Prof Jennie Brand-Miller answers your questions. 
Are you better off drinking a small glass of fruit juice than a 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 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 it always best to choose the whole fruit because it makes you feel fuller.
Does the high amount of fructose in juice have any effect on the release of glucose?
No. When it comes to any sugary product (natural or otherwise), you have a mixture of sucrose, glucose and fructose. The ratio of fructose to glucose is about 1:1. Sucrose is digested quickly to glucose plus fructose before absorption. The fructose is metabolised in the liver and about 50% is converted to glucose and burnt as a source of fuel. While glucose is generally absorbed rapidly, it can be slowed by acidic solutions (e.g. all fruits are acidic) and very concentrated solutions. If fructose is consumed on its own, the process of absorption is slower and some may escape absorption. The presence of glucose increases the rate of absorption of fructose. 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 the liver and blood lipids (fats) but few people consumed those quantities. The old adage applies: enjoy in moderation.
1 May 2014
Q&A with Jennie Brand-Miller
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1 April 2014
GI News—April 2014
- GI Symbol: making healthier choices easier whatever your diet;
- Eating yoghurt may reduce diabetes risk;
- Nicole Senior looks at delicious, nutritious pumpkins;
- Anneka Manning's Spiced Baked Pumpkin;
- Surfing puts fun into fitness says Craig Wachholz;
- Baking hot cross buns? Try our moderate GI recipe.
Editor: Philippa Sandall
Web management and design: Alan Barclay, PhD
Contact email (for questions or permission to reproduce stories from this newsletter): info@gisymbol.com for technical problems or faults please contact smb.ginewstech@sydney.edu.au
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Food for Thought
Enjoying food: Ground-breaking dietary guidelines from Brazil.
“The guide is not just concerned with avoiding obesity and disease,”
says Jean-Claude Moubarac. “It is also designed to encourage positive good health
and well-being. All the advice has been summed up in three universal
‘golden rules’ that everybody in the world will benefit from following:
- Make fresh and minimally processed foods the basis of your diet
- Use oils, fats, sugar and salt in moderation when preparing dishes and meals
- Limit consumption of ready-to eat food and drink products.
Dr Jean-Claude Moubarac, who was involved in creating the ground-breaking guide, explains. “The guide takes a broad and comprehensive view of health, including the social, cultural, economic and environmental dimensions of food systems and supplies and so of dietary patterns. In particular it examines the central role of different types of processing on the quality of diets.” The ten main recommendations are:
- Prepare meals from staple and fresh foods.
- Use oils, fats, sugar and salt in moderation.
- Limit consumption of ready-to-consume food and drink products
- Eat regular meals, paying attention, and in appropriate environments.
- Eat in company whenever possible.
- Buy food at places that offer varieties of fresh foods. Avoid those that mainly sell products ready for consumption.
- Develop, practice, share and enjoy your skills in food preparation and cooking.
- Plan your time to give meals and eating proper time and space.
- When you eat out, choose restaurants that serve freshly made dishes and meals. Avoid fast food chains.
- Be critical of the commercial advertisement of food products.
In a statement that resonates worldwide, Patricia Jaime, Ministry of Health coordinator of Food and Nutrition, the pivotal point of contact in Brazil for the guide, says: “We need to protect and preserve the Brazilian tradition of enjoyment of meals as a central part of family, social and workplace life. The planning of meals, exchange of recipes with friends, and involvement of the whole family in preparing food to enjoy together, are all part of a healthy life. Of course it is true that making meals at home takes time. But this is time we can share with our loved ones, including children. Freshly prepared meals are still cheaper than ready-to-consume snack and drink products. Also, protecting personal and family good health and well-being will save time and money spent on health care”
Jean-Claude Moubarac —Dr Jean-Claude Moubarac has a background in anthropology and a PhD in public health. He undertook his post-doctoral studies in public health and nutrition at the School of Public Health at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. He is committed to an integrated approach to nutrition and health which involves taking into account its social, cultural, economic, political and environmental dimensions.He coordinates an international research program studying the role of cooking and of food processing in shaping dietary practices, with implications for diet quality and obesity.
The complete guide in Portuguese is HERE.
What's new?
Breast cancer survivors more likely to develop diabetes, and should be screened more closely.
A large population study in Diabetologia shows that post-menopausal women who are breast cancer survivors are more likely to develop diabetes than women without breast cancer. Dr Lorraine Lipscombe and colleagues compared the incidence of diabetes among women aged 55 years or older with breast cancer, from 1996 to 2008, with that of age-matched women without breast cancer. They further explored this relationship based on whether the woman had undergone chemotherapy. They found that, of 24,976 breast cancer survivors and 124,880 controls, 9.7% developed diabetes over a mean follow-up of 5.8 years. The risk of diabetes among breast cancer survivors compared with women without breast cancer began to increase two years after diagnosis, with a 7% increased risk that rose to 21% after 10 years. Among those who received chemotherapy (4,404 patients) almost the opposite relationship was found: risk was highest in the first two years after diagnosis (a 24% increased risk compared with controls) and then declined to an 8% increased risk after 10 years.
Dr Lipscombe says: “It is possible that chemotherapy treatment may bring out diabetes earlier in susceptible women. Increased weight gain has been noted in the setting for adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer, which may be a factor in the increased risk of diabetes in women receiving treatment. Oestrogen suppression as a result of chemotherapy may also promote diabetes; however this may have been less of a factor in this study where most women were already post-menopausal.”
Other factors that may play a part for women with chemotherapy are the glucocorticoid drugs used to treat nausea in chemotherapy, known to cause spikes in blood sugar (acute hyperglycaemia), and the fact that women undergoing chemotherapy could be monitored more closely and thus are more likely to have diabetes detected.
Does Surviving Breast Cancer Lead to Obesity? In Journal of Cancer Survivorship, Rebecca Sedjo and colleagues report significant weight gain in 665 overweight and obese women within five years of surviving breast cancer that is influenced by a complex set of factors.
Younger women and those with lower BMIs were more likely to gain significant amounts of weight over time.
Women treated with selective estrogen-receptor modulators twice as likely to gain weight compared to women prescribed aromatase inhibitors.
“Effective strategies to prevent this weight gain or provide obesity management strategies to breast cancer survivors are long overdue” says Prof Arya Sharma commenting on this research.
The sugar fructose not responsible for increase in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is the most common chronic liver disease in developed countries, affecting up to 30 per cent of people. Since the disease is closely linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes, there’s a growing debate in the medical community about whether diet plays a role in its development, specifically the consumption of fructose. A meta-analysis of all available human trials published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition says fructose in and of itself is not to blame for the increase in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. But excess consumption of calories can contribute to the disease, regardless of whether those calories came from fructose or other carbohydrates, said the lead author, Dr. John Sievenpiper.
