My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
food people generally eat. Feh! How do they know how much canteloupe I
consume at one sitting? A web page that gave me the glycemic index plus
information on portion size would be perfect. Anyone know where I can
find it?

--Lia

"Julia Altshuler" > wrote in message
news:%FvYb.339715$xy6.1679297@attbi_s02...
> My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
> Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
> would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
> found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
> many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
> any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
> never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
> food people generally eat. Feh! How do they know how much canteloupe I
> consume at one sitting? A web page that gave me the glycemic index plus
> information on portion size would be perfect. Anyone know where I can
> find it?
>
> --Lia

Did you try http://www.glycemicindex.com/ - the GI database link to the left
appears to be what you are looking for.

HTH,
Urmi

"Julia Altshuler" > wrote in message
news:%FvYb.339715$xy6.1679297@attbi_s02...
> Also, the portion size is
> never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
> food people generally eat.

South Beach says nothing about this; dunno about other diets. Another low
gi cookbook I have says it's figured on a per-carbohydrate-gram basis. When
the normalization by carbohydrate gram is taken into account, it seems less
surprising that carrots are "worse" than white bread which is "worse" than
table sugar.

at Tue, 17 Feb 2004 21:26:19 GMT in <%FvYb.339715$xy6.1679297@attbi_s02>,
(Julia Altshuler) wrote :

>My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
>Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
>would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
>found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
>many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
>any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
>never mentioned...

Here is the best and most definitive list available:

http://diabetes.about.com/library/me...i/ngilists.htm

You need to be aware that there is no comprehensive list of every common
food's GI - simply because not all foods have been measured. It's too new
of a research area at this time. With the current interest in high-protein
low-carb diets, I'm sure the list will grow rapidly at this time.

One of the problems about portion size is that with GI, the fact of the
portion size itself has an impact on the measured GI. In other words, you
don't get the same GI for different portion sizes. Smaller portions give a
higher GI, because the body digests it much faster. Since GI is related to
digestive function, it's a lot more complex than, say, carbohydrate count
which is a static measurement. So you have to take GI figures very
relatively, very much with a grain of salt, and very aware of the fact that
there may be wild fluctuations from the predicted values in *your* case,
because everybody's digestive metabolism is different and how you
assimilate different foods will be different.

Thus GI figures aren't something you can take simply as a flat truth. The
best way to use the list is as a rough guide. Then, experiment with
different foods and see what actually works for you, in terms of the
reaction you experience after each. Generally, a high GI is associated with
a fast, sudden boost of energy followed by a total collapse, where a low GI
doesn't give you either the immediate boost or the dramatic letdown. Be
careful in how you observe. For instance, unless you're the type of person
who wakes up invariably feeling very refreshed, low-GI foods are going to
feel very bad in the morning, because they give no boost that gets you up-
to-speed. A higher-GI food will probably make you feel essentially normal
in the morning right away, because the quick release will put your body in
a fully-awake energy state. So it can be easy to conclude that the high-GI
food isn't having much impact on energy level, simply because you now feel
normal, but you weren't accounting for the fact that you were still waking
up. And you might think that the feeling of the low-GI food was some sort
of high-GI "crash", probably imagining it had to do with what you had the
night before. In a similar vein, you need to be careful in the evening
because you might not actually notice what the real effect was before going
to bed.

And it gets even more complicated from there. Exercise will increase the
metabolism, making high-GI foods seem really extreme. Time between
mealtimes will have a big effect. If you have wide spaces between
mealtimes, the last meal will be completely digested by the time you have
your next one. As a result, the effective GI of the foods you now eat will
be higher, because the body isn't still busy digesting other stuff. Of
course, this itself depends on what you had before. If it was low-GI, maybe
it's *not* completely digested.

Hopefully this gives you the idea. GI is a *rough* guide, which you need to
use with caution and careful research. You can't just blindly plug a number
into a formula and get a result that matches reality.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

In article <%FvYb.339715$xy6.1679297@attbi_s02>,
Julia Altshuler > wrote:

> My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
> Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
> would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
> found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
> many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
> any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
> never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
> food people generally eat. Feh! How do they know how much canteloupe I
> consume at one sitting? A web page that gave me the glycemic index plus
> information on portion size would be perfect. Anyone know where I can
> find it?
>
> --Lia
>

The GI is calculated on the basis of 100 g carb and compared to 100 g of
a "standard" food, either white bread or table sugar. How many of us
are going to eat 100 g of carb in carrots or lettuce at a sitting?

There are several other problems with the glycemic index (GI) from my
point of view. For one, the more processed a food, the higher its GI
is. For example, the GI of a potato increases when you mash it. Fat
interferes with GI, as it slows stomach emptying. Probably the biggest
problem with the GI is that we don't eat a single food in isolation.
We'll eat bread with peanut butter, or rice with a stir-fry. Both bread
and rice are high GI foods, but their GI can be altered by the foods
eaten with them. Fiber also reduces the GI, so brown rice has a lower
GI than white rice.

