listed, the more there is in the product.
Are any of these sugars better than the others? No. Forget the fancy names. The bottom line is ‘sugar is sugar’ – and in any form it’s high in calories and low in nutrients. Honey offers no special health benefits, either (unless you smooth it on to sunburned or dry skin as a natural face mask!).
Eat fresh fruit or choose low-fat low-sugar muffins or dried fruit. Go for oat or wholegrain breakfast cereals that contain no more than 5 g of sugar per serving. Make batches of your own pasta sauce and freeze them. And look at what you’re drinking – sodas and fruit drinks are often very high in sugar. Most popular brands contain only about 10 per cent juice, so try watering these down with spring water or choose freshly pressed juice and add water.
After a while you may find that your body starts to lose its taste for sugar and you don’t even miss it. (If you’ve ever given up having sugar in your tea you’ll know what we mean here.) It’s the same with cutting down on sugar in all your food – the more you cut down, the less you hanker for it.
Sugar substitutes and sweeteners aren’t much better if you’ve got PCOS – they’ve been linked to stomach upsets, hormonal problems, headaches and even weight gain and cancer.7 If you really need some sweetness, a tiny pinch of sugar is OK, but far better to add natural sweeteners like fruit juice or fresh fruit. The herbal alternative Stevia, available from most health food stores, is sweet tasting, calorie free and worth checking out.
4) MAKE THE GLYCAEMIC FACTOR WORK FOR YOU
If you’re eating more delicious whole foods and are cutting down on sugar, you’re definitely ready to be introduced to the glycaemic factor.
WHY?
The glycaemic index was originally designed for people with diabetes to help them keep their blood sugar levels under control. Since improvement in PCOS symptoms is associated with blood sugar imbalance, the glycaemic index (GI) can be a very useful tool for us.
The GI ranks food by the influence they have on your blood sugar levels a few hours after you eat them. Glucose is used as the reference food and its index value is set at 100. All other foods are then compared to glucose and ranked accordingly.
Foods that have a GI of 70 or more are typically called ‘high glycaemic index foods’ as they trigger a rapid rise in blood sugar. Foods with a GI of 55 to 69 are called ‘medium glycaemic index foods’ as they trigger a moderate increase. Foods with a GI below 55 are called ‘low glycaemic foods’ because they have only a moderate to low impact on blood sugar.
There are plenty of books and websites which list the glycaemic value of various foods (see Resources) but the following should help you stick to the basic principles.
Foods that are white tend to have a high glycaemic index. This includes processed foods made with white flour and white sugar – but even white potatoes have a high GI. If you’re sticking to change Number 3 (moderating your sugar intake) you should be doing this already.
Concentrate on eating foods that are high in fibre (you’ll be doing this already if you’re choosing whole foods). In general, high-fibre foods take longer to digest and therefore produce a slower rise in blood glucose levels. Fibre also keeps you feeling fuller for longer, which helps prevent overeating. Most vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and even fruits such as apples and pears are rich in fibre when you eat them whole (not as juice).
USING THE GI FOR PCOS
The GI alone is not the best way to determine how PCOS-friendly a food is. For example, ice cream and sponge cake are listed as low GI because they’re high in fat, and fat slows down the speed at which your body releases sugar – but these foods are also low in nutrients and high in calories. You’ll also find that some highly nutritious foods, rich in vitamins and minerals, such as carrots and parsnips are high on the GI because they convert to sugar quickly. But given the choice between carrot sticks or ice cream for a snack, it’s not rocket science to work out which is healthier!
THINK ABOUT YOUR WHOLE MEAL
Your glycaemic response to a food also depends on the other foods you eat with it. You can eat healthy high-GI foods such as carrots or parsnips in a meal that also contains fibre, protein and essential fats which slow down the speed at which your body releases sugar from your meal.
For example, have a high-GI baked potato with low-fat cheese (protein) and a green salad (fibre), or higher-GI carrot soup sprinkled with seeds (essential fats) and whole grain pitta (fibre) stuffed with lean chicken (protein). That way you’ll get all the nutrients from healthy high-GI foods while minimizing the effect on your blood sugar.
THINK ABOUT GLYCAEMIC LOAD
Another great thing to think about is portion size – because the total amount of insulin your body produces depends not just on a food’s GI but also on its carbohydrate density – also known as the glycaemic load.
The GI only reflects how quickly a food raises blood sugar levels – it doesn’t take into account how much of that food makes up an average portion. And the amount of carbs in an average portion is what actually goes into your body on a day-to-day basis – so this is what the GL measures: the glycaemic effect of an average portion of a food. The GL of a food is obtained by dividing the GI value by 100, then multiplying by the amount of total carbohydrate per typical serving of the food.
A low-GL food is considered 10 or less, medium 11–19 and high would be 20 or more.
The great thing about this is that a food that can come up high on the GI table might actually come out low on the GL, because you wouldn’t eat enough of it in an average portion to send your blood sugar soaring.
For example, carrots have a glycaemic index value of 92 which is high. But, in a typical serving size of one-half cup, there’s only 4.2 grams of carbohydrate. So, the calculated GL is only 3.9, which is very low, showing that this food is unlikely to cause a disturbance in blood sugar or insulin response. By contrast, a plain bagel provides 65 grams of carbohydrate and has a GI of 73. Its glycaemic load is therefore a massive 47.
The following chart will help you identify both the GI and GL of commonly eaten foods.
GLYCAEMIC INDEXES AND LOADS FOR COMMON FOODS
The table below shows values of the Glycaemic Index (GI) and Glycaemic Load (GL) for a few common foods. GIs of 55 or below are considered low, and 70 or above are considered high. GLs of 10 or below are considered low, and 20 or above are considered high.
LEARNING MORE
Additional information and values for Glycaemic Index and Glycaemic Load can be found at www.glycaemicindex.com and http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm
Also bear in mind that the cooking process will alter the glycaemic value of a meal. Generally, the longer food is cooked (or processed), the
