Celiac disease is a malabsorption syndrome and chronic digestive disorder. The intestine is not able to absorb vital dietary nutrients from foods containing gliadin, an alcohol-soluble portion of gluten. This condition which is often hereditary means the sufferer has a serious intolerance to wheat (including durum, semolina and spelt), rye, oats, barley, and related grain hybrids such as tritaclae and kamut.
Arthritis refers to inflammation of the joint. The most common form of arthritis is osteoarthritis which is characterised by joint degeneration and loss of cartilage. Rheumatoid arthritis is a type of inflammatory arthritis which is also an autoimmune disorder. In this case the body's immune system attacks its own cartilage and tissue surrounding the joints.
Some detoxification experts advocate fasting, while others do not. It is known that the components of any well-designed detox program will stimulate the body to cleanse itself, but people who are underweight, are undernourished, have weak hearts, have blood sugar issues or are ill should avoid fasting. Some studies have shown that restricting food intake can actually lead to bingeing.
Hemorrhoids are extremely common in industrialised countries and it is estimated that fifty percent of persons over fifty years of age have symptoms of hemorrhoidal disease. Although most people may begin to develop hemorrhoids in the twenties, the symptoms do not become evident normally until in ones thirties!
The Low Glycemic Diet
- The Paleolithic Diet - low GI eating
- How to Estimate a Food’s GI
- A Closer Look at Glycemic Index Values
- Glycemic Index of World’s Healthiest Foods
- Practical Tips
The Paleolithic Diet - Low GI eating
A helpful way of looking at high and low GI carbohydrates is explained by Robert Crahyon, M.S., promoter of the “Paleolithic Diet.” Crahyon divides carbohydrates into two groups:
Paleocarbs. The carbohydrates that sustained early mankind, the hunter-gatherers: vegetables, fruits and possibly tubers. All these carbohydrates are rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals-plus, most have a low GI.
Neocarbs. Carbohydrates that developed as a result of agriculture: grains, legumes and flour products, then eventually, processed grain products such as those made with white flour and sugar, which have a high GI.
The majority of the World’s Healthiest Foods are paleocarbs. These foods have a low GI and will nourish, satisfy and energize you, while keeping your blood sugar levels on an even keel.
The wholesome members of the World’s Healthiest Foods that do have a higher GI can also be enjoyed in moderation, eaten along with low GI foods to balance their potential effect on your blood sugar levels.
For example, for breakfast, you might want to have oatmeal. Choose thick, dehulled oat flakes to make your oatmeal (these have a lower GI than rolled oats or one-minute oats), then eat grapefruit (one of the low GI fruits) with your oatmeal rather than a banana (a fruit with a high GI), and toss a few nuts or seeds over the oatmeal (nuts and seeds have a GI so low it’s not even charted). Finally, sprinkle a little cinnamon over your oatmeal. Recent studies have found that compounds in cinnamon stimulate cells’ insulin receptors, increasing almost 20-fold cells’ ability to absorb and use glucose. In this way, you can minimize oatmeal’s high GI, and enjoy a nourishing breakfast that will provide you with plenty of energy all morning.
Extract www.worldshealthiestfoods.com: We highly recommend this site.
Glycemic index is somewhat counter-intuitive-not all foods that you might think would have high values do have them, while other foods you might expect would have low values actually have high values. To get the most precise idea of whether your typical meals are high or low on the GI scale, it’s best to look over a Glycemic Index list of foods (check our GI listing of the World’s Healthiest Foods below) and see where your favorite foods fit. However, these following basic principles can help you estimate a food’s GI and eat healthfully:
Foods that are white tend to have a high glycemic index. This includes processed foods made with white flour and white sugar-but even white potatoes have a high GI.
Concentrate on eating foods that are high in fiber. In general, high-fiber foods take longer to digest and therefore produce a slower rise in blood glucose levels. Whole, unprocessed foods that still contain their original amounts of fiber move slowly through the gastrointestinal tract than those whose fiber has been removed. These fiber-rich foods more fully engage the digestive process, thereby slowing release of sugar into the blood. This provides a feeling of satiety, or fullness, which helps prevent overeating. Many of the World’s Healthiest Foods are high in fiber and can be relied upon to maintain healthy blood glucose levels. These include most vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and even fruits such as apples and pears when eaten with their skin and not as juice. Citrus fruits, in particular have a lower GI than most other fruits.
Protein foods, while not high in fiber, are typically low in glycemic index. A healthy exception is legumes, which are rich in both fiber and protein. In addition to legumes, excellent protein choices include nuts, seeds, fish and lean meats. If possible, choose organic meats from free-range or wild animals since these meats will not only have fat, but the fat they contain will have a much larger percentage of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. Conventionally raised animals are fed grain-based diets, which result in their meat containing much more saturated and omega 6 fats, but virtually no omega 3 fats. This fat profile can set the stage for health problems such as cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and high insulin levels. (To learn more about the importance of consuming omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in proper ratio, click A New Way of Looking at proteins, Fats and Carbohydrates.