Photo: Hachette Australia, The Low GI Diet Cookbook
Dairy foods: Yoghurt may reduce diabetes risk.
Research scientists from the University of Cambridge report in Diabetologia the findings of their prospective study that higher consumption of low-fat fermented dairy products, which includes all yoghurt varieties and some low-fat, fermented soft cheeses (e.g. fromage frais and low-fat cottage cheese), reduced the relative risk of diabetes by 24 percent. (Their data was based on 7-day food diaries from the EPIC-Norfolk study.)
Yoghurt, when examined separately from the other low-fat fermented dairy products, was associated with a 28 percent reduced risk of developing diabetes. This risk reduction was observed among adults who consumed an average of four and a half standard 125g/4oz pots of yoghurt per week. While this type of study cannot prove that eating dairy products causes the reduced diabetes risk, dairy products do contain beneficial constituents such as vitamin D, calcium and magnesium. In addition, fermented dairy products may exert beneficial effects against diabetes through probiotic bacteria and a special form of vitamin K associated with fermentation.
Berribob Watson (Photo courtesy Skinnyfish)
Bush food: Australia’s bush potato. Bush potato (Ipomoea costata) belongs to the morning glory family and has a taste and texture similar to its sweet potato (I. batatas) cousin. It is rich in carbohydrate and fibre and is about one-third slower digesting than most regular potatoes (which are high GI) according to Prof. Jennie Brand-Miller’s 1987 study. A traditional staple for Australia’s Indigenous people, bush potatoes were much sought after (and they still are today). Harvesting the tubers in the wild is time-consuming due to the fact that they are about a metre or more underground, and it is virtually impossible for someone with an untrained eye to work out where to start digging for them. That’s why traditional know-how (and handing it on) is vital. In this short film produced by Skinnyfish, Berribob Watson talks about the importance of passing on his father’s knowledge to the next generation: how to hunt, how to make fire without matches, and how to find bush potatoes. You can watch it HERE.
Special Offer: Low GI Diet Shopper’s Guide 2014.
Australia/New Zealand edition. Includes the GI values for over 1,000 foods and pre-prepared meals. This eBook usually retails for AUD$9.99. You can buy a copy for AUD$4.99 until 12 April 2014 here:
Cloudy with a chance of meatheads – Dr David Katz
When research should come with a warning label
Nicole's Taste of Health
Pumpkin eater
Pumpkin soup appears on café menus as the weather turns cooler. As a vegetable, it is almost an Aussie icon: it is very much a part of a traditional ‘baked dinner’ along with meat, potatoes and peas; and pumpkin scones (the light and fluffy British-style ones) are a Down-under classic whose golden colour is like sunshine. In North America, everybody knows about the importance of pumpkins to make jack-o-lanterns for Halloween.
Botanically speaking pumpkins are berries, as are grapes, avocados, tomatoes and persimmons because they are each a simple fruit having seeds and pulp produced from a single ovary – go figure! But all you need to know is they are easy to grow, provided they get enough water and it isn’t too cold. I recently visited a friend whose pumpkins had doubled in size in just one week after some good drenching rain. I had a pumpkin vine pop up among my gardenias after I spread some compost on the garden that must have contained seeds. I just left it and reaped the rewards.
Pumpkins are a marvel for cooks because they lend themselves to sweet or savoury dishes. On the sweet side the most famous recipe is probably pumpkin pie (a pleasure to say as well as to eat) enjoyed around Thanksgiving in North America. Pumpkin pie is usually made with canned pumpkin, but a different variety than the one scooped out to make Halloween lanterns. And Middle Eastern and Indian halwa (sweetmeat) made with pumpkin is delightful. However in my humble view pumpkins really sing when their sweetness is balanced with meat or legumes in hearty slow-cooked meals like soups, stews, curries and tagines. They also partner beautifully with spices including the classic nutmeg, and gorgeous Middle Eastern flavours as shown in Anneka’s recipe.
You can even eat the seeds. Green-coloured pumpkin seed kernels are delicious in trail mixes, muesli and salads. You can buy pumpkin seed kernels or make your own with the innards of your next whole pumpkin. Simple wash and dry them, coat lightly with oil and a little salt, and bake in a slow oven for around 15–20 minutes. Allow to cool and then crack between your teeth and prise out the kernel. They’re the perfect keep-your-hands-busy, high-effort-so-you-don’t-overeat kind of snack food.
Pumpkins are nutritious as well as delicious. Their rich golden colour comes from high levels of beta-carotene, similar to carrots. Beta-carotene is a powerful antioxidant thought to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and some cancers, and is also converted to vitamin A by the body. Pumpkin also contains useful amounts of fibre, vitamins C, E and riboflavin.
You may have heard of pumpkin described as a starchy vegetable, however it’s not really, it’s more watery. In fact, its total carbohydrate content (sugars and starch) is only 6–8% (baked) compared to 17% (mostly starch) in baked potato, so it isn’t going to have much effect on your blood glucose levels if eaten in sensible amounts. Butternut pumpkin (winter squash) does have a low GI value (51) and makes a great alternative to potato on the dinner plate. It is also delicious mashed with potato.
Peter, Peter pumpkin eater,
Had a wife but couldn't keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well.
I’d suggest Peter got it all wrong: he should have cooked the pumpkin for his wife and she would have stuck around voluntarily.
Buon appetito!
Nicole Senior is an Accredited
Nutritionist, author and consultant who strives to make healthy food
taste terrific. You can follow her on Twitter or Facebook or checkout her website
Try Nicole’s pumpkin soup recipe here
In the GI News Kitchen
Meal planning made easy with Taste Planner.
Taste Planner provides personalised meal plans with nutritional information and a shopping list that you can access on your mobile (cell), laptop, desktop or tablet. To date, Diabetes Australia has partnered with tasteplanner.com.au to give users access to over 550 diabetes-friendly recipes. Subscribers also get access to 25 other dietary and allergy filters including gluten-free and heart-healthy that can be used to build a meal plan from the 27,000 recipes available to ensure that dinner time need never be boring – even if your family has specific dietary needs. Enjoy!
Family Baking, Anneka Manning, author of Bake Eat Love. Learn to Bake in 3 Simple Steps and founder of Sydney’s BakeClub,
shares her delicious ‘better-for-you’ recipes for snacks, desserts and treats the whole family will love. Through both her writing and cooking school, Anneka teaches home cooks to bake in practical and approachable yet inspiring ways that assure success in the kitchen.
Spiced Baked Pumpkin.
Jap or kent pumpkin (winter squash) is a popular variety with ribbed green skin covered with yellow flecks and sweetish orange flesh that is good roasted, boiled, steamed or stir fried. But, do not limit yourself to pumpkin, any leftover roasted vegetables and chickpeas will make a delicious salad with rocket or baby spinach leaves, then sprinkled with the dukkah and drizzled with the yoghurt sauce. Serves 6–8.
