Health Topics
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Healthy Living
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Tipping the Scales: Eat the Right Carbs with the GI Diet
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Dr E Suneetha
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| All foods with a lower GI value may not always be good to include in your diet. Sometimes foods with a lower GI value could lack many of the nutrients you need to stay healthy. For instance: |
- Chocolate has a low GI value but is high in fat and contains fewer vitamins and minerals
- Whole milk which is packed with protein and fat has a low GI
- Processed instant oatmeal has a higher GI than traditional rolled oats
- A combination of rice and dal has a low GI
- Roasted rice flakes has a low GI
- Cooked vegetable has a higher GI in comparison to raw vegetable
- A ripe banana (74) has higher GI in comparison to un-ripe banana (43)
- Sometimes, foods with a low GI value can be loaded with fat and/or salt, and contain ew nutrients. A 50gm pack of salted peanuts contains around 5gm of salt - that’s almost the maximum amount recommended by nutrition experts for good health!
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| GI for some common Indian foods |
| Food Item |
Glycemic Index |
| Cereals & Millets |
| Rice, white |
83 |
| Rice, parboiled |
68 |
| Rice, brown |
79 |
| Bajra |
82 |
| Ragi |
123 |
| Jowar |
110 |
| Semolina |
94 |
| Maize chapatti |
89 |
| Barley chapatti |
61 |
| Cornflakes |
119 |
| Varagu |
97 |
| Kelloggs’ All Bran Fruit ‘n Oats |
55 |
| Bread, white |
100 |
| Muesli |
80 |
| Vermicelli |
50 |
| Instant noodles |
67 |
| Sweet corn |
78 |
| Legumes & Pulses |
| Bengal gram dal (chana dal) |
16 |
| Besan (chick pea flour) |
39 |
| Rajma (red kidney bean) |
27 |
| Green gram (mung dal) |
54 |
| Black gram |
61 |
| Soya beans |
25 |
| Horse gram |
73 |
| Whole green gram |
81 |
| Peas, green |
68 |
| Peanuts |
21 |
| Fruits & Vegetables |
| Apple |
58 |
| Cherries |
32 |
| Grapefruit |
36 |
| Orange |
63 |
| Mango |
80 |
| Banana |
74 |
| Pineapple |
94 |
| Watermelon |
103 |
| Sweet potato |
77 |
| Carrots |
101 |
| Potato, new |
81 |
| Yam |
73 |
| Pumpkin |
107 |
| Miscellaneous |
| Milk, full fat |
39 |
| Ice cream |
87 |
| Honey |
83 |
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Are There Any Cons to the GI Diet?
In general, most nutritionists and dieticians are supportive of the basic principles of the GI diet. They do, however, believe that you shouldn’t get too hung up about avoiding all high GI foods because when foods are eaten together in a meal, that meal can have a very different GI value to the individual foods it contains.
GI index charts indicate the impact of different foods on blood sugar when eaten alone. Indian diet is more complicated with combinations of foods and GI of individual foods may be misleading. As a guideline though, the more low GI foods you include in a meal, the lower the overall GI value of that meal will be. |
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GI index in various regional meals and South-Indian snacks
| Food item |
Glycemic Index |
| Pongal with sambar |
53.6 |
| bisibelle bhaat |
58.0 |
| Uthapam with chutney |
63.0 |
| South Indian meal |
63.3 |
| Curd Rice with curry leaves chutney |
65.4 |
| Punjabi meal |
68.0 |
| Adai with chutney |
69.6 |
| Bengali meal |
69.9 |
| Rasam rice with papad |
77.5 |
| Gujarati meal |
83.0 |
| Sambar rice |
83.1 |
| Dosai with podi |
91.3 |
| Idli with chutney |
101.5 |
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Source: Mani et al., University of Baroda |
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| Dr E Suneetha is a Research Officer with Lifetime WellnessRx International Limited. |
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