How do I work out the Gi value of a food?
You can’t! This can only be done in a laboratory and is quite expensive to carry out. However, a lot of supermarkets such as Tesco, are now jumping on the Gi bandwagon and getting some foods tested and labelling them if they are low Gi, which makes life for Gi followers easier. There are also some lists of foods that can be used for guidance on what foods are high, medium and low Gi. For all other foods, you need to bear in mind GI principles when choosing them, for example always choose a wholegrain breakfast cereal over a sugar-coated one, and if you’re buying ready meals have one with low Gi pasta instead of one with high Gi mashed potato. It’s easy to lower the overall Gi of your meal by adding other low Gi foods such as veg and salad.
