tai Tai Chi Taiji Tai Chi Taiji Tai Chi Taiji Tai Chi Taiji Tai Chi Taiji Erle montaigue broadsword Erle Montaigue Erle Montaigue Erle Montaigue Erle Montaigue Taiji karate Taiji karate Taiji karate Taiji karate Taiji karate Chuan Taichi qigong qigong Chuan Taichi karate karate tai chi taiji tai chi chuan taijiquan tai chiqigong qi broadsword acupuncture self defense defence bagua bagwa, dim mak dim-mak, baguazhang qigong martial arts internal martial chi
October 2001
The Glycaemic Index is a way of indexing different foods as to how quickly their carbohydrate content is turned into glucose for use in the muscles of the body as energy. It has been discovered that foods differ in the amount of time taken to do this and depending upon how long or short that time is, determines how high up or how low down on the G.I. index each food is. The scale goes from 0 to over 100 with pure glucose being 100. Things like dates are actually around 110 for instance!
It was originally worked out mainly for people with the condition of diabetes of both type one and type two so that they could adjust the food they ate to only those foods that were on the lower end of the scale.
The reason for this is that when we eat foods that are high on the scale such as white bread or pure sugar, that food is immediately turned into glucose in the intestines and goes straight into the blood, thus causing a high ‘blood sugar level’. High blood sugar levels for people with diabetes is not a good thing as those people either do not have enough insulin in their pancreas or that their body rejects its own insulin thus leading to a high blood sugar concentration. This in turn leads to very ‘sticky’ blood and the higher the BSL goes, the harder the heart has to work to pump such syrupy blood around the body. So it is advisable for diabetics in particular to eat foods that take longer to digest down into glucose, thus helping to keep the blood sugar level as low as possible.
However, it has also been found that people who also eat foods that are on the lower end of the G.I. index will have a lesser chance of getting this condition of diabetes because they are not working their pancreas to excess. The added bonus is that when we take in a large amount of glucose, that which the body cannot immediately use, and when the liver has stored its 2000 calories of glucose, it is turned into fat for use later. And unfortunately most modern people never get around to using up that stored fat so we just get fatter and fatter. So it is not only eating animal fats and certain vegetable fats that cause us to become overweight but also the amount of excess sugar and simple carbohydrate that we eat.
People without diabetes can of course eat foods that are on the higher end of the G.I. index, but these should be kept in moderation and also eaten along with foods that are on the lower end. The beauty of this is that when we eat higher end G.I. foods, we can then balance that out with foods on the lower end, thus lowering the total G.I. index of what we eat at any one meal. So for instance if we should eat some white bread which is quite high (anywhere from 70 to 90 on the scale) and then also eat an apricot, which is quite low (around 20), ten this brings the total of the meal right down depending upon the amount of eat item we have eaten.
However, just because a food is low on the Glycaemic Index does not mean that it is good for us to eat! For instance peanuts (which are not nuts!) contain a deadly oxalic acid which is bad for liver and kidneys, however, the are very low in the G.I. scale. Other food which are higher on the scale can also be very good for us in moderation such as tropical fruits like mangoes and bananas. Bananas are not actually fruit, they are the largest herb!
As a general rule, fruits that grow in colder climates such as stone fruits, apples, pears, berries etc., are usually lower on the G.I scale while tropical fruits are higher and should be avoided by diabetics.
Milk products are generally lower on the scale, however, too much of these are not good for your heart and other organs anyway! Likewise, meat products are also lower on the scale but are also not good as they contain much animal fat. And it is the animal and only a few vegetable fats (those that contain saturated fats) that cause one’s body to become immune to its own insulin. Which is one reason that particularly overweight people are prone to diabetes along with the simple fact that they have much more ‘body’ to produce insulin for.
Diabetes in western medicine is placed into three categories. Type one which is gained from early childhood and which is normally treated with insulin shots. Type two which is gained usually from middle age although I have known younger people from around their mid-twenties who have this condition. And lastly there is gestational diabetes which pregnant women and nursing mothers tend to only get when they are in this condition.
