candiedmittens said:
Is there anyway of recognising the different types of carbohydrates through packaging?
Sadly no. The packaging info is often almost useless. For example, the sugar substitute Truvia states that 100 g of Truvia contains 99g of carbohydrate, 0 g protein, 0 g fat and has 0 calories. What is a diabetic meant to make out of that?
Some packaging provides the total carbohydrate figure as well as, 'of which x are sugars' and also a figure for fibre. But the latter 2 are often quite small in comparison so what is the big remainder made of?
The glycaemic index of foods is a reasonable, but not entirely accurate, guide but this is not given on most packaging. It is not accurate because there is variation within each food, due to ripeness or variety for example. Potatoes are notorious for this. Mechanical preparation of food too affects how it is handled by the body. Heating and mashing are two things oyu do to potatoes to create more sugars to turn into alcohol when you make potato vodka for example. You can't make it out of new potatoes
Then there are other factors. I took this extract from wiki:
"The glycemic effect of foods depends on a number of factors such as the type of starch (amylose versus amylopectin), physical entrapment of the starch molecules within the food, fat and protein content of the food and organic acids or their salts in the meal — adding vinegar, for example, will lower the GI. The presence of fat or soluble dietary fiber can slow the gastric emptying rate, thus lowering the GI. In general, coarse, grainy breads with higher amounts of fiber have a lower GI value than white breads. However, most breads made with 100% wholewheat or wholemeal flour have a GI not very different than endosperm only (white) bread. Many brown breads are treated with enzymes to soften the crust, which makes the starch more accessible (high GI)."
In fact, most commercially produced wholemeal bread contains only small amounts of wholegrain flour. Commerical consideration requires fast productio whereas good bread takes time. Wholegrain takes ages to rise so adding sugar and yeast speeds it up. They can't say they add too much sugar so they 'add molasses'. Most flour mills mill for a market that expects stuff to rise quickly and easily, white that is a cake, bun or loaf of bread. Even many artisan sourdough loaves are essentially white loaves but with a bit of wholegrain wheat, wholegrain rye, and a bit of sourdough or a wheat leaven but still with added soya flour, yeast, stoneground white flour and various other things.
Doing your own tests and building up your own personal knowledge is by far the best approach. Everyone is different anyway. We all produce different enzymes or at least, different amounts of various enzymes. That's how evolution works.
