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Glycemic Index
The glycemic index has been developed to give you a more complete understanding of the role carbohydrates play in your bloodstream. Just dividing them into simple and complex carbohydrates does not explain how they effect the concentration of sugar in your blood.
Foods that are low glycemic digest slowly and have a gentle effect. The glucose enters the blood slowly and helps to keep insulin production at a sustainable rate. Low glycemic foods (a score of 55 or less) also inhibit your appetite because the blood sugar levels do not spike and drop rapidly soon after eating.
Such is not the case with foods whose glycemic index is high (70 or above). These carbohydrates digest and enter the bloodstream quickly and the sugar level spikes.
This rapid rise causes insulin production to increase which soon brings the glucose concentration towards normal and you start to feel hungry again. This vicious cycle eventually leads to a condition called insulin resistance. You can find more details about this problem and its unhealthy effects by visiting our low carb page.
A rule of thumb for determining how high the glycemic index of a food might be is the amount of processing the food has suffered. Too much processing strips the nutrients from natural foods leaving only a starchy residue that feeds sugar rapidly to the bloodstream.
You can access an extensive database of foods with their glycemic index at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Glycemic Load
The glycemic load is a measure of the amount of digestible carbohydrates found in various foods. To calculate the glycemic load, multiply the amount of carbs in the food by its glycemic index. A glycemic load of 10 or less is low while a score of 20 or more is high.
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