Glycemic Index and Different Carbohydrates Explained
- Victor Shen
- Mar 6, 2022
- 3 min read
Carbohydrates are things in your food that give you energy. They get broken down to sugar, which is what you can use as energy. The leftover sugar you don’t use become fat.
High protein and low carbohydrate diets are a popular way for many people who want to lose fat and maintain muscle. But are all carbohydrates the same?
For example, if I allow myself to eat 40g of carbohydrates per day, would eating 40g of carbohydrates from chocolate chip cookies be the same as the 40g of carbohydrates I get from eating brown rice? Unfortunately, they are not the same.
The faster carbohydrates break down to sugar, the faster your body stores them as fat. Different carbohydrates break down to sugar at different speeds. [1]
For example, table sugar and bread are both made of carbohydrates, but table sugar is made of “smaller sugars” that enters our body more easily. This makes it easier for our body to turn it into fat. You might have heard of the term, “complex carbohydrates” and how they are healthy. Complex carbohydrates are healthier because they turn into sugar much slower, so they are less likely to become fat in your body. [2]
How do we tell which carbohydrates break down faster?
One common measurement is called the “glycemic index,” also called “GI.” The higher the number, the faster the food turns into sugar and then to fat. White bread for example has a GI of 77, whereas brown rice has a GI of 50. [3]
Food
GI (Glucose = 100)
Russet potato
111
White bread
77
White rice
66
Brown rice
50
What are the benefits of low GI foods?
● Low GI foods can make you feel fuller when you are dieting.
● Carbohydrates that have a low GI won’t get turned into fat as easily.
● Low GI foods help remove bad cholesterol from your body. Cholesterol are things that can block your blood flow, which can turn into health problems such as stroke and high blood pressure. [3]
Problems with using the GI index
Problem
Example
GI only measures speed. It tells you how quickly food can become sugar. But it doesn’t tell you how much your blood sugar can actually rise.
watermelon has a GI of 80, which is high. But there are only 5 grams of carbohydrates for every 100 grams of watermelon. This means that watermelon turns into sugar very quickly, but it only turns into 5 grams of sugar.
GI doesn’t tell us about the other nutrients in food. Foods with low GI may have a lot of fat. This means that it will have a lot of calories, which can make you gain weight.
Peanuts have a GI of 13, but just 1 cup of it is 828 calories.
Foods can interact with each other.
In one study, potatoes have a GI of 93, but this gets lowered to 39 when cheese was added.
[4]
Conclusion:
Eating low GI foods can help you lose weight, and lower blood sugar and cholesterol. But, the measurement can be misleading, so we shouldn’t let it have full control of what we eat. It’s important to eat complex carbohydrates and low-GI foods, but not every low GI food is good for weight loss.
Sources:
1. Venn, B., Green, T. Glycemic index and glycemic load: measurement issues and their effect on diet–disease relationships. Eur J Clin Nutr 61, S122–S131 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602942
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