650g jap or kent pumpkin, deseeded and cut into 2cm (¾in) thick wedges
2 tbsp (40ml) extra virgin olive oil
½ head cauliflower, cut into 3cm florets (about 280g/9oz)
400g/14oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 tsp smoked paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Dukkah
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp pine nuts
1 tbsp sesame seeds
¼ tsp salt (optional)
Tahini yoghurt sauce
¼ cup Greek-style yoghurt
1 tsp tahini
1 tbsp (20ml) lemon juice
½ clove garlic, crushed or finely grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. Line a large oven tray with non-stick baking paper.
Spread the pumpkin on the lined tray and drizzle with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Place cauliflower and chickpeas in a large mixing bowl, drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, sprinkle with paprika, salt and pepper and toss to combine. Spread evenly on the oven tray, filling the gaps between pumpkin and bake for 35 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and golden.
To make the dukkah, place the cumin and coriander in a small frying pan and toast over medium heat for 1–2 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, or until aromatic. Transfer to a mortar and pestle or small food processor and grind until finely ground. Add the pine nuts to the pan and toast in the same way as the spices until golden. Add to the toasted spices and pound or pulse until roughly chopped (do not over-process or it will form a paste). Transfer to a small bowl, add the sesame seeds and salt, if using, and stir to combine.
To make the yoghurt sauce, mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Stir through 1 tablespoon water to thin to drizzling consistency, if desired.
Sprinkle roasted vegetables with the dukkah and serve with the sauce.
Per serve
780 kJ/ 186 calories; 8 g protein; 10 g fat (includes 1.3 g saturated fat; saturated:unsaturated fat ratio 0.15); 15 g available carbs; 5 g fibre
Baker’s tips
The dukkah will keep in an airtight container or jar in the fridge for up to 1 month.
The yoghurt sauce can be made up to 3 days head of serving. Keep covered in the fridge.
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.
![[JOHANNA]](http://www.glycemicindex.com/blog/2008/sept08/joanna175.jpg)
Little Cabbage ‘Suitcases’ (Valigini).
‘Valigini’ means ‘little suitcases’ in Italian. That’s what my mother-in-law called this recipe because of the way the cabbage leaves enclose the meat filling. You may be surprised to find ground nutmeg mixed in with chopped meat but wait until you taste this combination – you’ll love it! In northern Italy, nutmeg partners well with a variety of ingredients. Instead of steamed cabbage leaves, try putting this mixture into the cavity of steamed zucchini, sliced lengthwise with pulp removed. Makes 12, serves 6 (2 valigini per person).
12 savoy cabbage leaves (carefully removed from base of cabbage)
1lb (450g) 90% lean chopped meat
7 large sprigs parsley, leaves only
1 large celery stalk, thinly sliced
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
½ tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
½ cup plain bread crumbs
½ cup grated parmigiano reggiano cheese
Wash and steam the cabbage leaves for 2–3 minutes or until they appear wilted. Set aside.
Place the chopped meat in the bowl of a food processor and pulse for 15 seconds (25 pulses). Add the parsley and celery and process for another 15 seconds.
In a large, heavy skillet heat the oil and garlic, add the meat mixture (press with fork to break up mixture into very small crumbled pieces) and sauté for 5 minutes on medium-high heat taking care it doesn’t burn. Add in the spices and mix well. Return the meat mixture to a clean food processor bowl. Whiz for 1 minute adding the breadcrumbs and grated cheese through the food tube as it is processing.
Line up the cooked cabbage leaves on the counter, place a rounded tablespoon of the meat mixture (about 1¼ oz/35 g) on the lower half of each leaf and gently roll up, taking care to close in sides as you roll. Secure with a toothpick.
Add ½–1 cup homemade tomato sauce to a large Dutch oven or sturdy casserole and heat gently. Arrange the pieces to cover the bottom. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, turning each piece over after 7–8 minutes. Serve hot.
Per serve (2 pieces)
Energy: 1268kJ/ 302 cals; Protein 25g; Fat 17g (includes 6g saturated fat; saturated:unsaturated fat ratio 0.55); Available carbohydrate 9g; Fibre 3g
Putting the Fun Back into Fitness
Let’s Go Surfing!
Ever wanted to try surfing but been too intimidated by waves, other surfers, or a general lack of know how? Don’t be! There are a great number of excellent surf schools out there and wonderful, passionate surfing instructors who know exactly how to get you into the water and standing on the board in just one lesson!
That was me a year ago. Intimidated. Having grown up by the beach, I was embarrassed to admit to a fear of waves, even rather piddling-sized ones. But a friend signed me up (the same friend who signed me up for a half-marathon mind!) and encouraged me to take those first steps. It was fantastic. We were in the water most of the time, but also on the sand, learning important things like how to read the current and how to stand up on the board correctly for best balance and stability.
We also started with some stretching and strengthening exercises to prepare our bodies as surfing is a full body workout. It is not only about riding a wave, but also carrying the board and paddling it out from the break. A surf lesson is two hours of non stop physical activity which just
feels like fun. I asked Craig Wachholtz, who runs Let’s Go Surfing at Bondi Beach, a few questions about teaching surfing.
What is the age range of your students? We say 7–70 years!! However we have had a few sneaky 4-year-olds and one fit 85-year-old!
How many people are there in a group lesson? Most surf schools have big group numbers. Our ratio at Bondi is generally 1:5 coach to student or you can request a private lesson for more specific instruction.
What is the first thing you teach about surfing? Have fun. Then have more fun. Then think about safety and respecting the ocean and your abilities, other surfers and swimmers and sea creatures; then we move onto actual techniques etc. paddling, standing, falling, catching waves etc.
How people can prepare themselves physically for surfing? Any exercise is good exercise but for surfing, swimming, paddling, push-ups, sit-ups, even running or walking are all good; a bit of yoga is great as well. But the best thing for surfing is surfing!
What fitness levels are appropriate to surfing? Surfing helps get you fit. It’s a workout in the water. Of course our instructors are extremely fit water men and women, but you can have fun at any fitness level challenging yourself.
Does your physical size matter? Anyone can try it and give it a go. Of course the fitter you are the easier it might be to master. However if you are challenged early on, you can simply start out lying down on a board catching a wave (like a body board) and then progress as you get stronger, fitter, wiser to standing. Basically if you can get to your feet on dry land, you can get to your feet in the surf (with a bit more difficulty).
