CREATING MEALS TO ACHIEVE THE G.I. FACTOR YOU NEED

May 8, 2009, 2:02 pm

Eating a low G.I. diet still means eating a variety of foods. Possibly a wider variety than you are already eating. Potatoes with a high G.I. can still be included. A food is not good or bad on the basis of its G.I. The G.I. factor of a meal consisting of a mixture of carbohydrate foods is a weighted average of the G.I. factors of the carbohydrate foods. The weighting is based on the proportion of the total carbohydrate contributed by each food. Usually we eat a combination of carbohydrate foods, like baked beans on toast, sandwiches and fruit, pasta and bread, cereal and toast, potatoes and corn. Studies show that when a food with a high G.I. factor is combined with a food with a low G.I. factor the complete meal has an intermediate G.I. factor.

High G.I. factor food + Low G.I. factor food = Intermediate G.I. factor meal

Supposing you have a meal of baked beans on toast.

Regular white bread has a G.I. factor of 70, and baked beans have a G.I. factor of 48. If we assume half the carbohydrate is coming from the bread, and half from the baked beans, we can add the G.I. factors of the two foods together and divide by 2, (70 + 48) + 2 giving the meal a final G.I. factor of 59.

The final G.I. factor of a meal depends on the G.I. factors of the foods that make up the meal and the proportion of carbohydrate contributed by each carbohydrate rich food.

If you have two carbohydrate rich foods combined 50:50, you can add their G.I. values and halve the result to come up with the new GJ. factor. But if you have two foods combined in uneven proportions, say 1/4 potato: 3/4 lentils, then 75 per cent of the G.I. factor of the lentils should be added to 25 per cent of the G.I. factor of potato.

It can be complicated to calculate the precise G I. factor of a combination of foods unless you have access to food composition figures of a nutrient analysis program. As with kilojoules, G.I. values are not precise. Use them simply as a guide.

The Low G.I. Eating Plan has a G.I. factor 40 per cent lower than the High G.I. Eating Plan, plus its fat content is half that of the high G.I. menu. Notice how the quantity of food is similar but the kilojoule content is nearly one-third lower because low-fat, high carbohydrate foods have been used.

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