Food Glycemic Index

Glycemic Index measures how fast a given food raises your blood sugar level

This is important while creating a diet for diabetics and women with PCOS. However, GI also plays an important role for the people seeking to lose weight. We will use Glucose as reference with an value of 100, GI for other Carbs is a relative value to glucose. The numbers given are compiled from many different sources available in public domain. These numbers will be close, but not identical to any one given study. The GI also varies on the ripeness cooking time and cooking methods employed. The meats have no Carbohydrates, so they are not included here. Leafy vegetables have low GI and are not included.

Rice

Rice is a common part of Indian Cuisine and deserves a better understanding. Rice can have moderate to high GI. There are two types of starch; Amylose and Amylopectin. Long grain rice has 22 percent Amylose and 78 Amylopectin while medium/short grain rice has 18 percent Amylose and 82 percent Amylopectin. Relatively higher the Amylopectin, stickier is the texture. Cooking, makes starch to be gelatinized so that human body can digest it and converts it into simple sugar. The important factor is the ratio of Amylose to Amylopectin. Higher the Amylose, lower the GI. So, the long grain rice have lower GI than short grain rice. The bran in brown rice makes lowers the GI further. This makes the Brown Basmati Rice to have lower GI among most of the other Rice from India.

Potatoes

Potatoes are another important part of Indian Cuisine. All root vegetables have moderate to high GI. White potatoes have lower nutritional value than the root vegetables that are rich in color. In United States, most common varieties are Russet and Idaho. Both these potatoes have high GI. The new red potatoes have lower GI than Russet and Idaho potatoes.