What are some of the things people enjoy most about surfing? Its laid-back life-style, and the spiritual nature of immersing oneself in the ocean. It’s relaxing – you certainly get in the moment. It’s a fitness activity that doesn’t feel like it is; it’s a sport so you can get competitive if you like; it’s a social activity have a surf with new friends and have a natter! It makes you hungry for more. It’s challenging and helps you overcome fears and doubts.
Emma Sandall runs (with Peta Green) Body Playground, an online space for discovering how to put the fun back into your fitness routines. For tips on stretching or to learn a nice sequence you can do any time, any place, check out Vimeo.
Update with Dr Alan Barclay
Dr Alan Barclay
Making healthy choices, easy choices.
For our overall health and wellbeing, our bodies need a wide variety of essential nutrients including proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, etc. Apart from breast milk, no one food or drink offers the lot. That’s why it’s important to consume a wide variety of foods and drinks to make sure we are getting all the nutrients our bodies need to grow and thrive. This is where overall dietary patterns come into the picture. And what history shows us is that it’s not about the latest fad, there are numerous ways to achieve good nutrition.
Over thousands of years, successful (and very different) dietary patterns that we now know are associated with a low risk of chronic disease have evolved in different parts of the world. For example, the traditional Mediterranean and Japanese diets are both associated with a long and healthy life, but the former is relatively high in fat whereas the latter, like most Asian diets, is very high in carbohydrate and low in fat. This suggests that our modern tendency to focus on a particular nutrient may not be a useful way to describe a “good diet” – a low fat diet is not necessarily ideal for everyone, and neither is a high carbohydrate diet. When choosing foods, drinks and overall dietary patterns, personal, cultural and genetic factors need to be taken into account.
Today’s challenge is that our food environment is very different from anything humans have had to deal with in the past. Tradition doesn’t help us make good choices in supermarkets packed with processed, packaged foods. We didn’t have to read labels in the past. Enter nutrient profiling models. “Nutrient profilers” are increasingly used worldwide to help consumers choose all-round healthy foods and drinks. Food Standards Australia New Zealand has developed one for health claims; and a more sophisticated model is being developed for front-of-pack labelling. These Australian models do incorporate a wide range of essential nutrients; but they do not take GI into account, so don’t necessarily help people with diabetes for example, make the best carbohydrate choices.
That’s why the GI Symbol Program developed its own nutrient profiler based on key nutrients such as energy (kilojoules/Calories), total and saturated fat (and their ratio), carbohydrate, sodium and dietary fibre and calcium where appropriate. In order to be eligible to carry the GI Symbol on pack, foods and drinks must meet category-specific requirements and be low GI, ensuring that that they are all-round healthy choices. The GI Symbol Program’s nutrient criteria are also consistent with FSANZ’s nutrient profiler.
If you use the “swap it” principle, you can choose a healthier low GI alternative within each food group or category. This approach allows you to enjoy a healthy diet that is consistent with your own personal and cultural food preferences, and it shouldn’t cost you anymore at the checkout either. Indeed, healthy low GI diets can be developed and enjoyed for a whole range of popular eating patterns including the Mediterranean, South East Asian, Indian, as well as “Western” diets. It is therefore easy to enjoy a healthy low GI diet and reap the long term health benefits, wherever you live in the world, and whatever your food and drink preferences.
For more information about the GI Symbol Program
Dr Alan W Barclay, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Glycemic Index Foundation (Ltd)
Email: alan.barclay@gisymbol.com
Website: www.gisymbol.com
For more information about GI testing in Australia
Fiona Atkinson
Research Manager, Sydney University Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS)
Email sugirs@mmb.usyd.edu.au
Web www.glycemicindex.com
Q&A with Jennie Brand-Miller
Prof Jennie Brand-Miller answers your questions.
I want to make my own hot cross buns this year, which flour has the lowest GI value and do you have a low GI recipe for making them?
To date there are no GI ratings for refined flour whether it’s made from wheat, soy or other grains. This is because the GI rating of a food must be tested physiologically that is in real people. So far we haven't had volunteers willing to tuck into 70-gram portions (that’s nearly 2.5 ounces) of flour! What we do know, however, is that bakery products made from highly refined flour whether it’s white or wholemeal are quickly digested and absorbed. What should you do baking your own buns? Try to increase the soluble fibre content by partially substituting flour with oat bran, rice bran or rolled oats and increase the bulkiness of the product with muesli, All-Bran or unprocessed bran. But even we don’t find low GI baking easy. However, the great thing about home baking is you get to decide on the portion size.
Here’s a recipe for Hot Cross Buns that Ali Roberts created for us. We tested these buns here at SUGiRS and found that even with pysillium and dried fruit, they still had a moderate GI value (66). If you want to make a batch, note that this recipe uses the Australian 20ml tablespoon. If you have a 15ml tablespoon, you will need to add 2 extra teaspoons of the psyllium, caster sugar and golden syrup. It makes 26 medium-sized buns.
Ingredients
Buns: 3 cups 00 flour; 1-1/3 cups wholemeal plain flour; 1 cup wholemeal spelt flour; 2 tbsp pysllium; 2 tbsp caster sugar; 4 tsp dried yeast; 3 tsp mixed spice; 200g (7oz) raisins, finely chopped; 1¾ cups reduced-fat milk; 60g (2oz) 40% reduced-fat margarine; 2 tbsp golden syrup; 1 small egg; cooking spray, for greasing; 1 extra small egg, lightly whisked, for brushing
Paste: 1/3 cup 00 flour; 2½–3 tbsp water
Glaze: 1/3 cup 100% fruit spread; 1/3 cup water
Method
Combine the 00 flour, plain flour, spelt flour, pysllium, sugar, yeast and spice in a large bowl. Stir in the raisins. Heat the milk, margarine and golden syrup in a small saucepan until the margarine melts and the mixture is lukewarm. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the egg. Add to the dry ingredients and mix to a soft dough. • Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and prove in a warm, draught-free place for 45 minutes or until the dough doubles in size. • Preheat oven to 180C/350F (fan-forced). Spray a swiss roll pan or large baking tray with cooking spray. Punch down the dough with your fist and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 2 minutes or until the dough returns to its original size. Divide the dough into 18 equal portions. Knead each portion into a ball and place close together in the pan. Cover with a damp tea towel and set aside for 20 minutes to prove or until buns rise up and touch each other. • To make the paste, place the flour and water in a small bowl. Beat until smooth, until a little more water if the paste is too thick then spoon into a small plastic bag. Brush the tops of the buns with a little egg. Snip a small hole in the corner of the bag and pipe the flour paste to form crosses over the buns. Bake the buns for 25–30 minutes, or until they are cooked through and golden brown. • To make the glaze, put the fruit spread and water in a small saucepan. Stir over low heat until the spread melts. Simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until the mixture reduces and thickens. Pour through a fine sieve into a small bowl. • Turn the hot cross buns out onto a wire rack. Brush the tops of the buns with the glaze and set aside to cool.