The one situation where I have used GI is to help my brother, the
world's least diverse eater, deal with his diabetes. I told him to
choose foods within his narrow preference range that were lower in GI;
e.g., whole grain bread instead of white bread. The one step that went
the farthest to help even out his blood glucose was to stop drinking
non-diet sodas.

Cindy

--
C.J. Fuller

Delete the obvious to email me

Cindy Fuller > wrote in
:

> In article <%FvYb.339715$xy6.1679297@attbi_s02>,
> Julia Altshuler > wrote:
>
>> My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins,
>> South Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online
>> source that would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods.
>> All I've found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20
>> vegetables and as many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page
>> where I can look up any common food and find out how it rates. Also,
>> the portion size is never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in
>> based on how much of a food people generally eat. Feh! How do they
>> know how much canteloupe I consume at one sitting? A web page that
>> gave me the glycemic index plus information on portion size would be
>> perfect. Anyone know where I can find it?
>>
>> --Lia
>>
>
> The GI is calculated on the basis of 100 g carb and compared to 100 g
> of a "standard" food, either white bread or table sugar. How many of
> us are going to eat 100 g of carb in carrots or lettuce at a sitting?
>
> There are several other problems with the glycemic index (GI) from my
> point of view. For one, the more processed a food, the higher its GI
> is. For example, the GI of a potato increases when you mash it. Fat
> interferes with GI, as it slows stomach emptying. Probably the
> biggest problem with the GI is that we don't eat a single food in
> isolation. We'll eat bread with peanut butter, or rice with a
> stir-fry. Both bread and rice are high GI foods, but their GI can be
> altered by the foods eaten with them. Fiber also reduces the GI, so
> brown rice has a lower GI than white rice.

Goold observations...

> The one situation where I have used GI is to help my brother, the
> world's least diverse eater, deal with his diabetes. I told him to
> choose foods within his narrow preference range that were lower in GI;
> e.g., whole grain bread instead of white bread.

The one step that
> went the farthest to help even out his blood glucose was to stop
> drinking non-diet sodas.

One would think that choice would be obvious, GI considered or not.

>
> Cindy
>

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 01:15:55 GMT, Cindy Fuller
> wrote:

>There are several other problems with the glycemic index (GI) from my
>point of view. For one, the more processed a food, the higher its GI
>is. For example, the GI of a potato increases when you mash it. Fat
>interferes with GI, as it slows stomach emptying. Probably the biggest
>problem with the GI is that we don't eat a single food in isolation.
>We'll eat bread with peanut butter, or rice with a stir-fry. Both bread
>and rice are high GI foods, but their GI can be altered by the foods
>eaten with them. Fiber also reduces the GI, so brown rice has a lower
>GI than white rice.

Why is this a problem, other than making its use less than brain dead
simple?

"Urmi Mukherjea" > wrote in
:

> Did you try http://www.glycemicindex.com/ - the GI database link
> to the left appears to be what you are looking for.

Try typing "rice". There are numerous reference to "type unspecified"
varying from 46 to 100+ in glycemic index. Pretty vague if you ax me.

Montignac has a list of foods with glycemic index over and below 55
which he considers to be his cutoff. I guess he's had to average the
GI on rice, eh? :-)

http://www.montignac-intl.com/En/m7en.html

--

"I'm the master of low expectations."

GWB, aboard Air Force One, 04Jun2003

"Julia Altshuler" > wrote in message
news:%FvYb.339715$xy6.1679297@attbi_s02...
> My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
> Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
> would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
> found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
> many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
> any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
> never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
> food people generally eat. Feh! How do they know how much canteloupe I
> consume at one sitting? A web page that gave me the glycemic index plus
> information on portion size would be perfect. Anyone know where I can
> find it?
>
> --Lia
>

The GI is a ratio and not an absolute value. It is a measurement if the
amount that a given food raises your blood sugar relative to the same amount
of pure glucose. This means that portion size is not relevant to GI. For
example, pound cake has a GI of 54, and barley has a GI of 27. Thus eating a
certain amount of pound cake will increase your blood sugar by twice as much
as eating the same amount (weight) of barley.


--
Peter Aitken

Remove the crap from my email address before using.

I'm going to thank everyone who wrote in this one post rather than going
individually.


First, the good news. I wasn't asking for myself. I've always been
able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted and still maintain a healthy
weight and have no major health troubles. (I make some effort to eat
lots of vegetables and to avoid junk, but that's about it.) So my
understanding the glycemic index has no immediate bearing on my diet.