Fats do not raise glucose levels –but stick with healthy fats such as those found in olive and flaxseed oils, fish, and nuts. The monounsaturated and omega-3 fats in these foods provide a wide variety of health benefits. Decreasing your intake of these healthy fats and increasing the amount of carbohydrates you consume, especially when those carbohydrates have a high GI, actually increases cholesterol and triglyceride levels, raising your risk of cardiovascular disease. The healthy fats in the World’s Healthiest Foods should not be feared, but enjoyed! These fats play essential roles that contribute to the health of every cell in your body.
A person’s glycemic response to a food also depends on the other foods eaten along with it, so when eating a meal or snack, make sure it is “complex” A complex meal or snack is one that contains complex carbohydrates (e.g., whole grains, vegetables, and whole fresh fruits), protein, healthy types of fat, and of course, plenty of fiber. Complex meals and snacks help keep blood glucose levels on an even keel. Keep this in mind when looking at the GI list of foods; rarely would you eat a high GI food by itself. Just combine high GI foods with low GI foods to moderate the effect on blood sugar levels and reduce the overall GI of the meal.
Choosing a healthy way of eating each day will naturally ensure that you maintain a healthy GI. Not only is your glycemic response to a food dependent upon the other foods you eat along with it, but also on your most recent meals. For example, your previous night’s dinner can alter the next-morning’s GI. So, using GI as a guideline to help you control your blood sugar means eating healthfully day-by-day, week by week. Choosing low-GI foods at just one meal will not keep your blood sugar at a healthy level all day or the next day. For good blood sugar control, you need to consistently choose “complex” meals and snacks with a good overall low-GI. You need a healthy way of eating that surrounds each mal or snack in both directions.
A Closer Look at Glycemic Index Values
There are two ways of computing glycemic index because there are two standards of comparison. The earliest standards used glucose. A dose of glucose given to a patient was used to establish the baseline response. This response was arbitrarily given a value of 100. If you would like to look at a reliable resource that has used this standard in testing foods to determine how quickly they cause blood glucose levels to rise, we refer you to a list of 750 international foods at www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm. This list of International foods from verified sources was first published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2002.
Today, however, the scientific community has largely abandoned the glucose standard as starch standard. At the World’s Healthiest Foods, we believe that this standard provides a more accurate assessment of GI. Using this newer standard, a 50 gram portion of white bread (made using the 60% extraction process for wheat flour) is used as the standard and given a value of 100. Such bread, made from refined flour, is the bread most commonly eaten in the standard American diet. White bread (a starch) has been chosen as the new standard because the glycemic response to white bread is more reliable than the response to glucose, and more insulin activity is stimulated by white bread than by glucose. In addition, glucose tends to attract water. This effect, called osmolarity, can delay gastric emptying and misrepresent the insulin response. So, when looking over GI numbers, it’s critical to know whether glucose or white bread was used as the standard, keen in mind that the white bread values are the most accurate. The GI values of the world’s Healthiest Foods-based on the more reliable starch standard-are listed below.
The majority of the World’s Healthiest Foods have a low GI. Those that don’tbecause they are naturally rich sources of carbohydrate-are listed below and can still be enjoyed in moderation when eaten along with other foods. The exact species of a food, and even the specific variety of that species, impacts GI, as does cooking and processing-for instance, cubed potatoes have a lower GI than do mashed potatoes. So, in the list below, an average of several types of a food is provided whenever available, and the cooking method is listed, if available.
Glycemic Index of World’s Healthiest Foods
In the table below, we’ve listed the Glycemic Index values primarily for the World’s Healthiest Foods that are high in carbohydrates-plus a few comparative foods. If a world’s Healthiest Food is not on this list, it is because it does not have a high carbohydrate value and therefore, even if eaten alone, will not cause blood sugar levels to spike.
The values in our table are based on the more reliable white bread (starch) index rather than the glucose index. Should you compare these values to a GI table based on the glucose index, divide those values by 1.4.
