How did that food get on your plate?

... or rather, what was done to the food before it was dished up? I'm still talking about GI values.

Yesterday I mentioned that particle size has impact on the GI value of a food. Any sort of processing -grinding, milling, mashing, beating, liquidizing, refining - reduces particle size and raises the GI value. Heat and cooking increases the ease of digestion, and has the same effect.

Here are a few ways to reduce the resultant rise in blood-glucose levels.

Eat more slowly. Research shows that eating more slowly raises blood-glucose levels more gently.

Add lots of low GI vegetables to your plate - especially salads.  Salads are usually raw, or if not raw, at least chilled. Adding low GI veg will slow down the rate of digestion. Slower digestion equals a slower release of glucose into the blood stream, and a slower release of glucose leads to a more gradual insulin reaction.

Eat regularly.  What you eat at breakfast, strangely enough, impacts on what you eat at lunch time, and lunch impacts on dinner; so a low GI, low fat breakfast, for example fresh fruit and oat porridge, will keep you going until lunchtime without a problem. You will not then be tempted to cram high GI foods into your mouth in an attempt to assuage your hunger. Hunger as a result of eating high GI foods, or of not eating at all, will make you overeat at the earliest opportunity.

Add other low GI foods to your meal. Whole-grains, beans, lentils. These all fill you up, and keep you satisfied for longer.

Eat in-between meal snacks - fruit is the healthiest and easiest snack, or crudites.

Eat fibre. Most of us don't eat anywhere near the recommended 30 - 40gm a day. Fibre is filling and satisfying. Get it from oats, beans, pasta and leafy vegetables like cabbage and spinach. Fibre helps protect against high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes.