GI Update

GI Q&A with Prof Jennie Brand-Miller



‘Are you better off drinking a small glass of fruit juice than a non-diet soft drink, cordial or sports drink?’
Fruit juices have a low GI in most cases (40–50) and they contribute valuable micronutrients that you won't find in alternative beverages. Some fruit juices are not low GI, e.g. Ocean Spray cranberry juice/drinks, which are around 60. Most non-diet soft drinks are in the GI range of 60–70. Sports drinks can be 70–80. A small glass of fruit juice is probably better than no fruit at all, but best not to make it a daily habit.

‘Does the high amount of fructose in juice have any effect on the release of glucose?’
When it comes to any sugary product (natural or otherwise), you have usually have a mixture of sucrose, glucose and fructose. Sucrose is digested quite quickly to glucose plus fructose before absorption. While glucose is generally absorbed rapidly, it can be slowed by acidic solutions (e.g. all fruits are acidic). Fructose absorption is a much slower process and doesn’t raise glycemia anyway. The high proportion of fructose in fruit and fruit juice is one reason why they have a low GI. But it’s not the only reason. Very large amounts of fructose (70g a day or more) from any source can have adverse effects on blood lipids (fats). The old adage applies: enjoy in moderation.


Credit: The Low GI Family Cookbook
Photograph by Ian Hofstetter

‘Are there any advantages to drinking fruit juices, or should we opt for whole fruit?’
Opt for whole fruit if you want to feel fuller (satiated) for a longer time. But as long as people limit themselves to one small glass a day, 100% fruit juice can be part of a healthy diet. I can’t think of any advantage of drinking fruit juices (I avoid them myself). It’s much more satiating to eat the same portion as the whole fruit. But I'm pragmatic too ... if there’s no fruit on hand, then fruit juice is better than no fruit, and superior to a soft drink.

Bear in mind that some researchers believe that sugars in solution (whether soft drinks or fruit juice) bypass the satiety centre in the brain, i.e. we don't register them properly and therefore don’t take their calories into proper account. I’d like to see more research on this question. Mother’s milk is a solution of 7% sugar (ie milk sugar = lactose) but babies seem to grow at the right rate

New GI values with Fiona Atkinson
Savoury snacks
Many of us like to nibble on a savoury snack occasionally. But these products (like potato crisps and burger rings etc) are usually high in fat and sodium and tend to have high GI values too. Here at SUGiRS we have just tested Arnott's ‘baked not fried’ Barbecue Shapes. They are a very popular range of savoury crackers here in Australia (about 44 million packets sold every year they say). Here’s what we found.

• A 25 g serving (about 10 pieces) of Barbecue Shapes (GI 48) provides around 546kJ (130 calories), 6g fat (incl nearly 3g sat fat), 16g carbs and just under 1g fibre and 188mg sodium.

GI testing by an accredited laboratory
North America
Dr Alexandra Jenkins
Glycemic Index Laboratories
36 Lombard Street, Suite 100
Toronto, Ontario M5C 2X3 Canada
Phone +1 416 861 0506
Email info@gilabs.com
Web http://www.gilabs.com/

Australia
Fiona Atkinson



Research Manager, Sydney University Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS)
Human Nutrition Unit, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences
Sydney University
NSW 2006 Australia
Phone + 61 2 9351 6018
Fax: + 61 2 9351 6022
Email sugirs@mmb.usyd.edu.au
Web http://www.glycemicindex.com/

See The New Glucose Revolution on YouTube

Making the Most of GI News

Subscribe - it's free!
To subscribe to GI News, simply click on the SUBSCRIBE link in the top right-hand column. Help us be sure our email newsletter isn’t filtered as spam. Add "gifeedback@gmail.com" to your address book to ‘whitelist’ us with your filter, helping future issues of GI News get to your inbox.

Your questions answered
If you have posted a question in GI News, be assured that the GI Group will answer this as soon as possible. We welcome your views about our articles and other reader’s suggestions. Please POST your comments and questions on the site.

Want to search past issues of GI News?
Want to search the GI News Archive for a particular topic, food or recipe? Make the most of our search feature with Google. Simply enter the term in the space provided and press SEARCH.

Want to print a copy of this GI News edition?
Download and print the PDF.

Copyright
This website and all information, data, documents, pages and images it contains is copyright under the Copyright Act 1968 (Commonwealth of Australia) (as amended) and the copyright laws of all member countries of the Berne Union and the Universal Copyright Convention.

Copyright in the website and in material prepared by GI News is owned by GI News, Human Nutrition Unit, University of Sydney. Copyright in quotations, images from published works and photo libraries, and materials contributed by third parties including our regular contributors Alan Barclay, Jennie Brand-Miller, Johanna Burani, Kate Hemphill, Joanna McMillan Price and Nicole Senior is owned by the respective authors or agencies, as credited.

GI News encourages the availability, dissemination and exchange of public information. You may include a link to GI News on your website. You may also copy, distribute, display, download and otherwise freely deal only with material owned by GI News, on the condition that you include the copyright notice “© GI News, Human Nutrition Unit, University of Sydney” on all uses and prominently credit the source as being GI News.

You must, however, obtain permission from GI News if you wish to do the following:

• charge others for access to the work
• include all or part of the work in advertising or a product for sale, or
• modify the work.

To obtain such permission, please contact gifeedback@gmail.com

This permission does not extend to material contributed and owned by other parties. We strongly recommend that you refer to the copyright statements at their respective websites and seek their permission before making use of any such material, whether images or text. Please contact GI News if you are in doubt as to the ownership of any material.

Disclaimer
GI News endeavours to check the veracity of news stories cited in this free e-newsletter by referring to the primary source, but cannot be held responsible for inaccuracies in the articles so published. GI News provides links to other World Wide Web sites as a convenience to users, but cannot be held responsible for the content or availability of these sites.

© ® & ™ The University of Sydney, Australia

GI News—May 2010

• Reduce your risk of heart disease with a low GI diet
• High GI carbs increase women's heart risk
• Fruit, veg and the other Big C
• Can you put a number on a low GI diet?
• Grapefruit: low GI and heart healthy
• Do all wholegrains provide the same heart benefits as oats and barley?
• GI values for traditional Chinese foods including pork buns
• Shopper's Guide to GI Values 2010 giveaway

‘The heart is the body’s engine room, nourishing every organ, muscle, nerve and bone with oxygen and nutrient-rich blood,’ says dietitian Nicole Senior in Eat to Beat Cholesterol. ‘So look after your heart and you can spend more time doing the things you enjoy, be able to participate in life with no restrictions, be around to enjoy your children and grand children, and live to see more great places and people.’ As May is Heart Week in Australia (2–8 May) and National Stroke Awareness Month in the US, we are focusing on diet and cardiovascular disease this issue and look at research that shows why being choosy about your carbs can help prevent heart disease and stroke.

Good eating, good health and good reading.

Editor: Philippa Sandall
Web management and design: Alan Barclay, PhD

Food for Thought

Reduce your risk of a heart disease with a low GI diet
The statistics for heart disease are pretty much the same everywhere in the developed world. It’s the biggest killer. Often the cause is atherosclerosis or ‘hardening of the arteries’ which develops slowly and quietly for years until bingo, it suddenly produces the stabbing pain of angina or a heart attack. Today, it’s affecting younger and younger people and the beginnings of blood vessel damage are even being seen in children.

Most people are aware of the key diet and lifestyle messages to reduce the likelihood of becoming a heart disease statistic: stopping smoking, getting more exercise and eating a healthy diet – especially cutting back on saturated fats, avoiding trans fats, and choosing the good fats. Fewer appreciate that high blood glucose levels are a red flag risk factor for heart disease, too. Here’s why. A high level of glucose in the blood means:

• Excess glucose moves into cells lining the arteries, causing inflammation, thickening and stiffening – the making of ‘hardened arteries’
• Highly reactive, charged particles called ‘free radicals’ are formed which destroy the machinery inside the cell, eventually causing the cell death
• Glucose adheres to cholesterol in the blood which promotes the formation of fatty plaque and prevents the body from breaking down excess cholesterol
• Higher levels of insulin raise blood pressure and blood fats, while suppressing ‘good’ (HDL) cholesterol levels

The results of a Harvard University study of over 100 000 people over 10 years (Nurses' Health Study) found that those who ate more high GI foods had nearly twice the risk of heart attack compared with those eating low GI diets. The increased risk associated with high GI diets was largely seen in those with a BMI over 23 – which takes in the great majority of adults (remember, a BMI of 20 to 25 is considered normal weight). This suggests that the insulin resistance that comes with increasing weight is an integral part of the problem. By lowering your blood glucose after meals and reducing high insulin levels, you’ll have:

• More potential for weight loss and for maintaining weight loss and therefore less pressure on the heart
• Healthier blood vessels that are more elastic, making dilation easier, improving blood flow and reducing inflammation
• Better blood fats – more of the good HDL cholesterol and less of the bad LDL.

