GI Update

Professor Jennie Brand-Miller answers your questions

‘I like to eat a wide variety of vegetables. In fact I love having a rainbow on my plate. But some of my favourites like pumpkin seem to have moderate or even high GI values. Does that mean people with diabetes shouldn’t eat them?’

People with diabetes can happily tuck into pumpkin (GI66), beetroot (canned beetroot GI64), swede/rutabaga (GI72) as well as turnips, parsnips (GI52), carrots (GI39) and green peas (GI51). Unlike potatoes, sweet potatoes and cereal products including corn, these vegetables are low in carbohydrate so their glycemic load is low for typical servings. And like other green and salad vegetables including onions, tomatoes, capsicum/peppers and broccoli, they are packed with micronutrients. They should be considered free foods for everyone to eat to their heart’s content.

New GI values from Fiona Atkinson at SUGiRS

An all Goodness brekkie

Goodness Superfoods produce a range of low GI ready to eat brekkie cereals and porridges made with CSIRO’s modified (not GM) barley grain. We reported three Goodness Superfoods ready-to-eat cereals (45g or 1½ oz a serving) a year ago, as a reminder, here’s how they rated in the GI stakes.

Heart 1st: GI 46 – available carbs 20g
Digestive 1st GI 39 – available carbs 21g
Protein 1st GI 36 – available carbs 17g

Porridge

And here are the latest GI values for two types of Goodness Superfoods porridge (made according to packet instructions with water, nothing else added).

Traditional Barley+ Oats 1st (GI47) – available carbs (for a 40g serving prepared with water) 25g carbohydrate.
Quick Sachets Barley+ Oats 1st Apple & Honey (GI55) – available carbs (for a 35g serving prepared with water) 25g carbohydrate.

Alternatively, top your favourite foods (fruit, yoghurt, ice cream) with a spoon of two of their FibreBoost Sprinkles (GI34) to improve inner health and be regular.

GI testing by an accredited laboratory

North America

Dr Alexandra Jenkins

Glycemic Index Laboratories

20 Victoria Street, Suite 300

Toronto, Ontario M5C 298 Canada

Phone +1 416 861 0506

Email info@gilabs.com

Web www.gilabs.com

Australia

Fiona Atkinson

[FIONA]