10 Ways to Lower the GI of Your Diet Try these practical tips to make the switch to low-GI eating. There’s no specific order. Essentially, you should attack the changes that you think you’ll find easiest first—nothing is quite so inspiring as success. You should make the changes gradually—it can take 6 weeks for a new behaviour to become a habit. Here’s how you can get started: 1 Aim to eat at least 5 serves of vegetables every day, preferably of 3 or more colours. Make sure you fill half your dinner plate with vegetables. 2 Cut back on potatoes. Have one or two tiny chat potatoes or a Nicola potato or make a cannellini bean and potato mash replacing half the potato with cannellini beans. Try other lower GI starchy vegetables for a change, such as a piece of orange sweet potato or a small cob of sweet corn. 3 Choose a really grainy bread where you can actually see the grains, or real sourdough bread, or a soy and linseed bread. Look for the GI Symbol on the breads you buy. 4 Start the day with smart carbs like natural muesli or traditional (not instant) porridge oats or one of the lower GI processed breakfast cereals that will trickle fuel into your engine. 5 Look for the lower GI rices (basmati, Doongara Clever rice or Moolgiri), and choose less processed foods or low-GI whole grains such as pearl barley, buckwheat, burghul, quinoa, whole kernel rye or whole wheat kernels. 6 Learn to love legumes and eat them often. Add red kidney beans to a chilli, chickpeas to a stir-fry, a 4-bean salad to a barbecue and beans or lentils to a casserole or soup. 7 Include at least one low-GI carb at every meal and choose low-GI snacks. You’ll find them in four of the food groups: fruit and vegetables, breads and cereals, legumes, and dairy foods. 8 Incorporate a lean protein source with every meal—lean meat, skinless chicken, eggs, fish and seafood, or legumes and tofu if you are vegetarian. 9 Add pucker power to meals with acid: vinaigrettedressing with salads, yogurt with cereal, lemon juice on vegetables like asparagus, sourdough bread. These foods contain acids, which slow stomach emptying and lower your blood glucose response to the carbs in the meal. 10 Limit high-GI refined flour products whether from the supermarket or home-baked, such as biscuits, cakes, pastries, crumpets, crackers and biscuits.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 19:31:36 +0000
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