News Briefs

High GI carbs increase women’s heart risk
‘A high consumption of carbohydrates from high GI foods, rather than the overall quantity of carbohydrates consumed, appears to influence the risk of developing coronary heart disease in women’ according to a large prospective study (the EPICOR study) published in Archives of Internal Medicine.


Dr Sabina Sieri Fondazione

Dr Sabina Sieri Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy, and colleagues analysed data on 44,132 adult volunteers (30,495 women and 13,637 men, aged 35 to 74 years old) who did not have cardiovascular disease at the start the study. They looked at the diet of the volunteers and followed them up for an average of nearly 8 years to see who developed coronary heart disease. They then compared the risk of developing heart disease among those with low GI and low GL diets with those with high GI and high GL diets.

In women (but not men), high carbohydrate intake and higher GL were associated with more than double the risk of developing heart disease during the 8 years. GI alone was not directly linked to heart disease but the researchers discovered something unique: increasing amounts of carbohydrate from high GI foods were associated with higher risk, while increasing amounts of low GI carbohydrate were not. (So you can eat your healthy low GI carbs with a guilt-free conscience). In men, there was no link between overall carbohydrate intake, GI or GL and heart disease risk. This could be because the adverse changes associated with carbohydrate intake, including triglyceride levels, are stronger risk factors for heart disease in women than in men, the authors note.

‘We tentatively suggest that the adverse effects of a high glycemic diet in women are mediated by sex-related differences in lipoprotein and glucose metabolism, but further prospective studies are required to verify a lack of association of a high dietary glycemic load with cardiovascular disease in men,’ they conclude.

Fruit and veg and the other big C
The study that really hit the headlines in April was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and reported only a borderline reduction in risk of cancer with increased consumption of total fruit and vegetables. The European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition showed that for every 200 grams (about two servings) of total fruits and vegetables eaten per day, the incidence of cancer was reduced by 4 per cent.

Apart from the usual problem of accurate (or inaccurate!) self reporting in studies like this, NHS Choices Behind the Headlines points out that ‘… this study did not assess the number of pieces or portions of fruit and vegetables eaten, only the total mass. On the basis of the study report, this could arguably have been made up of only a single fruit or vegetable.’



Harvard’s Prof. Walter Willett in an accompanying editorial reminds us that there’s still a pretty strong reason to get your five a day. It’s called cardiovascular disease (the biggest killer of men and women on most Western countries). He writes: ‘… in the same population of men and women that showed no association between fruits and vegetables and total cancer, incidence of coronary heart disease or stroke was 30% lower. Data from a large randomized trial showing that increasing intake of fruits and vegetables reduces blood pressure, a major determinant of cardiovascular disease, make the case for causality compelling, although benefits through additional pathways are also possible. Thus, recommendations and actions to increase intake of fruits and vegetables have a sound basis.’

The GI of your diet is a predictor of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease risk
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 37 prospective cohort studies on the association of dietary GI and the risk of developing common lifestyle-related diseases published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that diets with a high GI or a high GL increase your risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It also showed some evidence for links between the GI and gallstones and some types of cancer. ‘The key message,’ says lead author Dr Alan Barclay, ‘is that the GI of your diet is a predictor of your disease risk.’

Can you put a number on a low GI diet?
‘A GI of 45 or less is a reasonable definition of a low GI diet or meal,’ says dietitian and researcher Dr Alan Barclay. ‘This is because what we now know from numerous observational cohort studies around the world is that the daily average GI of the diet of people in the lowest quintile (20% of the population) is about 40–50. Similarly, in a meta-analysis published in Diabetes Care of 15 experimental studies investigating the role of low GI diets in managing diabetes, the daily average GI was 45. Since this average GI has been proven to have significant health benefits in people with existing diabetes and in reducing the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes, and importantly, people can and do achieve it in real life, we believe a GI of 45 or less is what we all need to be aiming for.’



Why it pays to be prudent and go low GI
Although further research into the role of GI in the prevention and management of obesity and chronic disease is needed, a large body of evidence provides robust support for the current popularity of low GI carbohydrate diets in the prevention of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Prof Jennie Brand-Miller and colleagues argue the case for low GI diets as a dietary strategy that is superior to that of lowering carbohydrate intake or increasing dietary protein in a review of the evidence published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.

‘Similar to other dietary factors (such as calories or kilojoules), the GI should not be the sole focus upon which food choices are made,’ they conclude. ‘Rather, the GI should be applied judiciously to select foods within the context of a prudent diet. However, it is not correct to assume that wholemeal (wholewheat), wholegrain, and high fiber foods are low GI. Indeed, a vast majority of ‘‘wholegrain’’ breads, breakfast cereals, and processed cereal products have a GI over 70. Moreover, the GI cannot be guessed by examination of the nutritional composition or physical attributes of a food. The need for GI testing of local foods is critical to the practical application of low GI diets.’

‘A low GI diet is a popular choice,’ says Jennie Brand-Miller speaking to GI News, ‘because it’s actually a very simple swap this for that message. You simply swap this high GI source of carbohydrate foods for that low GI one within the context of an overall healthy or what we like to call “prudent” diet. People find that they can stick to this way of eating because they aren’t being asked to restrict whole food groups. Our advice has always been to continue to eat what you like eating, but to fine-tune your choices by, say, replacing jasmine rice with basmati or one of the lower GI rices that have been tested.’

GI Group: Want to see how easy it is to switch to a prudent low GI diet? Download a copy of the GI Symbol Program's free booklet, Making Healthy Choices Easier.

Food of the Month

Grapefruit
The tang of fresh grapefruit (GI 25) will not only start your day with zest, just half a medium-sized one will deliver around 70% of your daily dose of vitamin C. Canned grapefruit segments (GI 47) and commercial grapefruit juice (GI 48) are easy year-round options when fresh fruit isn’t available, but as you can see they have higher GI values. In fact, fresh grapefruit has the lowest GI value of all fruit tested so far. It’s not just the acid that has a blood glucose-lowering effect, it’s also the pectin (a type of soluble fibre).

Grapefruit can play a smart part in helping you to reach your weight-loss goals as part of an overall healthy balanced diet being a nutrient-rich food that’s low in calories and high in volume (they are very juicy). A 2006 study in the Journal of Medicinal Food found that ‘half of a fresh grapefruit eaten before meals was associated with significant weight loss (an average of 1.6kg [3½lb] over twelve weeks).’ Insulin resistance also improved.

Writing in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry Israeli researchers report that a heart-healthy diet supplemented with fresh red grapefruit was effective in lowering triglycerides, a blood fat that’s a risk factor for heart disease. They divided 57 post-operative bypass patients with atherosclerosis (not taking statins) into three groups who were served a standard diet for 30 days with either a single serving of fresh red grapefruit, or a single serving of fresh white grapefruit, or no grapefruit (the control group). The men and women who consumed fresh red or white grapefruit had significant decreases in total and LDL cholesterol levels compared with the control group.

• Toss segments in salads with chickpeas; or fennel and rocket/arugula; smoked salmon and avocado; prawn and avocado; or witlof, radicchio, beets and avocado; or simply add to Asian greens with a citrus dressing.
• Whip up a winter fruit salad with grapefruit and orange segments, a sprinkle of raisins and a drizzle of honey.
• Spritz tangy grapefruit juice and soda for a fresh and fruit drink with fewer calories.

Grapefruit and medication: Grapefruit and grapefruit juice can interact with a number of medications, either making them work too strongly or causing unpleasant side effects. Mayo Clinic nutritionist Katherine Zeratsky, R.D. says: ‘If you're concerned about the effect grapefruit juice may have on your medications, talk to your doctor or pharmacist.’

