What is the Glycemic Index?

Filed in: Weight Loss, Sports Nutrition - November 28th, 2005 |

Most of us Malaysians would have heard of the new Breakthru bread by Gardenia which promises us a whole load of benefits. If you’re observant enough, you would notice that it also gives a Glycemic Index rating of 36 (for it’s Formula Multi-Wholegrain) on its label. What is GI and why should we take note of this?

The Glycemic Index, or just GI as most of us would call it, is a ranking of foods based on the glucose response by your body after a meal, compared with a reference food (normally glucose, or white bread). Meaning if you ate a plate of fried rice, it will result in a certain increase in blood glucose.

Different foods result in different responses from your body. For instance, if you drank 50 grams of pure glucose diluted in water, you would trigger a much higher GI response than if you consumed 50 grams of fructose (fruit sugar), which is a low GI carbohydrate.

I wish that some local nutritionist would take the trouble to index all the common Malaysian foods so that we local fitness enthusiasts would have something to adhere to. So that we would know the GI of Roti Canai, Nasi Lemak, Naan, Dodol, Ketupat, etc.. you get what I’m trying to say?