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FOOD COMBINATIONS AND THE GLYCAEMIC INDEX
So what happens when you consume a real life meal? Well, much of the science
goes either down the drain, or is impractical. What you first need to understand
is that both proteins and carbohydrates are going to release sugar into the
blood stream and release an insulin response. When you look at the glycaemic
index rating of a food this is based upon the digestion of exactly fifty grams
of that particular food group. That would be easy to consume fifty grams of
carbohydrate of bread, and much, much more difficult to actually consume fifty
grams of carrot. And in the real world you would be eating far more than just
fifty grams of bread based carbohydrate and so releasing much more sugar into
the blood and a far greater insulin output. But essentially, what happens when
you consume combinations of foods is that the GI factor evens out across the
board. You must measure the quantity of the carbohydrates you are eating and
work out the percentage of the total amount of carbohydrate for the meal. Next
you must work out the GI of the food and add up all of the totals and divide
them by the factor in relation to the quantity of that carbohydrate - giving
you an average of the GI total of that meal.
Here is a very simplified example.
Say you were to eat equal carbohydrate portions of rice, soya beans and raisins
as a desert. You eat fifty grams of each food group. That makes them equally
33.3% of the meal.
Your individual GI ratings are as follows:-
Rice 70
Beans 15
Raisins 68
This gives you a combined total of 153. Your three food groups are of equal
quantities and so you are going to divide this figure by exactly 3. This gives
you a meal combination GI factor of 51. The science suggests that although the
raisins and rice are of a high glycaemic reaction, the beans are slow releasing
and will cause the meal to balance out a little lower than you may expect. This
method becomes trickier with more combinations of foods and proteins and varying
quantities, as you will not have to divide the total amount just by how many
foods you eat - this is because the GI scores are based on 50grams of a food.
You may be eating 10 grams of raisins and 100 grams of rice. This makes the
e GI scale, sometimes confusing and a little inferior. You should however do
your best. Some knowledge is far better than no knowledge. You will go a long
way to improving your health and your physique by eating according to a lower
GI factor diet, and lower the GI totals of your meals. You will go light years
ahead of yourself if you combine, both the GI scale and information, along with
the latest research of insulin response and the insulin index.
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