In the GI News Kitchen

American dietitian and author of Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, Johanna Burani, shares favourite recipes with a low or moderate GI from her Italian kitchen. For more information, check out Johanna's website. The photographs are by Sergio Burani. His food, travel and wine photography website is photosbysergio.com.

Bowties ‘n’ Beans
This dish is as nutritious as it is fast, economical and really delicious. The Italians seem to be able to prepare effortlessly wholesome dishes with what’s in the fridge or in the vegetable garden or at the local market. Makes 5 one-cup serves

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
175g/6oz fresh spinach, washed and well drained, each leaf and stem quartered
6 oil-packed sundried tomatoes, coarsely chopped
400g (14oz) can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (1½ cups)
pinch dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cup hot water
2 cups uncooked farfalle (bowtie or butterfly) pasta
1 tbsp oil from sundried tomatoes jar
2 tbsp grated pecorino romano cheese

• Warm the olive oil in a large heavy pan. Add the garlic and the spinach and sauté on medium-high heat for 4–5 minutes or until the spinach leaves look wilted. Add the tomatoes, beans, thyme, salt and pepper and hot water. Lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
• In the meantime, cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente.
• Drain the pasta and add to the sauce in the pan. Drizzle the oil from the sun-dried tomatoes jar over the pasta and mix well, using tongs. Serve immediately with the grated cheese on the side.

Per 1-cup serving
Energy: 962 kJ/ 229 cals; Protein 10 g; Fat 8 g (includes 1 g saturated fat and 3 mg cholesterol); Carbs 31 g; Fibre 5 g

Cut back on the food bills and enjoy easily prepared, seasonal, satisfying and delicious low or moderate GI meals that don’t compromise on quality and flavour one little bit with Money Saving Meals author Diane Temple. For more recipes check out Diane's Money Saving Meals website.

Chicken and barley risotto
Barley is a healthy low GI grain that’s perfect for cheap eats at home. It’s also one of those magic foods we should be eating more of (nutritious and high in soluble fibre). It takes about 35 minutes to cook and you can use it in place of rice as a side dish (cooked in stock for extra flavour), or added to soups, stews and pilafs or to make a ‘cheat’s risotto’ like this one. Serves 4 to 6

450g (1lb) skinless chicken thigh fillets, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1½ cups pearl barley
5½ cups hot chicken stock
120g (4oz) green beans, trimmed, sliced into 3 pieces
1 cup frozen peas
¼ cup chopped parsley
1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

• Pop the chicken in a small bowl with the vinegar and oregano, toss to coat and set aside for 5–10 minutes. Use the marinating time to chop the onion and trim the beans.
• Cook the chicken in 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large pan for 3–4 minutes over medium heat, turning to brown on all sides. Lift out and set aside, covered, to keep warm. Heat the remaining oil and sauté the onion and garlic on a low heat for about 5 minutes until the onion is soft. Stir through the barley making sure it is well coated then tip in the hot stock, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and let the risotto simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Stir in the chicken and continue simmering for a further 10 minutes. Add the beans and cook for 3 minutes, then stir through the peas, parsley and Parmesan cheese, and cook until the peas have heated through (about 1–2 minutes). Taste, season with freshly ground black pepper and serve as is or with a tossed salad.

Per serving (based on 4 servings)
Energy: 2386 kJ/ 570 cals; Protein 39g; Fat 19g (includes 4g saturated fat and 96mg cholesterol); Carbs 53g; Fibre 13g

Barbecued chermoula lamb with pumpkin and eggplant burghul
GI News myth-buster, Nicole Senior, has published two cookbooks (Eat to Beat Cholesterol and Heart Food) both with home economist Veronica Cuskelly to show how deliciously easy it is to tuck into heart-friendly foods like vegetables, low GI wholegrains, fruits, nuts, fish and lean meats and healthy oils. This low GI recipe for two is from Eat to Beat Cholesterol. When we made it we found it could also serve three people for a lighter meal easily. Serves 2-3

200g (7oz) piece lamb (loin eye)
3 tsp chermoula (or a Moroccan) spice mix
½ cup burghul (bulgur)
1 cup boiling water
2 cups diced (1cm/½in) butternut pumpkin
½ cup sliced beans
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup sliced onion
2¼ cups sliced baby eggplant (aubergine)
Olive oil cooking spray
½ cup reduced fat plain yoghurt, lightly beaten
2 tbsp chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves

• Sprinkle 2 tsp of the chermoula spice all over the lamb and press into the flesh; cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
• Meanwhile, place the burghul, boiling water and remaining teaspoon of chermoula in a bowl and allow to stand for 15–20 minutes until the grains have softened.
• Place the pumpkin in a small saucepan, just cover with water and cook, covered, until tender, 4–5 minutes, add the beans and cook for a further 1–2 minutes. Drain, reserving ¼ cup of the cooking liquid.
• Heat oil in a non-stick pan over a medium heat and cook the onion for 1–2 minutes. Add the eggplant and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until cooked. Stir in the pumpkin, beans, the reserved cooking liquid and burghul and cook, stirring, for a further 1–2 minutes. Keep warm.
• Spray a barbecue with olive oil spray and cook the lamb as liked, turning once. Wrap in foil to rest in a warm place for 5 minutes then slice finely across the grain.
• To serve, spoon half the burghul mix on each plate and top with lamb slices and a dollop of yoghurt sprinkled with coriander.

Per serving (based on 3 serves)
Energy: 1718kJ/ 410cals; Protein 26g; Fat 13g (includes 3g saturated fat and 47mg cholesterol); Carbs 47g; Fibre 10g

Check out Nicole’s website for more information on Eat to Beat Cholesterol and Heart Food – they are packed with heart-friendly recipes the whole family will love.

Busting Food Myths with Nicole Senior

Myth: We need to eat salt


Nicole Senior

Fact: We add salt to foods because we like, not because we need it
I heard a food critic talking about salt (the main source of sodium in our diet) on the radio recently. He very much supported chefs adding salt to cooking because he said food had no flavour without it. He also said adding salt was good for us because the body needs it. He was half right on the first point but dead wrong on the second.

Our physiological need for sodium is actually very low. The average Adequate Intake for an adult is between 460–920mg sodium per day (equivalent to 1–2g salt). This is easily provided by the natural sodium content in whole foods such as meat, dairy, vegetables, fruits, grains, seeds and nuts. For example, a chicken drumstick, a cup of milk, a cup of mixed vegetables, a small banana, a cup of cooked rice, or 1/3 cup of mixed nuts all contain 100mg each.

Eating too much salt raises blood pressure and this is a risk factor for heart disease. It’s particularly bad news for people with diabetes because it also increases the risk of other complications as well, such as stroke, kidney damage and eye disease. Here in Australia for example, AWASH (Australians for World Action on Salt and Health) says we eat on average 9g of salt a day when the Suggested Dietary Target is 4g. Reducing our salt intake by 25–35% could lead to a 20% or greater reduction in risk of heart attacks and stroke.



So how did we get to a situation where eating too much salt became common place, and a pizza contains twice your daily recommended amount? Let’s start with the tongue. Human taste buds have receptors for sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (a savoury flavour) and possibly fat according to a recent study. The salt taste helped early man find mineral rich foods for survival in the same way sweetness helped to find foods high in sugars for energy. Of course the taste for salt was very sensitive to the low concentrations in wild, unprocessed foods. As we switched from hunter-gatherers to agricultural communities, we needed a way to preserve foods and salt was an excellent way to ensure food was available all year round. It was then our taste for salt began.

Then the industrial and technological revolutions radically changed the way we buy, store, cook and buy food. Nowadays we have sophisticated packaging, refrigeration, canning and freezing. From a preservation point of view, salt is redundant. While salt still fulfils some technical functions in food processing, by far the over-riding reason it is in our foods in large amounts is because we like the taste. We have grown accustomed to over-salted foods so much that we crave it and miss it when it’s gone. This of course creates a dilemma for restaurants and food manufacturers who want to use less salt – people complain there is less flavour.

So how do we cut back on salt as a community? There needs to be both a push from consumers for less salty foods and a pull from the food industry to use less. One won’t work without the other. We all have to wean ourselves off our lust for salt by cutting down gradually to give our abused taste buds a chance to recover and rediscover the taste of real and natural flavours again. Checking food labels to find lower sodium options will help, but so will switching to more fresh unprocessed foods and holding back on salt in cooking. It’s simple really, eat less salt and live a longer and healthier life.