– (Per bun: Energy: 730kJ/175cals; Protein 5g; Fat 2.6g (includes 0.6g saturated fat and 13mg cholesterol); Available carbohydrate 32g; Fibre 3g)
Copyright and Permission
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© ®™ The University of Sydney, Australia
1 March 2014
GI News—March 2014
- New GI value for corn syrup;
- Why high fibre foods are not necessarily low GI;
- Indigenous health and why bush food is really, really good;
- David Katz: Fathoming the calorie;
- Nicole Senior bites into apples in Taste of Health, and Anneka Manning whips up a batch of bircher muesli with apples;
- Emma Sandall's Pilates pointers.
Editor: Philippa Sandall
Web management and design: Alan Barclay, PhD
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Food for Thought
Fathoming the calorie.
‘I have some trouble fathoming our constant questioning of the calorie: Is a calorie really a calorie? Do calories really count? After all, a calorie is a precise and specific unit of energy, or heat. Namely, it is the heat required to raise the temperature of 1 cubic centimeter of water at sea level 1 degree Celsius. The measure we more routinely apply to food, the kilocalorie, is exactly 1,000 times as much,’ writes Dr David Katz.
Dr David Katz
‘The quantity of calories we consume matters and it's the principal determinant of what we wind up weighing. The evidence that quantity matters is clear, consistent, and in my view, irrefutable. Fed an excess of calories, even if mostly from high-quality protein, people gain weight. Assigned to a calorie deficit, people lose weight—even if the calories are mostly from Twinkies. Calories count. But of course, quality matters too, and it matters on both sides of the energy-balance equation.
Calories go out in three ways: we burn them to survive (resting energy expenditure); we burn them to work (physical exertion); and we waste them (thermogenesis or heat loss). The quality of the fuel we consume can affect both resting energy expenditure, and thermogenesis. Is this surprising? Not at all. We can make fire with wood, or coal; coal burns hotter. Protein, fats, and low-glycemic foods seem to burn a bit "hotter" than simple and refined carbohydrates, a fact corroborated by a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Quality matters considerably more, in my opinion, to the calories that come in. We all know the food industry's most famous threat: "betcha' can't eat just one!" Of course, it wasn't intended as a threat, but in an age of epidemic obesity, isn't it exactly that? Foods can, indeed, be processed into virtual irresistibility based on detailed studies of brain function, imaging of the human appetite center in the hypothalamus. And they can be processed into marvelously efficient calorie delivery systems: energy dense, nutrient dilute, low in volume.
Wholesome, nutritious foods have the opposite effect. Among their many virtues, they minimize the number of calories it takes to feel full, due to many attributes, among them: high volume, high fiber, low-glycemic index/load, nutrient density, energy dilution, flavor simplicity, etc. The following tips are as much about finding health as losing weight, so they are advisable whether or not you have weight to lose.
- To control weight, you must control calories—quantity matters. Period!
- The best way to control quantity is by improving quality. One of the many virtues of wholesome foods is that they help us fill up on fewer calories. Eat lots of simple foods that are close to nature.
- More of the right kinds of fat can be helpful. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are generally good for health and may help with portion control in the right context. An example of that context is the Mediterranean diet.
- Protein is satiating. Up to a point, more high-quality protein can be helpful. Think lentils, beans, meats, fish, eggs.
- Lower glycemic load can be helpful. This does not require cutting carbs indiscriminately, but it does mean avoiding or limiting foods made with refined starches and added sugars.
- Foods can be high in calories, and still help control total calorie intake—if they are rich in nutrients, and help confer a lasting feeling of fullness. We have such evidence for walnuts and almonds.
- While the source of calories may influence how many are burned, this is a trivial effect compared to that of…exercise! If you really want to burn more calories, you will get far more out of changing what you do with your feet than by changing what's at the end of your fork.
What's new?
Diabetes: We are in it together.
Living in a household implies sharing duties and responsibilities but it could also imply sharing your diabetes. A research team from the McGill University Health Centre has shown, through combined analyses of several studies, evidence that spousal diabetes is a diabetes risk factor. These findings, in BMC Medicine, have important clinical implications since they can help improve diabetes detection and motivate couples to work together to reduce the risk of developing the condition. ‘We found a 26% increase in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes if your spouse also has type 2 diabetes,’ says senior author of the study, Dr. Kaberi Dasgupta. ‘Changing health behaviour is challenging and if you have the collaboration of your partner it's likely to be easier.’
Looks like it was too many calories after all.
‘O stop, stop. This is too much!’ cried the Mole in ecstacies on hearing that Rat’s fat, wicker luncheon-basket was packed with cold chicken plus ‘coldtongue-coldham-coldbeef-pickledgherkinssalad-frenchrolls-cresssandwiches-pottedmeat-gingerbeer-lemonade-sodawater’ And from Trevor J Carden and Timothy P Carr’s analysis in Nutrition Journal using USDA loss-adjusted food availability data, too much is what many of us have been eating. They report that total energy availability in the US food supply increased 10.7% from 1970 to 2009.
The findings are based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Loss-Adjusted Food Availability Database and its Nutrition Database for Standard Reference. Those resources, rich in data about Americans’ eating patterns over the years, show that the energy (calories) available from protein, carbohydrates and fat increased 4.7 percent, 9.8 percent and 14.6 percent, respectively.
‘It is a misconception that fructose is a unique contributor to obesity,’ said Carr, who chairs UNL’s Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences. ‘Fructose turns out to be a relatively small contributor to the overall food supply.’ In 1970, fructose availability was 63.2 grams per day. It has fluctuated in the years since, but stood at 62.4 grams in 2009. ‘We conclude that increased total energy intake, due to increased availability of foods providing glucose (primarily as a starch in grains) and fat to be a significant contributor to increased obesity in the U.S.’
From 1970 to 1999, they found carbohydrate made the greatest contribution to the increased energy availability of the US diet, whereas the fats/oils category was a more important contributor to the energy increase after 1999. ‘This apparent replacement of carbohydrate with fats/oils may have been due to increasing popularity of diets lower in carbohydrate and higher in fat, thus accounting for the greater net accumulation of energy from fat versus carbohydrate.’
Does substantial progressive weight gain precipitate type 2 diabetes?
This is a common notion, but a small prospective cohort study in PLOS Medicine suggests it is possibly more complex. Dorte Vistisen and Kristine Færc and colleagues analyzed data from participants of the Whitehall II cohort, a group of London-based civil servants who have been followed for more than a decade, to see what changes in body weight and other parameters had occurred in people in the years before they were diagnosed with diabetes.
