi 52

mango 55

orange 43

papaya 58

peach 42

pear 36

pineapple 66

plum 24

raisins 64

strawberries 32

strawberry jam 51

watermelon 72

Milk Products

chocolate milk 34

ice cream 50

milk 34

pudding43

soy milk 31

yogurt 38

Pasta

brown rice pasta 92

gnocchi 68

linguine, durum 50

macaroni 46

macaroni & cheese 64

spaghetti 40

spag. prot. enrich. 28

vermicelli 35

vermicelli, rice 58

Sweets

honey 58

jelly beans 80

Life Savers 70

M&M's Choc. Peanut 33

Skittles 70

Snickers 41

References-"The Glucose Revolution" Jennie Brand-Miller, PhD; Thomas M.S. Wolever, MD.,PhD; Stephen Colagiuri, MD., Kaye Foster-Powell, M. Nutr.&Diet.

"The Bottom Line", Harvard Publish Review.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/carbohydrates/