For more straight talking nutrition advice and lower-salt recipes to look after your heart, go to www.eattobeatcholesterol.com.au

GI Symbol News with Dr Alan Barclay

Dr Alan Barclay

Getting to the heart of the wholegrain matter
Eating more wholegrain foods is associated with a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke) based on the evidence from a number of large observational studies published in recent years. For example, the Nurses’ Health Study reported that women who ate the most (an average of 2.5 servings a day) intact grain foods – generally wholegrain breakfast cereals, brown rice and whole grain bread – were 30% less likely to develop heart disease than women eating merely a single serving of these foods a week. Since then, ‘consume more wholegrains’ has become something of a mantra by dietitians, nutritionists and medical doctors, and is enshrined in dietary guidelines around the globe. But do all wholegrains reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease?

For oats and barley, there’s both observational and intervention (clinical trial) data suggesting that bran and some soluble fibre components in these grains improve blood cholesterol and other markers of cardiovascular disease risk. The picture is not so clear, however, when it comes to mixed sources of wholegrain foods, with conflicting results from the small number of clinical trials that have been published to-date.

In the most recently published clinical trial, researchers from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne have found that when they provided overweight but otherwise healthy men and women with a range of wholegrain foods and asked them to substitute them ‘like for like’ for refined grain foods in their typical diet over a 16 week period, there were no significant differences in any markers of cardiovascular disease risk (cholesterol, triglycerides, insulin sensitivity and a range of common inflammatory markers) between those who substituted wholegrain foods into their diet, and those who didn’t (the control group).



Writing in the British Journal of Nutrition the authors conclude: “… the duration of this controlled intervention study represents a very short period of dietary change in the context of lifelong dietary exposures, and may be insufficient to change the lifetime disease trajectory for these individuals with a strong pre-existing risk factor .... The present study sounds a note of caution to the specific health claims for whole grain-rich foods and cardiovascular health. However, it does not undermine more general efforts to promote whole grains as part of a healthy diet for the general population across the life course, based on data from observational studies.”

We don't know the full details about what the participants in this study ate, but using the data for the cereal grain foods that they were provided with (they are listed in Table 1 in the study), we cheekily estimated the (weighted) average GI of the wholegrains consumed in the diets – the men's would have been around 61 and the women's around 62. In fact, only one of the wholegrain foods given to the study participants – whole wheat pasta – was likely to have a low GI (≤ 55). As we said earlier in this issue (Can You Put a Number on a Low GI Diet?), it's an average GI of 45 that has been proven to have significant health benefits in people with existing diabetes and in reducing the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes. At this stage, it appears unlikely that high GI wholegrains will have the same benefits.

Of course, that does not mean you should give up on wholegrains, they offer a range of other health benefits. Just say no thanks to finely milled grain foods even when they claim to be 'wholegrain' and head for the low GI, whole kernel grains, like those found in hulled or pearl barley, whole kernel wheat, grainy, granary breads like Burgen or Tip Top 9 grain bread, whole wheat pasta, and traditional porridge oats and mueslis like Morning Sun. If in doubt, look for the GI Symbol.






For more information about the GI Symbol Program
Dr Alan W Barclay, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Glycemic Index Foundation (Ltd)
Phone: +61 (0)2 9785 1037
Mob: +61 (0)416 111 046
Fax: +61 (0)2 9785 1037
Email: alan@gisymbol.com
Website: www.gisymbol.com

GI Update

GI Q&A with Prof Jennie Brand-Miller



Can you explain why some ‘wholegrains’ have a low GI and others don’t?
Not all ‘wholegrain’ foods are created equal, in fact they can behave quite differently in our bodies depending on the following five key factors that can slow digestion, making them even better-for-you low GI choices.

Starch matters There are two types of starch found in foods – amylose and amylopectin – and the ratio of them in foods can vary considerably. The more amylose a food contains, the less easily the starch is gelatinised and the slower its rate of digestion. This is because amylose is a straight chain molecule, like a string of beads. These tend to line up in rows and form compact clumps. Legumes have lots of amylose as does basmati rice. Amylopectin on the other hand is a string of glucose molecules with lots of branching points, such as you see in some sorts of seaweed. Amylopectin molecules are larger and more open and the starch is easier to gelatinise and digest as in jasmine rice.
Size matters The larger the particle size, the lower the GI. It’s the grinding or milling of cereals that reduces the particle size that makes it easier for water to be absorbed and enzymes to attack during digestion. That is why cereal foods made from fine flours like many breakfast cereals tend to have a high GI value.
Fibre matters Soluble fibres – the gel, gum and often jelly-like components of foods like oats, legumes and apples – can lower your body’s glycemic response to a food because they slow down the time it takes for food to pass through the stomach and small intestine.



Insoluble fibres are dry and bran-like and often referred to as roughage. Insoluble fibres will only lower the GI of a food when they exist in their intact, original form, for example in whole grains of wheat (the kernel). Here they act as a physical barrier, delaying access of digestive enzymes and water to the starch within the cereal grain.
Physical entrapment The fibrous coat around foods like beans, chickpeas, lentils, barley and seeds acts as a physical barrier. It slows down access of the digestive enzymes to the starch inside and thus slowing digestion.
Starch gelatinization The starch in raw food is stored in hard, compact granules that make it difficult to digest. During cooking, water and heat expand these starch granules to different degrees – some actually burst freeing the individual starch molecules inside. If most of the starch granules have swollen and burst during cooking, we say that the starch is fully gelatinised. These swollen granules and free starch molecules are very easy to digest.

New GI values with Fiona Atkinson
Hurrah! A GI value for traditional Chinese pork buns!
The April edition of World Journal of Gastroenterology includes the GI values of 23 popular Chinese traditional foods tested by Prof Wong Heung-sang Stephen and his colleagues in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The results of this study are also preliminary references on the setup of a GI database for Chinese traditional foods. You can find the GI and GL values of these foods on the database at www.glycemicindex.com

• Low GI: tuna fish bun, egg tart, green bean dessert, Chinese herbal jelly, fried rice vermicelli in Singapore-style, and spring roll
• Moderate GI: baked barbecued pork puff, fried fritter, “mai-lai” cake, “pineapple” bun, fried rice noodles with sliced beef, barbecue pork bun, moon cakes, glutinous rice ball, instant sweet milky bun, and salted meat rice dumpling
• High GI: fried rice in Yangzhou- style, sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf, steamed glutinous rice roll, jam and peanut butter toast, plain steamed vermicelli roll, red bean dessert, and frozen sweet milky bun

Correspondence to: Stephen Heung-sang Wong, email: hsswong@cuhk.edu.hk

The Shopper's Guide to GI Values 2010 Giveaway
Find the GI values of your favourite foods and brands at a glance IN THE 2010 EDITION OF The shopper’s Guide to GI Values. It has the GI values of over 1000 foods plus special sections on sugars and sweeteners, gluten-free eating, and dining out.

The Australian Edition Giveaway is now closed. Thanks for all your support, we had over 400 entries. We will post the names of the Australian winners below in the next couple of days.

The US Edition Giveaway is now closed. Thanks for all your support, we had over 500 entries. We will post the names of the American winners below in the next couple of days.

	We have 6 copies of The Shopper's Guide to GI Values 2010 published by Da Capo Lifelong Books to give away to residents in the US and Canada only. The first six people to email will receive a free copy. Just click on the book cover to enter your name and address in the draw.
	We also have 6 copies of The Shopper's Guide to GI Values 2010 published by Hachette Australia to give away to residents in Australia only. The first six people to email will receive a free copy. Just click on the book cover to enter your name and address in the draw.

GI testing by an accredited laboratory
North America
Dr Alexandra Jenkins
Glycemic Index Laboratories
36 Lombard Street, Suite 100
Toronto, Ontario M5C 2X3 Canada
Phone +1 416 861 0506
Email info@gilabs.com
Web www.gilabs.com

Australia
Fiona Atkinson



Research Manager, Sydney University Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS)
Human Nutrition Unit, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences
Sydney University
NSW 2006 Australia
Phone + 61 2 9351 6018
Fax: + 61 2 9351 6022
Email sugirs@mmb.usyd.edu.au
Web www.glycemicindex.com

See The New Glucose Revolution on YouTube

Making the Most of GI News

Subscribe - it's free!
To subscribe to GI News, simply click on the SUBSCRIBE link in the top right-hand column. Help us be sure our email newsletter isn’t filtered as spam. Add "gifeedback@gmail.com" to your address book to ‘whitelist’ us with your filter, helping future issues of GI News get to your inbox.

