Handy tips to reduce glycemic load
Having some handy tips and pointers when trying to lower your glycemic load means that you need never get it wrong. Here’s a helpful list of things to remember.
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Eat small or moderate portions of starchy foods such as bread, potatoes, pasta, and rice.
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Include lots of low-GL fruit and vegetables at every meal. Aim for a minimum of five servings of fruit and veg per day. Lightly cook veggies for the minimum time or eat them raw. Fresh, frozen, or canned fruit and veg are all fine.
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Make more of pulses (legumes that grow in pods), including peas, beans, and lentils, in soups, salads, and as a meal accompaniment instead of pasta or rice. Pulses, including dried or canned, count towards your five-a-day fruit and veg.
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Always include a protein-rich food as part of your meal to reduce GL. Chose from lean meat, fish, poultry, eggs, low-fat dairy foods, soya products, or quorn.
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Adding acidic foods, such as balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, vinaigrette, or pickles (for example, capers and gherkins), to your meal reduces the overall GL. Adding a little monounsaturated oil, such as olive or rapeseed oil, or a little Parmesan cheese or reduced-fat cream, to recipes also reduces GL.
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Cut right down on highly refined snack foods, such as sweets, potato chips, or corn chips, cakes, biscuits, and pastries made from white flour and sugar. Instead, choose nuts and seeds, or dried fruits, such as apple rings or apricots. Instead of milk chocolate, snack on a couple of squares of dark chocolate with over 70 per cent cocoa solids.
Starchy staples: Helpful low-GL alternatives
Use this table to find out which starchy foods to avoid, and discover tasty low-GL alternatives. Keep it handy, so you’re never left wondering if you’ve made the right choices!
| Starchy staples | Low GL | High GL |
|---|---|---|
| Bread | Pumpernickel, rye, sourdough, soya and linseed, barley and sunflower, granary, seeded breads and pitta breads (moderate GL) oat cakes, rye crackers (moderate GL) |
White, wholemeal, French stick, rice cakes, cream crackers, bread sticks |
| Cereal | Whole oats, oatmeal, porridge, no added sugar muesli, bran sticks, semolina, quinoa |
Sweetened cereals, rice based cereals, bran flakes, wheat biscuits, shredded wheat |
| Pasta | Egg-based pasta, mungbean noodles | Overcooked pasta and pasta ready meals requiring re-heating |
| Rice | Long grain, wild, and basmati rice. Bulgur or cracked wheat, couscous, pearl barley |
Short grain, sticky white rice |
| Potatoes | Baby new potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, celeriac, swede | Large floury white potatoes, French fries, mashed potato |
Low-GL seasonal fruit and vegetables
Good news: on the glycemic load diet, you can indulge in hundreds of beautiful, scrumptious fruits and veggies. Check out this guide to what’s in season when.
| Fruits | Vegetables | |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | Rhubarb, grapes, limes, passion fruit, persimmons, lemons, grapefruit, avocados |
Leeks, cabbage, watercress, new potatoes, spinach, eggplant, radishes, rocket, spring greens |
| Summer | Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, cherries, nectarines, melons |
Asparagus, baby carrots, fresh peas, tomatoes, runner beans, lettuce, cucumber, zucchini, peppers, snow peas |
| Autumn | Blackberries, apples pears, gooseberries, damsons, plums, elderberries, greengages, plums |
Pumpkin, onions, fennel, wild mushrooms, squash, turnips, red cabbage, celeriac, swede |
| Winter | Satsumas, clementines, cranberries, mandarins, tangerines, pears, pomegranates |
Brussels sprouts, chicory, cauliflower, kale, celery, mushrooms, purple sprouting broccoli |