6,705 participants were free of diabetes when they entered the study and are included in the analysis. They were tested for diabetes every 5 years, and 645 of them were subsequently diagnosed with the disease. Going back to measurements of body mass index which were recorded regularly, the researchers used a statistical method to identify patterns of change in BMI among individuals who went on to develop diabetes. They identified three very clear groups in 632 of the participants with diabetes:
- 606 participants were ‘stably overweight’, and showed little change in their BMI over the years before they were diagnosed with diabetes.
- 26 participants were persistently obese for the entire time they participated in the study, in some cases for 18 years before they developed diabetes.
- 15 participants had gained weight continuously in the years before diagnosis.
Bush food is really, really good.
# Long yam. In the second of the thirty short films being made by Darwin-based record company Skinnyfish with Indigenous musicians to spread health messages in remote communities, a child shows us a long yam (Dioscorea transversa), one of the traditional staples Indigenous women have gathered for thousands of years in The Top End. Long yam is nutrient dense and a good source of fibre, vitamins and minerals. It is also has a low GI value (GI 37) making it a very good choice of starchy carbohydrate for people with diabetes or pre-diabetes who need to manage their blood glucose levels. You can view ‘Bush Food Is Really, Really Good’ HERE.
Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), are commonly called a yam in the US and Canada, but botanically they aren’t yams at all. They are the tuberous roots of a vine from the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae) and the varieties tested so far have moderate (GI 61) and high GI values (GI 75).
# Why bush food is really, really good. In the 1980s, Professor Jennie Brand-Miller analysed the nutrient composition of Aboriginal bush foods. ‘We looked at the protein, carbohydrate, fat and fibre content and built a database of the Indigenous diet,’ she says. ‘We also found that many of the foods tended to be low GI.’ when she and her co-authors published the results in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, they made the point that their findings ‘are consistent with the hypothesis that carbohydrate in traditional diets is slowly digested and absorbed and may once have been protective against diabetes’.
# Living off bush food back in 1948. Having Tables of composition of Australian Aboriginal foods is not the same as having actual nutritional detail about typical traditional diets. The first major study was in 1948, when Margaret McArthur and her colleagues observed the daily activities of families of nomadic Aborigines in Groote Eylandt, Bickerton Island, Port Bradshaw, Yirrkala and Oenpelli, Northern Territory over several months.
Discussing their findings in Nutrition studies (1948) of nomadic Aborigines in Arnhem Land, northern Australia they write: ‘It is not known to what extent these observations reflect conditions which prevailed before the traditional way of life of the Aborigines was disturbed by Europeans. The normal food intake of Aboriginal communities was never a constant quantity. Living as they did from the natural products of the country through which they moved, they had little control over the supply of food, which varied from season to season and from year to year. Nevertheless, the Aborigines did not wander aimlessly about the countryside looking for food. As is evident from this study, they applied knowledge and skills accumulated over countless centuries. The women knew the ecosystems in which food was to be found and the type of food they would find in each; the men knew when and where to hunt game, fish and turtle ... With only a few exceptions, the diets which were recorded at four camps in Arnhem Land – from the beginning to the end of the dry season of the monsoonal climate – were well balanced in protein, fat, carbohydrate and crude fibre, and were comparable to international dietary recommendations in energy, iron, calcium and ascorbic acid.’
New GI values.
Corn syrup (dark) Here we are talking about the regular corn syrup that is very popular in the US, not high fructose corn syrup. It is about half as sweet as regular granulated sugar but it has the same number of calories per level teaspoon = 16 (= 67 kilojoules).
- Glycemic index = 90
- Available carbohydrate per level teaspoon = 4g
- Glycemic load per 1 level teaspoon = 4
- Glycemic load per 1 level 15-ml tablespoon = 11
- Glycemic load per 1 level Australian 20-ml tablespoon = 14
How farming reshaped our genomes
David Katz questions recent epidemiologic study on sugar
Sweet and sour: The media decided fructose was bad for America; but science had second thoughts
Gregory Hand asks the question: If fast food is addictive, cheap and available and almost all of us eat it, then why aren't we all obese?
Nicole's Taste of Health
Apples
“She’ll be apples” is a quaint Australian turn of phrase meaning
everything will be all right, and it appears when it comes to our
health, apples really live up to it. It has become an emblem for healthy eating, representing all that is nutritious, simple and good, overcoming its morally dubious (remember the Garden of Eden) past and now carries an impressive health halo.
Believe it or not, there are more than 6000 named varieties of apple! What a wonder; and surely there’s a variety for everyone. I’m a Jazz fan myself; the Jazz apple variety that is, and I really enjoy a Pink Lady as well. I have fond memories of picking Roman Beauties from a local orchard as a teenager. If these names mean nothing to you, that’s because there are so many different varieties around the world and because our choices are now limited due to large scale production of a limited number of commercially grown varieties. I can’t say I’ve seen Roman Beauties since. To get more novelty in your apple eating, shop in farmers markets, buy direct from the orchard, or grow your own.
There is a substantial and growing body of scientific evidence showing that eating apples regularly can help protect against diabetes and cardiovascular disease via their ability to lower cholesterol and blood glucose levels. But wait, there’s more: there is promising basic research in animals and in cell studies demonstrating apple phytochemicals can also prevent cancers. And the wonders don’t stop there: apples may help with weight control. Studies have shown that eating an apple prior to a meal can help reduce the total energy intake of the meal by up to 15%. This is likely due to its low GI and high fibre content taking the edge of your hunger. Wow; what a great all-rounder. Apples are good sources of vitamin C and fibre, and rich in phytochemicals, including flavonoids (catechins, flavonols, quercetin) and phenolic acids (quercetin glycosides, catechin, epicatechin, procyanidins) that provide important antioxidant properties. And while the so-called exotic super fruits are winning all the plaudits, apples are the everyday hero containing the highest levels of antioxidants of all the commonly eaten (and more affordable) fruits.
While an apple is the perfect portable, sweet, juicy and healthy snack, the genius is in its versatility. Juiced, grated, dried, baked, stewed or pureed, it is just at home with sweet or savoury accompaniments: anything from roast pork and apple sauce to baked apple with raisins. A favourite snack of mine is fresh apple and raw almonds, or sliced apple and peanut butter on wholegrain toast, or a tart green apple (such as a Granny Smith) with cheese. And grated apple in Bircher muesli makes even a weekday breakfast a special occasion. Cooked apples work beautifully with cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg and their acidity balances well with the creaminess of natural yoghurt and ice cream. And there’s a good reason why ‘apple and walnut’ rolls off the tongue: because it’s so good rolling onto the tongue!
I’ve heard some people complain about apples being kept in cold storage, but I’d say there are way more important issues with food to be concerned about: world hunger, food waste, and the demise of cooking skills, just to name a few. If we want apples all year, then we have to put some away. This idea of preserving the harvest for the off season is not new, but because it’s now being done on a large scale we feel sceptical and uneasy. Worry not: keeping apples in cold storage can minimise nutrient losses, and preserve (or in some cases increase!) antioxidant levels.