Your questions answered
If you have posted a question in GI News, be assured that the GI Group will answer this as soon as possible. We welcome your views about our articles and other reader’s suggestions. Please POST your comments and questions on the site.

Want to search past issues of GI News?
Want to search the GI News Archive for a particular topic, food or recipe? Make the most of our search feature with Google. Simply enter the term in the space provided and press SEARCH.

Want to print a copy of this GI News edition?
Download and print the PDF.

Copyright
This website and all information, data, documents, pages and images it contains is copyright under the Copyright Act 1968 (Commonwealth of Australia) (as amended) and the copyright laws of all member countries of the Berne Union and the Universal Copyright Convention.

Copyright in the website and in material prepared by GI News is owned by GI News, Human Nutrition Unit, University of Sydney. Copyright in quotations, images from published works and photo libraries, and materials contributed by third parties including our regular contributors Alan Barclay, Jennie Brand-Miller, Johanna Burani, Kate Hemphill, Joanna McMillan Price and Nicole Senior is owned by the respective authors or agencies, as credited.

GI News encourages the availability, dissemination and exchange of public information. You may include a link to GI News on your website. You may also copy, distribute, display, download and otherwise freely deal only with material owned by GI News, on the condition that you include the copyright notice “© GI News, Human Nutrition Unit, University of Sydney” on all uses and prominently credit the source as being GI News.

You must, however, obtain permission from GI News if you wish to do the following:

• charge others for access to the work
• include all or part of the work in advertising or a product for sale, or
• modify the work.

To obtain such permission, please contact gifeedback@gmail.com

This permission does not extend to material contributed and owned by other parties. We strongly recommend that you refer to the copyright statements at their respective websites and seek their permission before making use of any such material, whether images or text. Please contact GI News if you are in doubt as to the ownership of any material.

Disclaimer
GI News endeavours to check the veracity of news stories cited in this free e-newsletter by referring to the primary source, but cannot be held responsible for inaccuracies in the articles so published. GI News provides links to other World Wide Web sites as a convenience to users, but cannot be held responsible for the content or availability of these sites.

© ® & ™ The University of Sydney, Australia

GI News—April 2010

• Why some of us are designed to drink milk and others aren’t
• The GI values of milks and yogurts
• Milk, muscle gain and fat loss
• Calcium, vitamin D and diabetes risk
• Are dairy-free diets better for you?
• Chocolate milk and recovery after exercise
• Nutrition profiling

For many of us, milk and yogurt are the key to strong healthy bones. By choosing the reduced fat or skim varieties we enjoy a low GI food that provides us with sustained energy and boosts our calcium intake but not our saturated fat intake. In this issue we will be looking at other benefits including the role of dairy foods in achieving and maintaining a healthy weight and why some athletes like chocolate milk.

Good eating, good health and good reading.

Editor: Philippa Sandall
Web management and design: Alan Barclay, PhD

Food for Thought

Why some of us are designed to drink milk and others aren’t
‘The answer lies in evolution and genetic changes and not in ideology,’ says Glenn Cardwell.


Glenn Cardwell

What is lactose intolerance? Our major source of lactose is milk (cow, goat, sheep, domesticated buffalo, camel and human) or yogurt. It is not found in hard cheese or butter. When we are born, we have a digestive enzyme called lactase to break down lactose in breast milk to its constituent sugars, glucose and galactose, which are then absorbed into the blood.

By the age of five, many people no longer produce their lactase enzyme and can’t digest lactose any more. For them, large amounts of lactose can cause intestinal cramping because gut bacteria convert the lactose to gas and lactic acid. Not comfortable. They are now lactose intolerant.

Why some of us can continue drinking milk after early childhood Scientists have been able to check DNA from around the world and by marrying their findings to human history (who lived where, when), have given us a better understanding why some of us can enjoy milk and yogurt and ice-cream right throughout our lives and others can’t.

Around 10,000 years ago, when humans started to keep cattle as a beasts of burden and a source of meat, the ability to handle lactose in adulthood was absent. However, at some point over the next thousand years or so, a mutation occurred which allowed some people to be able to drink milk well past their fifth birthday and on into adulthood. Researchers who have studied the DNA from skeleton remains in central Europe, report that about 80% of people in this area had the mutation for tolerating lactose about 7000 years ago. This is a rapid spread of a mutation, strongly suggesting that it offered a survival advantage to milk drinkers, according to a new book (and a really terrific read), The 10,000 Year Explosion – How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution (Gregory Cochran & Henry Harpending).

Over time, the mutation became more dominant in parts of Europe through to northern India. It is thought the mutation occurred independently in parts of Arabia when the camel became domesticated and camel milk became part of the local diet.



In fact, being able to tolerate lactose in the diet, allowed the expansion of Indo-Europeans, tracked by both the spread of lactose tolerance and the Indo-European languages (e.g. Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, German, French). Put another way, if your native language was Indo-European in origin, then there was a good chance you could handle lactose over the last 7000 years or so. It also explains why eastern and southern Asia, Japan, parts of Africa and the indigenous folk of Australia have both a very different language background and the inability to handle lactose after being weaned.’

Glenn's complete article is HERE.

News Briefs

Dairy foods and weight
Although the jury is still out, the bulk of the evidence suggests that dairy foods play a beneficial role in weight management according to Dr Marta Van Loan who has reviewed some of the most recent scientific evidence in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Her umbrella review covers observational and retrospective studies with adults as well as children and adolescents plus randomized clinical trials on body weight and composition, energy expenditure, substrate oxidation and fecal fat loss. She turns to research from animal and in vitro studies to investigate possible mechanisms.


Dr Marta Van Loan

In her conclusion she says: ‘In general, data from observational studies shows that dairy is a healthy, nutrient-rich food that, as part of a balanced diet, is inversely associated with body weight and body fat in children, adolescents and adults. In addition, several randomized clinical trials have demonstrated that diets including three servings of milk, yogurt and cheese per day enhance body weight and/or body fat loss in obese and overweight adults during caloric restriction and when dairy and/or calcium intakes are increased from inadequate to adequate. Moreover, weight loss was achieved in all clinical studies examining the role of dairy in weight loss where caloric-restriction was induced.’

Calcium, vitamin D and diabetes risk
Getting enough calcium and vitamin D for strong bones is a message we are all pretty familiar with. But there’s more. Emerging evidence suggests that getting enough of them also plays a role in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. And many of us aren’t getting enough.

Looking at the role of vitamin D and calcium in type 2 diabetes in a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Dr A. G. Pittas and colleagues found that:

• ‘Observational studies show a relatively consistent association between low vitamin D status, calcium or dairy intake, and type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome.’
• ‘Evidence from trials with vitamin D and/or calcium supplementation suggests that combined vitamin D and calcium supplementation may have a role in the prevention of type 2 diabetes only in populations at high risk (i.e. those with impaired glucose intolerance).’
• ‘The available evidence is limited because most observational studies are cross-sectional and did not adjust for important confounders, whereas intervention studies were short in duration, included few subjects, used a variety of formulations.’

In examining the intake of milk and milk products specifically between type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, the researchers found there was a lower risk for type 2 diabetes among individuals with the highest dairy intake (3–5 servings per day) compared to those getting less than 1½ servings each day. They make the point that ‘although calcium and vitamin D are important components of dairy products, their contribution to the measured outcomes cannot be separated from other components in dairy products.’

You can find links to recent papers on dairy foods and type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome published in peer-reviewed journals on Canada’s Dairy Nutrition website HERE and in the European Dairy Association's (EDA) quarterly newsletter, Dairy Nutrition Digest.

Dairy foods may reduce diabetes risk
A diet with a higher intake of milk and a lower intake of staples like bread and rice may reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes suggests the latest findings from the Shanghai Women’s Health Study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The researchers identified three patterns: cluster 1 – women with the highest intake of dietary staples (rice, bread, and associated products); cluster 2 – women with the highest intake of dairy milk; cluster 3 – women with the highest energy intake. They found women in cluster 2:

• Were less likely to have abdominal obesity or hypertension when they entered the study compared with women in clusters 1 and 3.
• Had a 22% lower relative risk for developing type 2 diabetes during follow-up (when cluster 1 women were used as a reference).

