The Best Guide to Brain-Boosting Carbs

The Real Guide to Brain-Boosting Carbs

Here is the latest accurate guide to the glycemic index of sixty common foods, excerpted from the authoritative book The Glucose Revolution, coauthored by Jennie Brand-Miller, associate professor, University of Sydney, Australia, and Thomas M.S. Wolever, University of Toronto (Marlowe & Company, New York, 1999). The authors have conducted much of the research themselves and are regarded as inter­national experts on the glycemic index. Their excellent book lists the glycemic indexes for three hundred foods. The book also contains numerous recipes with their glycemic index values, and explains how to figure glycemic indexes for your own recipes.

The better regulated your blood sugar and insulin, the better your brain is apt to work. For a steady supply of blood glucose, choose foods with the lower glycemic index number. If you occasionally want a quick spurt of blood glucose, you can choose foods with a high GI, such as dates or corn flakes.

Under 55:          Low GI foods

Between 55-70: Intermediate GI foods

More than 70: High GI foods

FOOD                                                        GLYCEMIC INDEX

Angel food cake                                            67

Apple                                                            38

Apple juice, unsweetened                             40

Apricots, dried                                              31

Bagel                                                             72

Baked beans                                                  48

Banana                                                          55

Beets, canned                                                64

Bread:

French baguette                                         95

Sourdough                                                 57

Whole wheat                                              69

White                                                         70

Cereals:

A11 Bran with extra fiber (Kellogg’s)        51

Cheerios                                                    74

Cocoa Puffs                                               77

Corn flakes                                                84

Oat bran                                                     55

Bran flakes                                                74

Muesli, natural                                           56

Puffed wheat                                             80

Oatmeal, old fashioned                              49

Raisin bran                                                73

Rice Chex                                                  89

Total                                                          76

Butter beans                                                  31

Carrots, cooked                                             49

Bulgur                                                           48

Corn, canned                                                 55

Rice, instant                                                   87

Rice, converted, Uncle Ben’s                         44

Rice, brown                                                    55

Cherries                                                          22

Chickpeas, canned                                         42

Chocolate bar                                                 49

Cookie, vanilla wafer                                     77

Water cracker                                                 78

Croissant                                                        67

Milk, skim                                                      32

Fettucine                                                        32

French fries                                                    75

Dates, dried                                                  103

Grapefruit juice, unsweetened                        48

Grapes                                                            46

Orange                                                           44

Orange juice                                                   46

Pineapple                                                       66

Raisins                                                           64

Honey                                                            58

Ice cream                                                       61

Kidney beans                                                 27

Lentils                                                            30

Lima beans                                                     32

Spaghetti, white, cooked                                41

Peanuts                                                           12

Popcorn                                                          55

Potatoes, white-skinned, peeled, boiled             63

Potatoes, instant mashed                                86

Potato chips                                                    54

Pretzels                                                           83

Soft drink                                                       68

Soybeans                                                        18

Sucrose                                                          65

Yogurt, nonfat, fruit-flavored with sugar               33

Yogurt, nonfat, plain with artificial sweetener       14

In reality, you eat most foods in combination, not isolation, so the pure effect of high GI foods is usually blunted. Com­bining potatoes with low glycemic index foods, such as legumes, reduces the potato’s glucose rush. Further, every individual is different, depending on internal controls on blood sugar. Therefore, it’s difficult to know the ups and downs of your blood glucose unless you monitor it regu­larly. But you can make some very intelligent choices to try to keep blood sugar on an even keel if you know the cor­rect glycemic index of various carbohydrate foods.

The type of carbohydrate you eat helps determine the levels and stability of your blood sugar. So does the amount, and foods vary greatly in carbohydrate content. For exam­ple, a half cup of carrots has only 3 grams of carbohydrates; a cup of cooked macaroni, 52 grams; 2 cups of popcorn, 12 grams; a plum, 7 grams.

Vinegar as Brain Food

Surprisingly, recent research finds that acidic foods, such as vinegar, can help save your brain from spikes in blood sugar. One Italian study showed that adding only four tea­spoons of vinegar (part of a vinaigrette dressing also con­taining two teaspoons of oil) to an average meal depressed blood sugar by as much as 30 percent! Combining vinegar with high GI white potatoes, as in making potato salad, reduced the glycemic index 25 percent, according to tests by Jennie Brand-Miller, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Sydney in Australia. She found all types of vinegar, as well as lemon juice, effective, with red wine vinegar most potent. The explanation: The acid in some foods slows the digestive process or “gastric emptying rate,” curtailing rapid rises in blood sugar.

Acidity also explains why sourdough bread has a very low GI compared with other breads; its yeast culture starter induces fermentation, releasing lactic acid. Yogurt also may help keep a lid on blood sugar, because it, too, contains lac­tic acid. Drinking grapefruit and orange juice may also lessen the impact of high glycemic foods, but not as much as vinegar. The reason: Small molecular weight acids, such as acetic (in vinegar) and lactic (in sourdough and yogurt), slow gastric emptying more than large molecular weight acids, such as citric and malic acids in citrus fruits.

While you’re at it, be sure to make your salad dressing with olive oil. New Australian research finds that olive oil and other monounsaturated fats promote higher good-type HDL cholesterol in diabetics, even when they eat lots of “fast” blood-sugar-raising carbohydrates. Olive oil some­how blunts the HDL-destroying powers of high glycemic index carbs. HDLs were also high in the study subjects when they ate a low glycemic index diet.