Although apples look fabulous on show in a bowl, store them in the fridge to keep them fresh and crisp and preserve their antioxidants. Apples that have gone floury have not been stored correctly. Cut apples will brown when exposed to the air but you can delay this by coating cut apple in lemon juice, which adds a nice tart flavour in a fruit salad too.
Apples are fabulous so enjoy them regularly and ‘she’ll be apples’.
Buon appetito!
Nicole Senior is an Accredited
Nutritionist, author and consultant who strives to make healthy food
taste terrific. You can follow her on Twitter or Facebook or checkout her website
In the GI News Kitchen
Family Baking, Anneka Manning, author of Bake Eat Love. Learn to Bake in 3 Simple Steps and founder of Sydney’s BakeClub,
shares her delicious ‘better-for-you’ recipes for snacks, desserts and treats the whole family will love. Through both her writing and cooking school, Anneka teaches home cooks to bake in practical and approachable yet inspiring ways that assure success in the kitchen.
Toasted almond and blueberry muesli.
Serve with milk and a dollop of Greek-style yoghurt for a satisfying and tasty breakfast that will take you through to lunchtime without the need to nibble. Recipe copyright Anneka Manning.
Makes 12 serves
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 50 minutes
3 cups rolled oats
½ cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
½ cup sunflower seeds
1 cup shredded coconut
100g (3½oz) natural almonds, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ cup unsweetened apple juice
2 tablespoons (40ml) single-origin floral honey
½ cup dried blueberries (see Baker’s Tips)
¼ coarsely grated apple per person, to serve
Photography by Georgie Esdaile
Preheat oven to 160°C (320°F). Line a large oven tray with non-stick baking paper.
Combine the oats, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut, almonds and cinnamon in a large bowl. Pour over the apple juice and stir until evenly combined. Spread evenly on the oven tray and then drizzle evenly with the honey.
Bake in preheated oven for 50 minutes, stirring about every 10 minutes, until evenly toasted and crisp (the muesli will crisp further once cooled). Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Stir in the blueberries.
Serve with milk, yoghurt and apple or the fresh fruit of your choice.
Per serve
1230 kJ / 295 calories; 8 g protein; 17 g fat (includes 4.5 g saturated fat; saturated:unsaturated fat ratio 0.37); 26 g available carbs; 5 g fibre
Variation:
Almond and blueberry bircher muesli (for 3 serves) – combine 1½ cups of toasted almond and blueberry muesli, ¾ cup natural apple juice, 1/3 cup natural Greek-style yoghurt, and ½ large red apple (such as pink lady), coarsely grated. Cover and place in the fridge for 1 hour or until the muesli has soaked up the liquid and is creamy. Serve topped with yoghurt, coarsely grated apple and coarsely chopped toasted almonds. Keep any remaining muesli covered in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Photography by Georgie Esdaile
Baker’s Tips
- Store the toasted muesli in an airtight container or jar for up to 1 month.
- You can use ½ cup currants in place of the dried blueberries.
- This muesli (without the blueberries) makes a wonderful crumble topping also. Reduce the baking time to 20 minutes and then store in an airtight container or resealable plastic bag in the freezer ready to be sprinkled over fresh seasonal fruit and baked into a crumble.
Broccoli rabe tricolore.
‘Tricolore’ is how the Italians refer to their national flag. It has three colors: green white and red. And those are the colors you will see looking at you from this dish. Broccoli rabe is more popular in the US than it is in northern Italy so when I find it and make it for my friends in Friuli, they devour it! And don’t be fooled: the simplicity of this recipe belies its full-bodied taste. To clean broccoli rabe, cut away about 2cm (1in) from the bottom of the stems and remove any discolored leaves. Makes 4 servings.
1 bunch broccoli rabe, cleaned
4–5 sun-dried tomatoes, cut in thin strips
¼ tsp salt
1½ tbsp good quality olive oil
30g/1oz ricotta salata, shredded
Place the broccoli rabe in a large sauté pan, add 1 cup water, cover and let simmer for approximately 8 minutes, or until stems are tender. Drain off all the water. Add the tomatoes, salt and oil. Mix well in the pan.
Transfer to serving dish. Top with prepared cheese. May be served warm or at room temperature.
Per serve
Energy: 530kJ/112cals; Protein 6g; Fat 7g (includes 1g saturated fat and 4mg cholesterol; saturated:unsaturated fat ratio 0.17); Available carbohydrate 7g; Fibre 4g
Apple and pear crumble.
Everyone loves a crumble. BakeClub Anneka Manning’s from The Low GI Family Cookbook is sure to become a family favourite. Serves 6
2 apples (such as Granny Smith, Golden Delicious or Royal Gala)
2 firm ripe pears (such as Williams or Packham)
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
Crumble topping
1/2 cup rolled barley or oats
30g (1oz) plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
30g (1oz) canola or olive oil margarine
1 tbsp (slightly rounded) brown sugar
1/3 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
Preheat oven to 170ºC (325ºF/Gas 3).
Peel, quarter and core the apples and pears. Cut into thin slices, sprinkle with the lemon juice and toss to coat the fruit. Divide among 6 x 1/2 cup ovenproof dishes. Set aside.
To make the Crumble topping, process half of the rolled barley in a food processor until finely ground and resembling flour. Transfer to a medium-sized bowl. Sift the plain flour, baking powder and cinnamon together into the bowl over the barley ‘flour’. Add the margarine and use your fingertips to rub in until evenly combined. Stir in the brown sugar, pecans and the remaining rolled barley. Sprinkle the Crumble Topping over the fruit in the dishes.
Bake for 30–40 minutes or until the topping is golden and the fruit is tender when pierced by a skewer. Serve the warm crumble with reduced fat yoghurt
Per serve
825 kJ/ 200 calories; 2.5 g protein; 9 g fat (includes 1 g saturated fat; saturated:unsaturated fat ratio 0.13); 25 g available carbs; 4 g fibre
Putting the Fun Back into Fitness
Pilates
I began Pilates training when I was sixteen. Ballet dancers often do. It becomes apparent, around that age, that if you want to have a successful career, and avoid injury, you need more than a ballet class a day – you need all the help you can get. During my long dancing career I kept up Pilates. Most ballet companies have a fully equipped Pilates studio and often a full-time Pilates teacher. Dancers use the studio to work on their areas of weakness as well as for rehabilitation. Once I hung up my pointe shoes, I gave my body a good rest. I stayed away from studios of all kinds, preferring to throw myself into the water or run along the beach. But it wasn’t long before I found myself back in the Pilates studio.