Milk and recovery after exercise
‘Several studies report that milk can be just as effective as sports drinks to aid recovery in athletes,’ says Dr Emma Stevenson. ‘Cockburn and colleagues found having plain semi-skim milk after exercise that had resulted in muscle damage was more effective than a carbohydrate sports drink at lessening the decrease in muscle performance and the increase in creatine kinase and myoglobin (these are blood markers of muscle damage).’

However, at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, it was chocolate milk not plain semi-skim milk that was conspicuous by its presence with numerous elite athletes regularly seen drinking it. In 2006, Karp and colleagues had reported in the Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism that chocolate milk not only reduces muscle damage after exercise, but can also improve subsequent endurance capacity in well trained cyclists. It’s the extra sugars in chocolate milk that make it better for recovery than plain milk they speculated.

In a 2009 study published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, nine trained male cyclists cycled 51% and 43% longer after drinking chocolate milk than after carbohydrate and fluid replacement drinks respectively despite the beverages having very similar calorie (or energy) contents. For this study, the athletes completed a glycogen depletion workout, drank one of the three test beverages during a four-hour recovery period, and then cycled in an endurance capacity trial over three experimental trials. 'This difference could be attributable to differences in carbohydrate type and (or) fat content between the beverages,' write the study authors.

‘It is most likely that the combination of carbs and protein provided in milk is the reason why it is such a good recovery product for athletes,’ says Dr Stevenson. ‘Skim or reduced fat milk (plain or chocolate) also has a low GI and so can be a healthier alternative to sports drinks (yes, even with the added sugar in the chocolate drink).’


Photo: Cass Mortimer Eipper, Timothy O'Donnell, Emma Sandall and Joseph Simons from dance company Ludwig: www.ludwig.com.au

Milk, muscle gain and fat loss
A recent study by researchers at Canada’s McMasters University has found that women, like men, can reap the benefits of skim milk when exercising and training. The March issue of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found women who drank 2 cups of skim milk immediately after resistance exercise gained more muscle mass that those who drank a sports drink. The milk drinkers also benefited from a reduction in fat mass; the sports drink drinkers didn’t. For the study, the women exercised five days a week for 12 weeks and changes in their body composition were measured. ‘We believe there are two main constituents (among many other minor ones) responsible for the beneficial effects on muscle gain and fat loss,’ says lead author Andrea Josse, ‘protein and calcium/vitamin D.’

Nutrition profiling
US First Lady Michelle Obama speaking at the Grocery Manufacturers Association Conference said: ‘The vast majority of Americans rely on labels to help them decide what foods to buy. But we know those labels aren’t always as helpful as they could be. And it’s hard enough to figure out whether any one food item is healthy. It’s even harder to compare items. And folks just don’t have the time to line products up side by side and figure out whether these compare or not. And they shouldn’t have to ... We need clear, consistent, front-of-the-package labels that give people the information they’ve been asking for, in a format that they understand’


Michelle Obama

While we wait for those ‘clear, consistent, front-of-the-package labels,’ US-based Hannaford Supermarkets did something about it. They introduced the Guiding Stars nutrition profiling scheme to make it easier and quicker for people to identify the healthier options in their stores. With the exception of bottled water, alcoholic beverages, coffee, tea, spices, all edible products are rated. The more nutritional value a food has for its calories, the more stars it gets on a good, better, best nutritional value scale of zero to three. Many get zero.

Does it work? Well it may not be the perfect system (it does not take account of a food’s GI value for example), but research recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that it has had a positive influence on healthier food choices. The study was conducted by Dr Lisa Sutherland and colleagues who were on the program's Scientific Advisory Panel at the time the research was undertaken.

‘We used purchasing data from 2006 to 2008 from Hannaford Supermarkets,’ said Sutherland, ‘and examined the data before the Guiding Stars scheme was introduced and one and two years after it was implemented. When we looked at ready-to-eat breakfast cereals as a case study, we found that purchase of star-rated cereals by shoppers significantly increased at one-year and continued to increase in year-two. Although we did not measure individual diet, the purchasing of low-sugar, high-fiber cereals increased greatly after program implementation. This finding is of particular importance to our understanding the potential impact of such programs on consumer diet’.



Betts Fitzgerald, Managing Director of Guiding Stars Licensing Company, told GI News that the program ‘has now been implemented in more than 1500 supermarkets in the US including Hannaford, Food Lion, Bloom and Sweetbay. Kings Super Markets will launch Guiding Stars in 2010.’ Read more at www.guidingstars.com.

GI Group: If you shop in these supermarkets, please tell us if you find nutrition profiling like this helpful and whether seeing one, two, three or no stars has changed any purchasing decisions.

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.


Soy milk is dairy- and lactose-free and an easy way to include soy protein in your diet. The GI values of soy milks range from 16–45. To ensure it is a suitable alternative to regular dairy milk, manufacturers enrich it with calcium, riboflavin and vitamin B12.

Oat milk’s GI value (69) is roughly twice that of dairy milk, however we think it’s probably a better option than rice milk (GI 79–92) if you are choosing a grain-based milk. Look for calcium-enriched products. The only GI-tested almond milk to date is Almond Breeze (GI 25 for Almond Breeze Original). It’s not a significant source of protein or carbs (1g and 2g respectively in 240ml serving). We reported on it in GI News HERE. Rice milks that have been tested to date have very high GI values (Australia’s Own GI 92 and Vitasoy GI 79). They are typically processed from brown rice and are essentially a source of carbs (24g per cup). Choose calcium-enriched products if you buy them.

Yogurt’s low GI values are thanks (mainly) to the combination of acidity and high protein and of course the fact that lactose, the sugar in milk, has a naturally low GI (46). How low does yogurt go? Well, testing at the University of Sydney has found ‘diet’ yogurts have the lowest GI values (14–21) and contain fewer kilojoules/calories, and around half the carbohydrate compared with yogurts that have added sugars (26–43). Even if you are lactose intolerant, you can enjoy yogurt without symptoms because the ‘bugs’ (i.e. culture organisms added to milk to make yogurt) do the job of lactase digestion for you.



Soy yogurt (GI 50) is usually made from soybeans or soy protein rather than soy drink. Look for calcium-enriched, low fat varieties.

In the GI News Kitchen

American dietitian and author of Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, Johanna Burani, shares favourite recipes with a low or moderate GI from her Italian kitchen. For more information, check out Johanna's website. The photographs are by Sergio Burani. His food, travel and wine photography website is photosbysergio.com.

Seafood and mushroom lasagne
Lasagne is often the first choice for a special menu. I always use traditional Italian uncooked lasagne sheets. If you use pre-cooked ones, make extra white sauce for extra moisture.
Serves 8

2 tbsp olive oil
½ cup shallots or onion, finely chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
230g (8oz) mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 tbsp finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
½ tbsp fresh thyme leaves
450g (1lb) seafood (I use 225g/½lb medium-size uncooked shrimps/prawns, cut into 6 pieces and 225g/½lb scallops, quartered
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 cups 2% milk
4 tbsp butter or margarine
4 tbsp all-purpose flour
16 lasagne strips uncooked

• Preheat oven to 200ºC (400ºF).
• In a large, heavy-based skillet or frying pan, add the olive oil, shallots and garlic and sauté lightly for 2 minutes. Add in the mushrooms and continue sautéing for 2 minutes. Add the parsley and thyme, mix all ingredients well, and cook for 2 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high and add the shrimps. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring well. Add in the scallops. Continue cooking the mixture until all shrimp pieces have turned pink (approximately 2 minutes). Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
• In a small pot, pour the milk and heat gently until it slowly begins to bubble (approximately 7 minutes), removed from heat and cover the milk to keep it hot.
• In a separate, small, heavy saucepan, melt the butter or margarine, add the flour and whisk briskly for 1–2 minutes, taking care to prevent browning. Gradually add the hot milk to the butter-flour mixture, a few tablespoons at a time, continuing to whisk. Continue until all the milk has been added and the mixture is smooth and thick enough to coat a spoon. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
• In a large pot with salted boiling water, cook the lasagne strips, 6 at a time, following the manufacturer’s instructions. However, limit cooking time to just 7 minutes. Remove the lasagne strips with a slotted spoon and place on a clean linen kitchen towel, taking care that they do not overlap. Continue until all the pasta is cooked.
• Assemble the lasagne as follows: Place 2–3 tablespoons of the plain white (besciamella) sauce on the bottom of a lasagne pan (30 x 22 x 5cm deep/13 x 9 x 2¼in deep). Add the remaining sauce to the seafood-mushroom mixture. Place 4 lasagne strips on the bottom of the pan, allowing them to slightly overlap. Spread about ¾ cup of the mixture evenly over the pasta. Keep forming layers this way until all the pasta and sauce are used up. There will be 4 layers. Cover the pan with aluminium foil and place it on the upper rack of the oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil and continue baking for another 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, cover with aluminium foil and let it rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Per serving
Energy: 1560 kJ/ 370 cals; Protein 22 g; Fat 12 g (includes 3 g saturated fat and 59 mg cholesterol if using margarine); Carbs 46 g; Fibre 2 g

Cut back on the food bills and enjoy easily prepared, seasonal, satisfying and delicious low or moderate GI meals that don’t compromise on quality and flavour one little bit with Money Saving Meals author Diane Temple. For more recipes check out Diane's Money Saving Meals website.

