GI Symbol News with Alan Barclay

Lowering the GI of your diet starts in the supermarket
We now know that lowering the average GI of your daily diet to around 45 is one of the keys to good health. Computer modelling has shown that whenever possible, choosing carbohydrate foods or beverages with the lowest GI within a specific category, is the best way of achieving this. Ideally, this means choosing ones with a low GI (less than or equal to 55) for each main meal or snack (if you have snacks).

Of course, for some food/beverage categories, there are no low GI alternatives, and as such, products with a medium GI may in fact be the best choice. For example, the average GI of most common varieties of potatoes is around 80 , and most breads is around 75. Choosing lower GI varieties of potato like Nicola (58) and Almera (65), which are not technically low GI, will still help you to lower the average GI of your diet if you are traditionally a big potato eater, because they are significantly lower than their regular counterpart.

Similarly, if you only like white breads ( or if you are unable to chew the heavy grained breads), choosing the lower GI varieties like Tip Top Up energi (58) or WonderWhite LowerGI (59) will still lead to a substantial reduction in the average GI of your daily diet.

To help people lower the average GI of their daily diet to around 45, GI Ltd will be encouraging manufacturers of lower GI foods to join the GI Symbol Program so that consumers can choose the tricklers at a glance when they are shopping.

Alan Barclay

Contact
Alan Barclay, CEO, Glycemic Index Ltd
Phone: +61 2 9785 1037
Fax: +61 2 9785 1037
Email: awbarclay@optusnet.com.au
Web http://www.gisymbol.com.au/