What Exactly Is the Glycemic Index?
The glycemic index calculates how high your blood sugar rises in two hours after you eat a food containing roughly 50 grams of carbohydrates, compared to how much it rises after you eat a 50 gram serving of white bread or 50 grams of pure glucose (sugar). The higher the GI for a certain food, the faster your body absorbs the carbs from that food. A lower GI means a food has a slower rate of carbohydrate absorption, and thus lower blood sugar and insulin peaks. Here’s where the controversy kicks in: whether low-GI foods lead to weight loss, lower blood sugar levels, and/or a reduced risk of heart disease and cancer compared with high-GI-foods. After reviewing the existing research, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) concluded that there was not enough evidence to recommend that people change their diets based on the glycemic index. Enter a potentially more useful tool: the glycemic load, a more accurate measure of a food’s effect on blood sugar levels. A Better Measure Th