The bad news is that I'm more confused than ever! I pride myself on
being someone who can make a good meal at any time of day for any guest
on all sorts of restrictions. It is almost fun. (Hmm, I have one
lactose inolerant, one vegetarian, one allergic to eggs, 2 who can't
handle wheat and 3 counting calories. What shall I serve for dessert?)
I'm interested in diet and nutrition and was hoping to understand
Atkins and South Beach so I could start inventing recipes and meals.


The idea that the whole concept is so new that comprehensive information
isn't out there makes sense. I tried glycemicindex.com and found
information on apples but nothing on melons or squashes. Then I
realized that it comes from The University of Sydney. They may be
eating different fruits there than in the U.S. or know them by different
names. (Otherwise the site is excellent. Thanks.)


I got the business about the index being based in part on portion size
from one of the books on South Beach that I was reading in the book
store last week. I can't say which one as I didn't buy it.


The list at http://diabetes.about.com/library/me...i/ngilists.htm is
interesting even if you want nothing to do with the glycemic index.
Look at the foods at the bottom where they mention foods that are exotic
to me but quite ordinary to peoples around the world. Araucaria
bidwillii, bunya tree nut, prickly pear cactus, white teparies broth.
Great stuff! Thanks.


The information about exercise increasing metabolism making high GI
foods more extreme is something I might be able to use. I've always
guessed I had low metabolism since I can skip meals easily and not feel
it and generally have fairly low energy. I've been trying to remedy
that recently with an exercise class, but instead of feeling energized,
I've been falling asleep by mid-afternoon. I wonder that's due to the
way I come home from class dry and drink water and orange juice which is
normal for me when I'm not exercising. I'll experiment to see if water
alone (bleah) is better.


Thanks everyone for all your help. I have to keep studying this.


--Lia

For an overview of the differences between the Atkins diet, the
South Beach diet, and Weight Watchers weight loss programs, check out
http://atkinssouthbeachweigh****chersdiet.iconv.com.

Regards -- John

On 2/17/2004 4:26 PM, Julia Altshuler wrote:
> My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
> Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
> would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
> found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
> many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
> any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
> never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
> food people generally eat. Feh! How do they know how much canteloupe I
> consume at one sitting? A web page that gave me the glycemic index plus
> information on portion size would be perfect. Anyone know where I can
> find it?
>
> --Lia
>

You might want to try glycemicindex.com. Remember, though, the there is
a difference between glycemic index and glycemic load.

--
jmk in NC

"Julia Altshuler" > wrote in message
news:gIAYb.348634$na.514592@attbi_s04...
> I'm going to thank everyone who wrote in this one post rather than going
> individually.
>
>
> First, the good news. I wasn't asking for myself. I've always been
> able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted and still maintain a healthy
> weight and have no major health troubles. (I make some effort to eat
> lots of vegetables and to avoid junk, but that's about it.) So my
> understanding the glycemic index has no immediate bearing on my diet.
>
>
> The bad news is that I'm more confused than ever! I pride myself on
> being someone who can make a good meal at any time of day for any guest
> on all sorts of restrictions. It is almost fun. (Hmm, I have one
> lactose inolerant, one vegetarian, one allergic to eggs, 2 who can't
> handle wheat and 3 counting calories. What shall I serve for dessert?)
> I'm interested in diet and nutrition and was hoping to understand
> Atkins and South Beach so I could start inventing recipes and meals.
>
>
> The idea that the whole concept is so new that comprehensive information
> isn't out there makes sense. I tried glycemicindex.com and found
> information on apples but nothing on melons or squashes. Then I
> realized that it comes from The University of Sydney. They may be
> eating different fruits there than in the U.S. or know them by different
> names. (Otherwise the site is excellent. Thanks.)
>
>
> I got the business about the index being based in part on portion size
> from one of the books on South Beach that I was reading in the book
> store last week. I can't say which one as I didn't buy it.
>

It's a mistake to think of the GI as related to portion size. It's a ratio -
measure the amount your blood sugar goes up when you eat the food in
question, then measure the amount your blood sugar goes up when you eat the
same amount of the standard reference which I believe is pure sugar. Divide
the first by the second and multiply by 100 to get the GI for that food.

Portion size does of course affect how much your blood sugar goes up after a
meal, but that's not the same thing as GI.


--
Peter Aitken

Remove the crap from my email address before using.

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 07:59:12 -0500, jmk > wrote:

>On 2/17/2004 4:26 PM, Julia Altshuler wrote:
>> My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
>> Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
>> would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
>> found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
>> many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
>> any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
>> never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
>> food people generally eat. Feh! How do they know how much canteloupe I
>> consume at one sitting? A web page that gave me the glycemic index plus
>> information on portion size would be perfect. Anyone know where I can
>> find it?

