Carbohydrates may be our bodies preferred fuel of choice, but many of the carbohydrates we eat can cause insulin surges, increased blood sugar levels and further health problems.

Fortunately you can now take control of your carbohydrate intake using a Glycemic Index. Under this index, all carbohydrate rich foods are ranked on how quickly they trigger a rise in blood glucose levels, and these can be split into 2 distinct groups: complex carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates.

Complex carbohydrates: usually offering a low GI rating, these foods break down slower during digestion helping you to keep a steady flow of glucose going into your blood stream.

Simple carbohydrates: prone for having high GI ratings, these foods break down quickly causing a sudden surge of blood glucose into your system as well as a rise in insulin.

Whilst with all nutrients, you need to have a little bit of everything everyday to help keep your body functioning; too many high glycemic foods in your diet can trigger a number of health problems:

• Insulin resistance
• Type II diabetes
• Obesity
• Cancer
• Heart disease

And more worryingly they can make losing weight even harder.

What are low glycemic foods?

The astonishing thing about these foods is that many of them are already a part of your every day diet, meaning you can easily remove these high GI foods and replace them with healthier alternatives.

And they are definitely worth the health benefits. Helping you to lower your blood cholesterol levels, maintain your energy and assist you in losing weight, the overall health benefits are incredible.

How can I identify them?

The most common high GI foods include sugar, white flour, white rice and potatoes. Now whilst these don’t sound a lot, when you think of all the foods/dishes these ingredients appear in - these high GI foods can mount up. Cakes, bread, mash potatoes, even ice cream… all of these foods contain one or more of these ingredients in one form or another.

Fortunately you can easily swap them for healthier substitutes that you’ll barely notice a difference in flavour from:

• White flour products – swap for 100% whole wheat product
• White potatoes – swap for sweet potatoes
• White rice – swap for brown or basmati rice

Sugar on the other hand is slightly more difficult as there are very few low GI sweeteners. For this reason, we recommend that you just try to limit the amount of sugar in your diet and opt for sweeteners when you can.

Taking control of your glycemic levels is easy once you have got the know how to help you identify which foods have which rating. If you would like to learn more about the Glycemic Index, visit http://www.glycemicindex.com.

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