Carbohydrates

Hi Weepete,

A word of caution about 'sugar-free' labelling - it can be seriously misleading. It ought really to be rephrased 'sucrose-free' because it only really relates to the amount of that particular sugar in the food. The jam, for example, still has 56g of carbohydrate per 100g, most of which will still be sugar. This is probably fructose, a fruit sugar, which raises blood glucose a little more slowly, but just as much as sucrose for many people. Look at the labelling for any ingredient ending in -ose or -ol, all of which are sugars.

As for the low-carb diets out there, there are quite a few. The very first diet book ever published was written by William Banting in 1862 and entitled 'Letters on Corpulence'. Catchy, eh? These days there are a few more to chose from, such as Protein Power, South Beach, Atkins and Richard Bernstein. They all work on much the same principle, that insulin is the key to weight gain, and weight loss is a consequence of lower insulin levels - hence low carbohydrate diets are the most effective and nutritionally complete.

All the best,

fergus

it seems to me that biggest problem in dietary advice is that dieticians try to GENERALIZE. my problem is high b.g. levels but official n.h.s. advice is telling me to eat rice bread & pasta all of which are disastrous even whole brown varieties. i have been doing lots of research on glycaemic index & glyc. LOAD. it seems that small amounts of sugar is not the enemy but large amounts of carbs IS BECAUSE TURN TO SUGAR ANYWAY. so on G.L. index rice is very high but nutella & icecream is low! :!:

clivedon the reason is due to the way that the sugar hits the system, In rice it will hit very quickly because the body turns it to sugar very quickly, the ice cream has a fat component which will slow down the absorbtion hence its lo gi.

Dave P

The other thing is that we rarely eat foods in isolation, it is the combination of foods that will determine how quickly or slowly the glucose is absorbed.
The GI for a slice of baguette can be horrendous ..95
Add some butter and strawberry jam and the GI is now 61.
(I'm not arguing that its necessarily good to eat the butter and the strawberry jam!)

Another problem with GI is that people vary. Unless you calculate the GI yourself - from BG data that you collect in a fairly tightly controlled experiment - the effect that a food has on you might be quite different from what you are lead to believe from published values. Those published figures are based on the average responses of a group of people. This is useful in giving you a rough idea of how severe a glucose hit you are going to get from any given foodstuff, but you might well be at either extreme of the distribution - in which case the effect on you could be much better or worse than the average.

Yet another issue with published GI is that because they are an average figure, the experiments that are used to derive these have to be standardized (i.e. carried out over a set period of time). This is making the implicit assumption that at the end of that time your BG will have dropped back to where it started. If, for you, that isn't the case then the GI will be an underestimate. For some "low GI" foods, digestion can take many hours and if that knocks on into the next meal then you will be starting from a higher point and the whole concept becomes a bit shaky.

GI is really useful as a rough guide, but do treat it with a bit of caution unless you do calculate your own.

Top post, DiabeticGeek. That sums it up in a nutshell.

All the best,

fergus

hi DiabeticGeek,

So what you're basically saying is that fergus may well be able to eat baked potato
and get away with it.

I love it. we're tearing up the G.I rulebook! :mrgreen:

Regards,
timo.

No, he can't.

Frankly, there's a celluloid dog chasing an asbestos cat through hell's chance of either!

All the best,

fergus

Go on fergus, 'ave a potato!

It's your body's fuel of choice, don't you know.

Sir Walter Raleigh would be turning in his grave if he could hear you carrying on.

Thanks, but no thanks, timo!
What was little reported at the time, was that Sir Walter had his heid lopped off for introducing us to the starchy carb. Let that be a lesson to you!

All the best,

fergus

:lol: :lol: :lol: I love reading the postings on this forum. You can't help but smile.

fergus said:

Thanks, but no thanks, timo!
What was little reported at the time, was that Sir Walter had his heid lopped off for introducing us to the starchy carb. Let that be a lesson to you!

All the best,

fergus

Click to expand...

No He was searching for El Dorado - the non-existent low carb potato. Somehow everything got confused, & introduced smoking leaves instead of buttered lettuce

aye, 1618 was a bad year for starch alright!

Sir Walter's last words were "what the hell is glycemic load?"