Healthy foods have too much sugar?
Posted by stride4unity on Sep 29, 2007 · Member since Feb 2005 · 211 posts
I have been doing some reading about sugar and according to this website http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/T045000.asp which has a list of foods and their glycemic index. carrots and whole grain breads are at the top of the list for the glycemic index. I didn't think carrots had that much sugar, more than refined cereals apparently. I thought carrots and whole grain breads were healthy! Does that make these foods less nutritious?
I'm no expert, but I've heard glycemic index is something that really varies... for instance, the glycemic index of an apple is one number if you eat it alone, but if you eat it with something else it's different, or with a different thing it's different again.
Glycemic index isn't a measure of how much sugar is in food, but how fast the sugars from a food enter the bloodstream (and fast can be bad for diabetics).This means that foods with only starch and no/very little sugar can still have a high glycemic index if the starches are broken down fast. I wouldn't think carrots would be one of the highest though!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index#Criticism
faunnablues is right about it varying. but that is not truely the GI of the food. a glycemic index is really only such when you take the food ALONE.
yes, the GI og carrots is pretty high, BUT you have to look at the serving size. if i remember correctly gtting 50g of carbs from carrots is TONS of carrots (GI is always measure with 50g of a food, because it is measure against a 50g pure glucose syrup).
I think that eating the higher glycemic foods with fat and protein lowers the GI. Don't quote me on that, just something I've read a couple of times. They measure the GI of foods as if they are eaten alone. So the GI of whole wheat bread might be high, peanut butter on a piece of whole wheat might be much lower.
The darker, the more fiber, the better when it comes to breads. The problem with bread is that while it's whole grain it's refined pretty fine, so shouldn't be the bulk of your whole grain eating, which is better gotten with more whole grains like brown rice, Kashi, slow cooked larger grain oatmeal, etc.
I've also read that cinnamin lowers the GI index, so I've taken to adding cinnamin to my papyaya and other foods it might match.
I still throw baby carrots into my salads, but no longer gobble them down alone or juice them very much any more.
I read in Neal Benard's book that not all of us need to be overly concerned with carbs. If you've been relatively lean most of your life, you're going to tolerate the GI foods more than the obese person with diabeties.
Long story short for me: I try not to eat my meals single food. I try to include carbs, fats and proteins in my meals and snacks.
Just use your common sense, of course plain carrots are healthier than processed sugary cereals. If you aren't diabetic chances are that you don't need to worry about the GI of food, just eat whole foods.
I often try to help my boyfriend's grandfather who is diabetic and had a wife die of diabetes maneuver through the contradictory info about high-GI foods. Carrots are one that I've researched for him. I found through reading a bunch of websites that a study involving 7 large full-size carrots as a serving is what concluded carrots to have a high GI, at 92. More current and realistic studies place the GI of one serving of carrots at around 40.
As anyone can tell you who has juiced with carrots, they are pretty sweet!