Glycemic Food of the Month

Milk and yogurt in a low GI diet
Reduced or low fat or skim dairy and soy milk and yogurt are handy foods to have on hand for healthy drinks or snacks that can lower the overall GI of your diet.

Milk’s low GI (20–34 for various skim to regular fat cow milks) is a combination of its naturally low GI sugar (lactose) plus milk protein, which forms a soft curd in the stomach and slows down the rate of stomach emptying. The unique mix of amino acids in cow milk protein are also thought to stimulate insulin secretion, further lowering the GI. Low fat flavoured milks also have a low GI (26–42). Yes, they have added sugar, but it’s in relatively modest amounts (about 4%) compared with soft drinks (11–12%). Some are also made with alternative sweeteners. We don’t have GI values for goat milk as it hasn’t been tested (nor has camel milk). However, they are likely to be similar to cow milk.

Glycemic News Briefs

Bread: This for that #1
The simple change from regular white bread to a low GI bread could reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes according to Australian researchers from the Cancer Council of Victoria. The study published in Diabetes Care looked at the diets and health records of more than 36,000 men and women in Australia for four years and found white bread was the food most strongly related to diabetes incidence—participants who ate the most white bread (more than 17 slices per week) had the highest risk of type 2 diabetes.

A small Swedish cross-over study of seven women with impaired glucose tolerance and a history of gestational diabetes published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition highlights the immediate value of making the ‘this for that’ switch. For the study, the women were given either a low GI bread that was specially baked and was rich in fibre or a high GI, low fibre bread during consecutive 3-week periods separated by a 3-week washout period. The results were unanimous. All the women reduced their post-meal insulin responses after eating low GI, high fibre bread compared with eating the high GI, low fibre bread.

Bread: This for that #2
‘A lack of satisfying, filling foods is a hurdle for many people when trying to maintain a balanced, healthy diet,’ says Prof. Jennie Brand-Miller. ‘We found that your daily bread choice can play a role in satisfying hunger and decreasing food intake at a subsequent meal.’ Researchers in the Human Nutrition Unit at Sydney University carried out the lab-based