Glycemic Index
VEGETABLES
| Spinach Turnip Greens Lettuce Water Cress Zucchini Asparagus Artichokes Okra Cabbage Celery Cucumbers Dill Pickles Radishes Broccoli Brussels Sprouts Eggplant Onions Tomatoes Cauliflower Bell Peppers Green Peas Squash Heart of Palm |
15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 40 40 40 50 |
GRAIN ITEMS
Barley
| Pearled Barley, cooked (average of 5 samples) Barley kernal bread (50% kernals) (average of samples) Barley flour bread (80% barley, 20% white wheat flour) whole meal barley porridge |
35 64 94 95 |
Buckwheat
| Buckwehat bread Buckwheat, cooked |
66 76 |
Corn
| Corn, yellow Corn tortillas Corn meal Taco shells |
78 78 95 97 |
Milet
| Millet, boiled | 99 |
Oats
| Oat bran bread Oatmeal (thick, dehulled oat flakes) Oat bran cereal Museli Oatmeal (rolled oats), cooked Oat bread Oatmeal (one minute oats) |
66 77 78 80 81 91 92 |
Rice
| Wild rice Rice cakes Rice noodles, cooked White, boiled (average of 12) Parboiled rice Rice bread |
81 81 95 90 100 100 |
Rye
| Whole kernels, cooked (average of 3 samples) Rye kernel bread Whole meal rye bread (average of 4 samples) |
48 70 81 |
Wheat
| Spaghetti, whole meal (average of 2 samples) Whole wheat kernels, cooked (average of 4 samples)Whole Spaghetti, white, boiled 10-15 minutes (average of 7 samples) Cracked wheat, bulgar, boiled (average of 4 samples) Wheat kernel bread (80% intact kernels, 20% white wheat flour Couscous (from semolina-durham wheat) boiled 5 minutes Whole wheat bread (average of 13 samples) White flour bread (average of 6 samples) Gluten-free 129 |
52 57 62 67 73 91 95 100 129 |
Spelt
| Whole meal spelt bread | 88 |
Multi grains
| Multi grains bread | 60 |
Fruit
| Grapefruit Apples, Dried (Average of 2 samples) Prunes Apricots, Dried (average of 2 samples) Apples, Raw (average of 6 samples) Pears (average of 4 samples) Plums (average of 2 samples) Strawberries Oranges (average of 6 samples) Pineapple juice Grapes (average of 2 samples) Orange Juice (average of 3 samples) Bananas (average of 10 samples) Kiwi (average of 2 samples) Apricots, Raw Papaya (average of 3 samples) Pineapple (average of 2 samples) Figs Raisins Cantaloupe Watermelon |
35 40 41 43 53 53 55 56 59 64 64 73 73 74 80 83 83 85 90 91 100 |
Starchy Vegetables
| Yams (average of 3 samples) Carrots (average of 4 samples) Potatoes, Boiled 15 minutes, cubed, peeled Sweet Potatoes (average of 5 samples) Beets Potatoes, Baked (average of 4 samples Mashed (average of 3 samples) |
52 66 81 85 90 119 104 |
Legumes
| Soybeans, cooked (average of 2 samples) Lentils, red cooked (average of 4 samples) Garbanzo beans Kidney beans (average of 8 samples) Lentils, green, cooked Split peas, yellow, cooked Soymilk, full fat, calcium-fortified Navy beans, cooked Pinto beans, cooked Pinto beans, canned |
25 36 39 39 42 45 50 53 55 63 |
Dairy
| Yogurt, low fat, plain Whole fat milk Skim milk Yogurt, low fat, with fruit |
20 39 46 47 |
Sweteners
| Honey (average of 11 samples)
Sucrose (white sugar) |
77 95 |
*We cannot find published research studies to confirm the GI of vegetables. Some consider them so low that they are not detectable while most place their value between 15-50 and we suspect that this range is right on target based on their low carbohydrate and high-fiber content.
**The standard value for beer is 110, based primarily on the malted aspect, and maltose has a GI value of 110. Although it has been suggested that red wine has a low GI value, we cannot confirm this claim and treat any alcoholic beverage as a high GI food since alcohol itself is, without question, de-stabilizing of blood sugar. Red wine may be somewhat of an exception, but the jury is still out.
A food is generally considered to have a high GI. If it is rated above 60. Individuals who have problems with maintaining proper blood sugar levels should restrict their selection to foods with a GI of 40 or less. These include those who have low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) and high blood sugar (hyperinsulemia) as well as those who have a high sensitivity to sugar. Sugar includes not just simple sugars, honey and maple syrup but also fruits, fruit juices, starchy vegetables and grain products or foods with a high glycemic index.
Fort a healthy person without any problems with blood sugar levels all of the foods in a meal do not have to have a low GI. For example, consider a bean-and-cheese filled tortilla. The corn tortilla has a high GI (78), as do pinto beans (GI of 63), but the tomatoes (GI of 15) onions (GI of 15), lettuce (GI of 15) and cheese (GI so low it is not recorded) balance out the overall GI effect. The result is a healthy mal that will not destabilize blood sugar levels.
When planning your healthy GI meals, keep the following simple guidelines in mind:
* Main components should have a GI of no more than 70
* Half of all components should have a GI below 50
Low G.I food should be combined with complete protein, a little quality fat and soluble and insoluble fibre at each meal to optimize absorbtion and elimination of waste.
