Paracelsus
Student
- Joined
- May 20, 2005
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- 36
I wouldn't call it a fad exactly I first heard of it in 1998. It isn't exactly a miracle diet either. It is called glycemic index and you can do a google to find a list on the web... http://www.google.com/
Low glycemic dieting is usually associated with the South Beach Diet instead of Atkins, but they're almost the same thing. It's basically all about how a given food affects the blood sugar level. The higher the glycemic rating, the faster your blood sugar spikes.
Some foods with a low and/or acceptable glycemic rating:
Almonds, Cashews, Walnuts
Cheese in general
Animal protein - fish, steak, eggs, etc.
Green veggies, such as broccoli, asparagas, etc.
The South Beach Diet allows you to eat certain items that are considered to be at a higher glycemic content, as long as you abide by certain rules - such as "Apples must be eaten with skins", which slows down absorbtion of sugars,etc.
Bad stuff - obviously, cane sugar, but also anything with simple sugars, such as starchy foods like pasta and bagels. You can eat a limited amount of pasta on the diet... but it has to be limited and you have to eat protein before eating the pasta. (This slows down the break-down of the starch in the pasta, keeping the blood sugar more stable.)
Atkins moderates the blood sugar spiking by eliminating "carbs" - which are starches, sugars, etc. Like I said, they're close....
Some foods with a low and/or acceptable glycemic rating:
Almonds, Cashews, Walnuts
Cheese in general
Animal protein - fish, steak, eggs, etc.
Green veggies, such as broccoli, asparagas, etc.
The South Beach Diet allows you to eat certain items that are considered to be at a higher glycemic content, as long as you abide by certain rules - such as "Apples must be eaten with skins", which slows down absorbtion of sugars,etc.
Bad stuff - obviously, cane sugar, but also anything with simple sugars, such as starchy foods like pasta and bagels. You can eat a limited amount of pasta on the diet... but it has to be limited and you have to eat protein before eating the pasta. (This slows down the break-down of the starch in the pasta, keeping the blood sugar more stable.)
Atkins moderates the blood sugar spiking by eliminating "carbs" - which are starches, sugars, etc. Like I said, they're close....
El Greco
Summer worshipper
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2003
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- 17,609
jmercer said:
It shouldn't.
jmercer said:
Generally the gi is meaningful only for carbs, since fats and protein are invariably low (or even zero) gi.
jmercer said:
It doesn't really matter. Read the links I provided above. There is no significant change of gi no matter what else you eat with the food in question.
jmercer said:
There is no satisfactory correlation of carb complexity to gi. There are simple carbs with low gi and complex carbs with high gi.
jmercer said:
Yeah, well... all these diets are based on the hypothesis that low blood sugar (caused by insulin spikes following sugar spikes) will increase hunger. The problem is that this is only a minor contributor to the overall feeling of hunger. Unfortunately for all diet inventors, the main factor that affects hunger is very simple: The amount of calories ingested.
El Greco
Summer worshipper
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Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jun 19, 2003
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El Greco said:
There is another factor which is can be controlled which does contribute significantly to your appetite, and that's sleep. People who are sleep deprived generally have enhanced appetites. So if you want to lose weight, make sure you're getting enough sleep. Plus, it's good for you anyways.
CaveDave
Semicentenarian Troglodyte
Wouldn't eating those be called pica or chthonophagia?The Don said:
Dave
CaveDave
Semicentenarian Troglodyte
My personal favorites are Basmati rice and Jasmine rice. mm-mm-good.kittynh said:
Dave
epepke
Philosopher
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- Oct 22, 2003
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- 9,264
El Greco said:
Thanks for this. Though I'm not diabetic any more, I maintain a morbid fascination with this kind of stuff.
What's interesting about this list is that the number seem to be all over the place. It isn't uncommon to see numbers for the same item differ by a factor of two or more (cooked carrots differ by a factor of three). Also, there are a number of counterintuitive statements. Betty Crocker chocolate cake with frosting has a lower GI than a smaller serving of banana cake made without sugar; whole wheat spaghetti isn't any better than white spaghetti; Turkish noodle soup has practically nothing; and baked potatos have a lower GI than broad beans.
I think I'm going to go on the "grain of salt" diet.
El Greco
Summer worshipper
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epepke said:
If you find this stuff exciting (and have nothing better to do with your time), you can try to make your own, personalized gi measurements with a simple blood glucose monitor. You have to ingest 50gr of a carbohydrate and then measure blood glucose 3-4 times during the next 2 hours period (I have the exact protocol somewhere). You have to try to keep all other parameters as stable as possible (eg. hydration, glycogen depletion, exercise, etc). I've experimented with a few foods several years ago and the results were pretty much as expected. But it may be useful for a diabetic to test a particular food cooked in a special way.