Low Glycemic Diets

Every time I talk to someone about foods that are Low Glycemic there is confusion. Lately I’ve started looking at moving to focused Low Glycemic diet and have been evaluating several. The main theme I have found is a focus on protein and away from sugar and carbs.

While I agree that this will certainly support a Low Glycemic diet, I also have found much confusion about the Glycemic Index and how foods impact your blood sugar. This topic requires a diabetic that tests their blood sugar in order to truly determine what food is or is not having a Low Glycemic Impact.

I define Low Glycemic Impact as the actual impact that food has on YOUR body. Different foods impact people differently. Since diabetics test their blood sugar monthly it is common for us to actually see the Glycemic Impact. As a diabetic looking to have a sugar reading of 100 as a target we know that when we eat something and the reading goes to 200 that is bad.

People often come up to me at the Market and ask about the carb count in our granola bars. Some say how can these be Low Glycemic when they have 22 grams of Carbohydrates? A great question and one that requires a great answer, fortunately I have one.

When you combine all the ingredients your body has to digest them all at the same time. Our ingredients are very low on the Glycemic Index, but we do things with our recipe that help make the bars even lower. A great example of this is how we treat the oats we use differently than you do with oatmeal. Oatmeal is hydrated when it is cooked. This makes it easier to break down in your body. Our oats are not hydrated, in fact we remove as much of the moisture as possible. This makes your body work harder to digest it.

We also replace the sugar with Agave which is super low on the Glycemic Index and Honey which is much lower than sugar on the index as well.

The point is that when you look into Glycemic Index you need to look deeper than just at the carb or sugar count. Look a the product and test your blood sugar. I recommend when you test your sugar you take a fasting reading and then eat the food item. Test every 30 minutes for 2 hours and you will know what the Glycemic Impact is for YOU!

Disclaimer: This information is provided for general informational purposes only. Granola Gourmet does not treat, cure or prevent diabetes or any disease, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

The CRAP they put in our food!

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it ANY MORE. I went to the Natural Food Expo representing my company Granola Gourmet last week. We attend these shows looking for innovative ways to improve our products quality. With an eager eye, I was looking for more ways to reduce the glycemic impact of the Granola Gourmet Energy Bars.

Already we know that Granola Gourmet Bars have a low impact on blood sugar but there are always things you can do to improve. We looked at many other snack bars and read the ingredients and tasted them. Many of them we tasted and spit out once we got the texture and flavor and found them unremarkable (so I won’t comment).

SOOO many of them use Brown Rice Syrup for sweetening and to keep the product together. Not educated on the product we went to see a manufacturer of the syrup and discussed the benefits of using the product. The man I spoke to was a knowledgeable scientist (that’s what interested me so much in the first place). He said the product was a great product for diabetics.

I even found a bar that used it and claims it is also good for diabetics. So, I thought I was safe to test the product. WRONG!!! My blood sugar shot up quickly and in a controlled situation I was able to conclude that this product was not good for me. I looked on line and found a posting at Wikipedia. I was shocked by this quote:

“Brown rice syrup is not suitable for consumption by diabetics, as the glucose and maltose cause rapid rise in blood-sugar.”

Read it for yourself at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_rice_syrup

Bottom line, if you are going to take a chance on a new food product do your homework. Try it under a controlled situation and don’t trust anyone but your own blood sugar readings. Your results may be different than mine or that of other diabetics.

Disclaimer: This information is provided for general informational purposes only. Granola Gourmet does not treat, cure or prevent diabetes or any disease, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

One in Five of us have Blood Sugar Issues!

At 31 I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes (adult onset). Until that time 15 years ago I never even knew what diabetes was. Now diabetes is a well known problem and it is very likely that you or someone you know has it. Over 20 million people in this country have diabetes and about 1/3 of them don’t even know it.

That means that 1 out of every 14 people in this country have diabetes! Every day, everywhere you go we are there.

Some of the challenges I faced were more difficult than others but the main one was trying to maintain my “normal” life and not impact my family’s habits. After 15 years, I can say there is no way to maintain your health without impacting your families eating habits.

The very most important thing you can do is watch what you eat. When I say watch, I mean be religious about taking your sugar readings when you eat something that you do not know how your body will react with.

Reading the labels is not enough, and if you are suspicious about an ingredient than take your blood sugar reading more religiously if you eat it. I have found that the “net carb” counts are not accurate for me.

Sugar alcohol in my body acts just like sugar, so this trick is something that is probably fine for some people but when I test my sugar after treating myself to that “sugar free” chocolate I find my numbers raise well over 200 and that proves to me that this is not a safe treat.

Look to see if there are studies or Glycemic Index numbers for the foods you eat. And measure your blood sugar whenever you treat yourself. Diabetes is very manageable if you and your family are on top of it.

 

Disclaimer: This information is provided for general informational purposes only. Granola Gourmet does not treat, cure or prevent diabetes or any disease, and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.