Cauliflower pasta
You can ring the changes with this recipe simply by using a different cheese or herb for flavouring.
Serves 4

300g (10 oz) pasta such as penne (or your favourite shapes)
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cauliflower (about 750g/1½lb), cut into florets
1 cup fresh (low GI of course) breadcrumbs
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/4 tsp chilli flakes (or more to taste)
2 tsp dried oregano
1/3 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
1/3 cup roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley

• Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boiling water following the directions on the packet until al dente. Drain, but reserve a little of the pasta cooking water. Tip the pasta back into the saucepan and stir in 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Cover to keep warm. Meanwhile ...
• Cook the cauliflower until just tender (about 5 minutes), drain and set aside keeping warm. Heat 1½ tablespoons oil in a large frying pan and sauté the breadcrumbs and garlic for about 1½–2 minutes until the breadcrumbs are golden and crunchy, stirring constantly. Don't let them catch and burn. Tip them into a small heatproof bowl.
• Wipe the frying pan clean with a paper towel and heat the remaining oil. Sauté the chilli flakes, oregano and cauliflower for about 2–3 minutes on a medium heat until cauliflower starts to brown, stirring occasionally.
• Tip the cauliflower mixture into the pasta along with the breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and chopped parsley, adding a little of the reserved pasta water of you wish. Season with freshly ground black pepper, mix thoroughly and serve.

Per serving
Energy: 1910kJ/ 456 cals; Protein 15 g; Fat 17 g (includes 3g saturated fat and 6mg cholesterol); Carbs 55g Fibre 7g

Gabriel Gaté’s mother’s rabbit, carrot and prune casserole
This recipe is from Recipes My Mother Cooked – a new book of family recipes and mealtime stories that provides a heart-warming reminder of the timeless benefits of home cooking and sitting down together for dinner. We would love to hear about your mother's favourite recipes.

‘My mother has always shared with me her love of good food. She is très gourmande! I grew up in the Loire Valley and my parents grew most of the vegetables, herbs and fruits that we needed. We also had a tiny vineyard and made our own wine. Both my Mum and Grandmother prepared the family meals, and from an early age encouraged us kids to contribute by asking us to do small jobs like peeling vegetables or making a salad dressing or mayonnaise. Some of my most memorable moments in the kitchen were helping to garnish the delicious home-made fruit tarts with raspberries, strawberries or apple. Rabbit was one of our favourite meats and during the winter months, wild rabbits were sometimes brought to us by relatives.’
Serves 4

1 rabbit, about 1.2kg (2lb) or rabbit pieces if you prefer
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp chopped thyme
1 small brown onion
1½ tbsp plain flour
about 12 pitted prunes
1 cup red wine
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 2cm thick slices
1 cup veal or chicken stock
salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsp chopped parsley
1 clove garlic, finely chopped

• Cut the rabbit into seven pieces (the four legs, and the body, cut in three). You can also buy
• Heat the oil on high heat, then brown the rabbit pieces on all sides. Add the thyme and stir well for 10 seconds. Add the chopped onion and cook for 2 minutes. Sprinkle in the flour and stir well. Add the prunes and wine and bring to the boil. Add the carrots and stock and season with salt and pepper. Cover with foil and a lid and cook gently for 2 hours or until the rabbit is tender and the flesh falls easily away from the bone. Stir in the parsley and garlic just before serving.

Per serving
Energy: 2030kJ/ 485 cals; Protein 61 g; Fat 13 g (includes 4g saturated fat and 153mg cholesterol); Carbs 17g Fibre 4g



Recipes My Mother Cooked is available in Australia HERE.

Busting Food Myths with Nicole Senior

Myth: Dairy-free diets are better for you


Nicole Senior

Fact: Dairy foods are nutrient rich and low fat versions even better
Dairy foods (milk, yogurt, cheese) are nutrient rich and have assumed such importance in our diet as to warrant their own food group. This means that health experts and governments around the world have reviewed the evidence and concluded our health and wellbeing are enhanced by including dairy foods in our diets, and recommended us to eat them.

Along with their low GI status, there is a lot to recommend dairy foods. They are high in calcium needed for healthy bones and provide the majority of calcium in the diet. They also contain a bundle of other important nutrients including protein, vitamins A and B12, riboflavin, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium and zinc. Regular milk drinkers have a lower risk of heart disease and stroke, and emerging research is discovering beneficial ‘bio-actives’ in dairy such as lactoferrin which enhances bone and immune health.

With so much to recommend them, why are there so many “dairy-free” claims on food these days? Why do naturopaths seem to routinely suggest people avoid dairy foods? Why are there websites devoted to the “dangers of dairy”?

Even though whole dairy foods do contain mostly saturated fat, this is easy to avoid by choosing low fat versions, and limiting hard cheese. Although some still believe milk is fattening, studies have demonstrated dairy foods may actually help with weight loss. The Asthma Foundation in Australia says that sufferers should not eliminate dairy without proper medical advice because food affects less than 5% of people with asthma. The idea that milk causes mucus has been studied in controlled conditions and has not stood up to scientific scrutiny.

Milk allergy affects 5% of children at most (and more likely 2%), and 1% of adults. Lactose intolerance is an issue for some people however complete dairy avoidance is not usually necessary. The anti-dairy argument is hard to reconcile with the idea that millions of humans have been eating dairy foods for several thousand years, and even today, the Masai in Tanzania live principally on milk, blood and meat.

Why do anti-dairy myths persist? Food myths are prevalent in societies where food is abundant and choices are practically endless. Are we fussy with our diets because we’re too well fed? Are we desperately clutching at ideas to narrow down our food options because they are now overwhelming? Are we looking to fix our broader dis-ease with hectic modern lifestyles? For those who have chosen the dairy-free path, I’m sorry to say there are a plethora of websites also attacking the safety and goodness of soy milk as well ...

If you’d like quality information on heart health and great recipes check out Nicole's website HERE.

Body Work

Too much sitting is bad for your health
Our public health advisers tell us to exercise for just 30 minutes a day. But a recent study on television viewing time and mortality published in Circulation suggests that’s only part of the solution to the obesity problem, as the human body was designed to keep moving, not sit for extended periods of time.

Australian researchers at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia tracked the TV viewing habits of 8800 adults in Australia (age 25 and older) over 6 years and found that compared with people who watched less than two hours of television daily, those who watched more than four hours a day had a 46% higher risk of death from all causes and an 80% increased risk for CVD-related death they report. This association held regardless of other independent and common cardiovascular disease risk factors, including smoking, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, unhealthy diet, excessive waist circumference, and leisure-time exercises.


Associate Professor David Dunstan

‘It's not the sweaty type of exercise we’re losing,’ says Prof. David Dunstan, a leading researcher on the role of physical activity in the prevention and management of type 2 diabetes. ‘It’s the incidental moving around, walking around, standing up and utilizing muscles that doesn't happen when we're plunked on a couch in front of a television.’ In fact, the study participants typically reported getting between 30 and 45 minutes of exercise a day.