In Chinese Medicine however, there are a number of different types and causes for diabetes. For instance type two diabetes is placed into three categories. The UPPER JIAO (Jiao is a ‘heating space’ or place that does work in the body) such as the lungs, the MIDDLE JIAO such as the digestion and the LOWER JIAO which is the elimination organs. Those with upper jiao diabetes for instance will be prone also to lung ailments such as bronchitis while those with Middle Jiao diabetes will also be prone to diseases of the intestines while those with Lower Jiao diabetes will be prone to diseases of the bowel etc. I once had a student who had a really bad cough and had always had lung problems. So I suspected diabetes although she was still relatively young. And sure enough when we tested her over a weeklong period, she had diabetes of the upper jiao.
Another cause for diabetes in general of the type two variety is too much sex or rather too much ejaculation! In Chinese medicine diabetes is also connected to the kidney and liver function and both are also connected to sexual function. When a man for instances loses his ‘Kidney Jing’ (That life force which causes the Kidneys to work efficiently), he becomes impotent, something that most males will experience some time in their lives by the way. And the way to ‘get it back’ (and up!) is to fix the kidney jing problem. The kidneys too are affected by what we eat like too much animal fats will cause problems. Sex is great but when it becomes something other than love, it can turn on you and cause illness! And of course it is possible and advisable to have lovemaking without ejaculation. But that’s another story!
I will add here some of the more common foods and their Glycaemic reference numbers. If however, you wish to delve into this further, you could go to the Web address, www.glycaemicindex.com where an up to date list is to be found. On-going research is adding more and more foods as that information becomes available. I also have much information about diabetes and health in general on my site, www.taijiworld.com where you can also download many of my published books free of charge along with hundreds of articles that I have written for magazines all over the world, charts and other free items.
Using the G.I. Index, those with diabetes should try for foods that are under 50 on the scale while others should try to only take foods that are above 65 in moderation.
All-Bran: ¼ Cup 42
Apricots Fresh 1 Fruit 22
Apples 1 Fruit 38
Bagel White 1 72
Baked Beans Canned in Tomatoe Sauce ½ cup 42
Banana 1 Raw 55
Banana Cake 1 slice 48
Pearl Barley ½ cup 25
Digestive Biscuits 2 59
Morning Coffee Biscuits 3 79
Blueberry muffin 1 59
Burgen Bread Soy Lin 1 slice 36 (This is one of the best breads)
Burgen Oat Bran and Honey 1 slice 31 (Also good)
French Baguette 1 95
Gluten Free (Corn) 1 slice 90
White Bread 1 slice 70
Corn Flakes 1 cup 84
Nutri Grain 1 cup 66
Porridge 1 cup 42
Puffed Wheat 1 cup 80
Special K 1 cup 54
Wheat Bix 2 biscuits 69
Ice Cream Full Fat 2 scoops 61
Milk Full fat 1 cup 27 (However, the fat is not good)
Tofu Frozen Desert 100 g. 115!
Yoghurt Low Fat Artificially sweetener 16 (However, depending upon which artificial sweetener, it could give you brain tumour!)
Fish Fingers X 5 38
Cherries X 20 22
Figs Dried 50 g. 60
Grapefruit ½ 25
Grapes 1 cup 46
Mango 1 small 55
Orange 1 medium 44
Peach one large 42
Pear 1 medium 38
Pineapple 2 slices 66
Rockmelon ¼ 65
Maltodexrin (Used to sweeten many foods including Soy Drinks) 105
Pontiac Potato X 1 boiled 88: Baked no fat: 93
French Fries small serve: 75
Desiree Potatoes peeled boiled X 1 101
Rice White steamed Jasmine 109
So Good Soy drink 1 cup 31
Sun Brown quick rice 1 cup 88
Ultra Choc Sara Lee Ice Cream 100 ml. 37 (This is a food that is low but not god for us)
Vaalia Apricot and Mango yoghurt 200 g. 26
As a general rule, diabetics should look for foods that are ‘Complex Carbohydrates’ like grain breads and whole grain breads with other whole grains in them rather than those that contain simple carbohydrates such as potatoes.