Carbs versus GI index

[Magisham]

Hi. I have got my partner on a low carb diet to try to get his blood sugar down as it has been high since Christmas. We're combining low carb with the 5:2 diet, cooking from scratch on the 2 days, not using meal replacements. We stopped eating potatoes and went on to sweet potatoes as I read they were better, but they seem to be almost as high. So I cooked a pile of mashed Swede one night for dinner as it is listed as just 2.3 on the carbs per 100gm list. His blood sugar, which had been steadily coming down, shot up to 11 the next day. When I looked at the GI index, swede had a value of 72, so I'm guessing this might be why. Do people out there tend to use the carbohydrate list or the low GI list? It's very confusing.

 

[Natalie1974]

Have you tried Celeriac? Great roasted...or makes excellent chips

 

[Squire Fulwood]

I tend to use just the carbs figure and not the GI. The reason is that the GI figure is an indicator of the rate of absorption of the food but when you mix two different foods together ...... If you add fat then all the GI numbers get lower and in all these cases you don't really know what the glycemic index is for the whole meal. I just ran out of fingers to do the sums.

Even when you consider just carbs you may get a different result for different people. Your partner doesn't seem too good on swede for instance. My chart shows swede as 9gms/100gms which isn't a lot but who eats just 100 gms?

Generally speaking the current advice I have seen given out on this site is to treat root vegetables with caution and to stick with vegetables grown above ground.

 

[Brunneria]

I have found both GI and GL to be highly unreliable.

I am guessing, but I think we all have different tolerances for carbs in different forms, and that over rides any standard thinking about carbs per gramme.

My spikes for pure sugar are lower than for grains. Potatoes are better, and other root veg vary. Sweet potatoes are bad for me too.

It really comes down to personally testing each food and letting that be your guide, rather than some number a laboratory calculated... sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

However, the plus side is that you may find a delightful tolerance for an unexpected food.

 

[Lamont D]

I'm going to bring tolerance to sugars as classed into what those with blood glucose problems, the likes of sucrose, lactose, fructose, dextrose and of course glucose.
They all react differently when ingested, depending on your own personal tolerance and what your digestive hormones do to them.
Myself, most carbohydrate sugars and starches especially glucose are lethal and spike me so quickly.
Whereas, fructose, I can tolerate more than should be comfortable for someone with my condition or perhaps most T2 diabetics.

That's the reason why testing and recording in a food diary is crucial to your future health.
This record of what you can tolerate and of course what you can't, will tell your medical team so much.

Hope this helps.

 

[Indy51]

The recent study in Israel proved just how individualised our responses to food are:

http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01481-6

 

[NoCrbs4Me]

The recent study in Israel proved just how individualised our responses to food are:

http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01481-6

The second doctor looks terribly unhealthy.

 

[Indy51]

The second doctor looks terribly unhealthy.

Yes indeedy - no guarantee that even doctors or researchers follow their own advice to the common people

 

[kesun]

I find that low GI foods simply delay my blood sugar rise: I can test at one hour after and think hooray, that food is fine, then check at two hours and find my blood sugar's a bit high, then at three hours it's higher still and just before my next meal it still hasn't come down to normal.

As @nosher8355 says, it's also highly individual: while he can tolerate some fructose, for me even a slice of apple gives me a horrendous spike. I'm better with root vegetables and until last year could tolerate sweet potato with no problem.

Kate

 

[Brunneria]

That vid raises a query in my mind though - what if by changing the foods we eat, we starve and feed particular gut colonies, therefore shifting the population. That would mean that simply following a particular diet, we would be altering our bg reactions to the foods. So we would need periodic reassessments to establish whether we needed to change the diet as our bg responses changed too.

 

[Bluetit1802]

I agree with @Squire Fulwood

I started off trying to use the GI/GL index but it became a master class in maths and far too complicated. It is necessary to calculate the total glycemic load of the whole meal including the fat and protein, not just one element of it. The more fat the lower the figure will be and the slower the absorption, but the absorption will still take place.

I found it far easier, and far more successful, to simply count the total carb content and find my own personal threshold of the number of grams of carb I can personally tolerate in one sitting - and that varies according to the time of day. A book that can help you count the carbs is available from Amazon (also as an app) and is called Carbs & Cals. It shows pictures of all the common foods in different portion sizes, detailing the amount of carbs, calories, protein, fat and fiber.

However, some people do well using the GI/GL method. I didn't.

 

[Magisham]

Thank you so much for all those of you who took the time to reply. I think I will carry on down the carbs route as it seems more straight forward. I have started keeping a record of what he is eating and what his levels are the next day. Managing to keep it down better than before, though still in the 6 to 7 range. If I can get him to lose weight I'm sure that would help too. Unfortunately he has always had a good appetite and is now on medication for other medical problems that give him even more of an appetite. I am quite inventive with the meals, so we are still eating well. I have done several lots of cauliflower rice, which have all turned out well, and I've just found a recipe for a lasage that uses strips of courgette instead of sheets of pasta, so will be trying that next. God bless this forum because everything I have learned has been from here. Have had very little help from the hospital. Thanks again everyone.

 

[MarcoRiveira]

I eat low gi carbs like low GI rice and bread, but really small portions (like 2 tablespoons of low GI rice or 1 slice of low GI bread). The bulk of the rest of the meal for me would be proteins, some vegetables, and some fat.

Today, I measured 5.6 before lunch (no breakfast), took my meds, had the meal mentioned, got 7.7 after 1 hour, 5.7 after 2 hours, 4.6 after 3 hours. My Diamicron MR 30mg med really suits me, it starts working best when I've eaten something.

So for me, others may be different, low-GI carbs can still give a good spike, but having less makes it go away faster. End of the day, I think less carbs whether low-GI or not is the way to go.