‘What has happened is that a lot of the normal activities of daily living that involved standing up and moving the muscles in the body have been converted to sitting,’ Dunstan said. ‘People don’t move their muscles as much as they used to – consequently the levels of energy expenditure as people go about their lives continue to shrink. For many people, on a daily basis they simply shift from one chair to another – from the chair in the car to the chair in the office to the chair in front of the television. Even if someone has a healthy body weight, sitting for long periods of time still has an unhealthy influence on their blood sugar and blood fats,’ he said. The implications are simple, Dunstan said. ‘In addition to doing regular exercise, avoid sitting for prolonged periods and keep in mind to ‘move more, more often’. Here are David's tips for moving more:

• Switch off, stand up and get moving
• Avoid prolonged periods of sitting – whether in front of the TV, a computer screen or on transport. At the very least get up and move once every hour
• Limit your TV viewing to two hours a day
• Use commercial breaks for household chores
• Stand up and move around while answering the telephone

GI Symbol News with Dr Alan Barclay

Dr Alan Barclay

Finding healthy low GI milks, yogurts and alternatives
In their ‘natural’ state, milks and yogurts are nutritious foods with a low GI. However, not everyone likes the au natural flavour of plain milks and yogurts, so food manufacturers add ingredients to appeal to a broader range of tastes and this can affect the GI and calorie count. Milk alternatives like soy, rice and oat milks don’t contain lactose and have different proteins and fats which is why their GI values range from low (soy milks) to high (rice milks). These plant-based milks are not naturally a good source of calcium, so look for calcium-fortified ones.

The key problem for us today with milk and milk alternatives is the amount and type of fats they contain. Mammal milk fat is predominantly saturated fat, so reduced or low fat versions are better choices for most of us (not kids under two). Milk alternatives can be a better choice from a cholesterol perspective because their fats are unsaturated. But choosing reduced fat versions is still going to be better for your waistline as unsaturated fats have the same number of calories as saturated fats.

Adding large quantities of sugar to flavoured milks and yogurts (and alternatives) of all kinds can increase their glycemic load and calories. So, products with no added sugar are going to be a better choice. The GI Foundation has developed the following guidelines for choosing healthy low GI milks, yogurts and alternatives:

Milk fluid and dried (as reconstituted) and dairy drinks

• Fat: 2g per 100g or less, or 2-4g per 100 g, provided that saturated fat is less than or equal to 20% of total fat
• Calcium: 100mg per 100g or more

Examples: Dairy farmers Light White, Skim Milk and Just Natural Malt, Honey and Chocolate (99% fat free milk), Sustagen (vanilla and chocolate).



Soy and alternative beverages

• Fat: 3.5g per 100g or less, or 2-4g per 100g, provided that saturated fat is less than or equal to 20% of total fat
• Calcium: 100mg per 100g or more

Example: So Natural® Calci Forte.



Yogurt, or soy yogurt

• Fat: 2g per 100g or less, or 2-4g per 100g, provided that saturated fat is less than or equal to 20% of total fat
• Energy: less than or equal to 35 kJ per 100g
• Calcium: 100mg per 100g or more

Examples: Brownes Fresh 'n Fruity® Yogurt, Nestle All Natural 99% Fat Free Yogurt and Nestle Diet Yogurt.





For more information about the GI Symbol Program
Dr Alan W Barclay, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Glycemic Index Foundation (Ltd)
Phone: +61 (0)2 9785 1037
Mob: +61 (0)416 111 046
Fax: +61 (0)2 9785 1037
Email: alan@gisymbol.com
Website: www.gisymbol.com

GI Update

GI Q&A with Prof Jennie Brand-Miller



‘I’ve read that dairy products cause an increase in insulin secretion. Their GI is around 25–50 but their insulin index is three times higher. Is this a problem? ’
All protein foods (yes that includes meat, fish and eggs) stimulate insulin secretion – that's why you may see them described as being ‘insulinogenic’ to use the technical term. However, the proteins in milk may be more insulinogenic than in other protein foods because they are meant to help baby mammals grow and develop.

One of insulin’s many functions is to act as a growth hormone designed to drive nutrients into cells – not just glucose but also amino acids, the building blocks of new tissue. It is thought that milk may contain a unique combination of amino acids that together are more insulin stimulating than alone. There is no evidence that this either increases your risk of weight gain or lifestyle-related diseases like type 2 diabetes.

The disparity between glucose and insulin response is not unique to dairy foods. We have found that certain sweets and baked products also do this. Chocolate may also contain amino acids that stimulate insulin secretion.

‘I read a paper in Medical Hypotheses by Bodo C. Melnik about the need to avoid dairy foods. It basically said that milk protein consumption is a key factor in promoting most chronic diseases of Western societies. What's your view?’
This viewpoint is not new and I know quite a few people who support it. While all the theory makes sense, it doesn’t stack up in epidemiological studies (which are ‘natural’ experiments). In fact, in Western countries, dairy consumption is often associated with better insulin sensitivity, lower weight gain and lower cardiovascular disease risk (and one mechanism maybe the low GI of most dairy products).

To me, a whole race of people (Caucasians) have a genome that is shaped by milk drinking during our evolutionary past and we have high levels of lactase throughout life because it was such a useful food source. So I find it hard to accept that it’s harmful to Caucasians, even in adulthood. Perhaps, the rest of the human race are not so lucky. But even then, I think of milk as the secretion of the mammary gland designed for growth of a newborn mammal – how could it be both safe at that time and then harmful later? I think we should keep an open mind on this one.

GI testing by an accredited laboratory
North America
Dr Alexandra Jenkins
Glycemic Index Laboratories
36 Lombard Street, Suite 100
Toronto, Ontario M5C 2X3 Canada
Phone +1 416 861 0506
Email info@gilabs.com
Web www.gilabs.com

Australia
Fiona Atkinson



Research Manager, Sydney University Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS)
Human Nutrition Unit, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences
Sydney University
NSW 2006 Australia
Phone + 61 2 9351 6018
Fax: + 61 2 9351 6022
Email sugirs@mmb.usyd.edu.au
Web www.glycemicindex.com

See The New Glucose Revolution on YouTube

Making the Most of GI News

Subscribe - it's free!
To subscribe to GI News, simply click on the SUBSCRIBE link in the top right-hand column. Help us be sure our email newsletter isn’t filtered as spam. Add "gifeedback@gmail.com" to your address book to ‘whitelist’ us with your filter, helping future issues of GI News get to your inbox.

Your questions answered
If you have posted a question in GI News, be assured that the GI Group will answer this as soon as possible. We welcome your views about our articles and other reader’s suggestions. Please POST your comments and questions on the site.

Want to search past issues of GI News?
Want to search the GI News Archive for a particular topic, food or recipe? Make the most of our search feature with Google. Simply enter the term in the space provided and press SEARCH.

Want to print a copy of this GI News edition?
Download and print the PDF.

Copyright
This website and all information, data, documents, pages and images it contains is copyright under the Copyright Act 1968 (Commonwealth of Australia) (as amended) and the copyright laws of all member countries of the Berne Union and the Universal Copyright Convention.

Copyright in the website and in material prepared by GI News is owned by GI News, Human Nutrition Unit, University of Sydney. Copyright in quotations, images from published works and photo libraries, and materials contributed by third parties including our regular contributors Alan Barclay, Jennie Brand-Miller, Johanna Burani, Kate Hemphill, Joanna McMillan Price and Nicole Senior is owned by the respective authors or agencies, as credited.

GI News encourages the availability, dissemination and exchange of public information. You may include a link to GI News on your website. You may also copy, distribute, display, download and otherwise freely deal only with material owned by GI News, on the condition that you include the copyright notice “© GI News, Human Nutrition Unit, University of Sydney” on all uses and prominently credit the source as being GI News.

You must, however, obtain permission from GI News if you wish to do the following:

• charge others for access to the work
• include all or part of the work in advertising or a product for sale, or
• modify the work.

To obtain such permission, please contact gifeedback@gmail.com

This permission does not extend to material contributed and owned by other parties. We strongly recommend that you refer to the copyright statements at their respective websites and seek their permission before making use of any such material, whether images or text. Please contact GI News if you are in doubt as to the ownership of any material.

Disclaimer
GI News endeavours to check the veracity of news stories cited in this free e-newsletter by referring to the primary source, but cannot be held responsible for inaccuracies in the articles so published. GI News provides links to other World Wide Web sites as a convenience to users, but cannot be held responsible for the content or availability of these sites.

© ® & ™ The University of Sydney, Australia