The benefit of Pilates It doesn’t matter what your pursuit. Pilates training is going to aid you in everything. Though I no longer need to stand on my toes and turn pirouettes, I still need correct posture – elongation through my spine and a strong core to carry my body healthily in my new activities and everyday life.
The fact is, pretty much all bodies need some extra help. With sedentary lifestyles and with the natural quirks, twists and weaknesses that we are born with and accumulate, we have to develop muscles (our core muscles in particular) to support our bodies in correct alignment. Correct alignment brings with it more efficient movement, more mobility and less chance of injury and pain.
What is Pilates? It is a method of training which uses slow eccentric and resistance exercises to recognise and correct physical and structural imbalances. It was developed by Joseph Pilates during World War 1 during his time in internment camps in England. Joseph Pilates, was a gymnast, a diver and a body builder with a deep curiosity for how the body moves and a natural instinct for helping to finding ways to strengthen, stretch and train others. Today’s research on his methodology has since confirmed his principles of correct alignment and movement.
The Pilates class Pilates, like yoga, is task-based. During a class, the teacher describes the exercise or task to you in simple terms. This is called “cueing”. It is through practising the task – such as raising the torso off the floor while keeping heavy in the hips – that the right muscles are engaged and the body elongated. A class usually lasts for one hour and during that time, pretty much the entire body will get worked. Sometimes you use equipment and sometimes not. A basic mat class is one of the hardest, as you are working entirely with your own body weight without help from a machine.
Teachers We all tend to develop a loyalty to one teacher as we become accustomed to them, and they to us. I encourage more diversity, working with other teachers and classes. That way you can never get complacent. You are kept interested through learning new exercises as well as new cues which just might work for you in a better or more understandable way.
Emma Sandall runs Body Playground, an online space for discovering how to put the fun back into your fitness routines. With fellow Body Playground director and Pilates teacher, Peta Green, she has developed a new and expressive style of workout that brings together the technical and fluid aspects of Pilates, yoga and ballet. For tips on stretching or to learn a nice sequence you can do any time, any place, check out Vimeo.
Update with Dr Alan Barclay
Dr Alan Barclay
The low down on dietary fibre (part 2)
How do we know a food is high in fibre? On packaged foods it’s easy, just check the nutrition information/facts panel. In the US, dietary fiber must be declared in the nutrition facts panel under the total carbohydrate banner. However, in Australia and New Zealand it is not a mandatory component of the nutrition information panel. Only when a claim is made about fibre, sugar or other carbohydrates (i.e., maltodextrins or starch), must the amount of fibre per serve and per 100g be listed.
Because fibre is a “positive” nutrient, most manufacturers like to advise us if their foods contain appreciable amounts to draw our attention to the potential benefits of their product. Nutrition claims about the amount of fibre in food are regulated in most countries. In Australia and New Zealand, for example, to say a food is:
- A “good source” of fibre, a serving of the food must contain at least 4g of dietary fibre
- An “excellent source” of fibre, a serve of the food must contain at least 7g of dietary fibre
- “Increased” fibre, the reference food must contain at least 2g of dietary fibre per serving; and the food must contain at least 25% more dietary fibre than in the same quantity of the reference food.
How can we can incorporate more into our diets? Eating more fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains is of course the best way of meeting your daily fibre requirements. Try to get:
- 2 + serves of fruit a day. A serve is one medium or 2 small pieces, or a cup of canned fruit.
- 5–6 serves of vegetables a day. A serve is one cup of salad vegies, or ½ a cup of other vegies, or legumes
- 3–6 serves of wholegrain foods a day. A serve is a slice of grainy bread, ½ a grainy roll, ½ a cup of cooked brown rice, wholemeal pasta, noodles, barley, buckwheat, semolina, bulgur or quinoa, ½–2/3rd cup of breakfast cereal.
Are high fibre foods usually low GI? No. High fibre is not a synonym for low GI. Soluble fibres may lower the GI of some foods, but they need to contain appreciable amounts, and the size of the fibre molecules needs to be large enough to have an effect. Insoluble fibres can help slow the rate of carbohydrate digestion or absorption if it is largely intact. Adding highly processed fibre does not have the same effect usually.
The bottom line is simply adding fibre to processed foods to make a fibre claim will not necessarily mean that the food will be low GI. The type and amount of fibre added and how the overall food is processed will determine if the final product is actually low GI.
For more information about the GI Symbol Program
Dr Alan W Barclay, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Glycemic Index Foundation (Ltd)
Email: alan.barclay@gisymbol.com
Website: www.gisymbol.com
For more information about GI testing in Australia
Fiona Atkinson
Research Manager, Sydney University Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS)
Email sugirs@mmb.usyd.edu.au
Web www.glycemicindex.com
Q&A with Jennie Brand-Miller
Prof Jennie Brand-Miller answers your questions.
I really want to get my figure back and get into my favourite jeans. Is it OK to go on a diet while breastfeeding my baby girl?
Part of the weight you gained during pregnancy was extra fat stores built up by your body to supply the building blocks of human milk for your newborn. This is why women lose some weight while breastfeeding, although some lose it soon after their baby is born and others not until after they finish breastfeeding. It is actually good to lose this extra weight, particularly if you are planning to have more babies, as gaining a bit with each pregnancy and not losing it can make it much harder to return to a healthy weight later on.
No matter how tempting (and easy) the celebs in women’s magazines make it sound to follow a seven-day/six-week (whatever) miracle diet with the promise of getting your figure back quickly, it’s absolutely not a good idea if you are breastfeeding. Remember, every calorie that your baby needs for the first 4–6 months of life until you introduce solids comes directly from you. Apart from vitamin D, your breasts are providing your little baby with all the building blocks of proteins, fats, carbohydrates and other vital factors she needs to grow and thrive. Here’s a statistic: In these first precious few months, your baby is growing at the fastest rate that she ever will, even faster than in adolescence.
Strict dieting while breastfeeding may affect both your milk production and your energy levels, which are probably already suffering with the demands of a new baby and lack of sleep. It is much better over the first year (it goes faster than you think) to focus on making long-term sustainable changes to your eating and exercise habits – changes you can see yourself maintaining in the long term. This is more important than ever now you are a parent as you want to be a good role model for your child. If you feel you need to lose weight more quickly, have a chat to your doctor and get the help of dietitian who can help you plan a healthy weight loss diet that won’t affect your baby’s vital milk supply.
This is an extract from The Bump to Baby Diet. Six hundred (600) of the 3000 ‘goodie bags’ on offer at Mum’s Big Day Out – Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne (Australia)
on 16th March 2014 – will have a free copy of this book thanks to the generosity of Hachette Australia.
Copyright and Permission
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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, and Nicole Senior is owned by the respective authors or agencies, as credited.
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