>You might want to try glycemicindex.com. Remember, though, the there is
>a difference between glycemic index and glycemic load.

I don't follow this particular feature, but wouldn't it be highly
variable depending on individual metabolisms? It's surely not an
absolute measure, like calories or the protein content of foods. I
mean, the *content* of foods has been pretty well nailed down; the
*effect* seems a little iffy to me. Perhaps there's something along
the lines of taking a glucose-tolerance test, and then applying it to
the sugar-carbohydrate content of foods.

On 2/19/2004 1:33 PM, Frogleg wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 07:59:12 -0500, jmk > wrote:
>
>
>>On 2/17/2004 4:26 PM, Julia Altshuler wrote:
>>
>>>My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
>>>Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
>>>would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
>>>found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
>>>many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
>>>any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
>>>never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
>>>food people generally eat. Feh! How do they know how much canteloupe I
>>>consume at one sitting? A web page that gave me the glycemic index plus
>>>information on portion size would be perfect. Anyone know where I can
>>>find it?
>
>
>>You might want to try glycemicindex.com. Remember, though, the there is
>>a difference between glycemic index and glycemic load.
>
>
> I don't follow this particular feature, but wouldn't it be highly
> variable depending on individual metabolisms? It's surely not an
> absolute measure, like calories or the protein content of foods. I
> mean, the *content* of foods has been pretty well nailed down; the
> *effect* seems a little iffy to me. Perhaps there's something along
> the lines of taking a glucose-tolerance test, and then applying it to
> the sugar-carbohydrate content of foods.

I'm sure that there are longer and better explanations out there but
here's a summary with references. I hope that this helps.

"The GI value of a food is determined by feeding 10 or more healthy
people a portion of the food containing 50 grams of digestible
(available) carbohydrate and then measuring the effect on their blood
glucose levels over the next two hours." - glycemicindex.com

"Foods with a high GI score contain rapidly digested carbohydrate, which
produces a large rapid rise and fall in the level of blood glucose. In
contrast, foods with a low GI score contain slowly digested
carbohydrate, which produces a gradual, relatively low rise in the level
of blood glucose." - glycemicindex.com

"A GI value tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns
into sugar. It doesn't tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a
serving of a particular food. You need to know both things to understand
a food's effect on blood sugar." -
http://diabetes.about.com/library/me...i/ngilists.htm

--
jmk in NC

http://diabetes.about.com/library/me...nmendosagi.htm

check out this page.

j
"Frogleg" > wrote in message
news
> On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 07:59:12 -0500, jmk > wrote:
>
> >On 2/17/2004 4:26 PM, Julia Altshuler wrote:
> >> My googling skills need help. I've gotten interested in Atkins, South
> >> Beach and the glycemic index. I was hoping for an online source that
> >> would list the glycemic index for a whole bunch of foods. All I've
> >> found are examples where they mention 20 fruits, 20 vegetables and as
> >> many meats or cereals or beans. I want a web page where I can look up
> >> any common food and find out how it rates. Also, the portion size is
> >> never mentioned. It is supposedly figured in based on how much of a
> >> food people generally eat. Feh! How do they know how much canteloupe
I
> >> consume at one sitting? A web page that gave me the glycemic index
plus
> >> information on portion size would be perfect. Anyone know where I can
> >> find it?
>
> >You might want to try glycemicindex.com. Remember, though, the there is
> >a difference between glycemic index and glycemic load.
>
> I don't follow this particular feature, but wouldn't it be highly
> variable depending on individual metabolisms? It's surely not an
> absolute measure, like calories or the protein content of foods. I
> mean, the *content* of foods has been pretty well nailed down; the
> *effect* seems a little iffy to me. Perhaps there's something along
> the lines of taking a glucose-tolerance test, and then applying it to
> the sugar-carbohydrate content of foods.
>

I don't mean to confuse the issue further, but I do have another piece
of information about why it is so hard to establish a certain food's GI.

A friend--who happens to be a nutritionist--told me that the GI of a
food can vary depending on factors hard to measure. For example, she
said that a green banana is much lower on the GI index than one that is
ripe. And the riper the banana, the higher GI it has. So, what is the
GI of a banana? Well, hard to say.

She told me that the best thing to do is to be aware of the GI index and
try to eat foods low on the list but not to take the list as a bible.

Hope this helps.

Kate

KateReynolds wrote:

>
> She told me that the best thing to do is to be aware of the GI index and
> try to eat foods low on the list but not to take the list as a bible.


That's pretty much the conclusion I'd been coming to since learning
about this. I didn't think I was asking a stupid question when I began
the thread. It seemed so reasonable a thing to ask. After following
the links people have recommended, I can see that it was almost like
asking "which foods are good for children" and expecting one cohesive
answer.


--Lia