New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index--the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health
by: Jennie Brand-Miller, Thomas M.S. Wolever, Kaye Foster-Powell, Stephen Colagiuri
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Forget the high-carb, low-carb debate. The glycemic index (GI)--a measure of carbohydrate quality based on how quickly a food raises blood-glucose (blood sugar) levels--is the dietary key to health, say the authors. Contrary to other diets that treat carbohydrates as all alike, The New Glucose Revolution divides carbos according to their GI into two categories. One is high GI (less desirable): carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion, leading to fast and high blood-glucose response. Examples are baked potatoes, sports bars, instant rice, corn flakes cereal, and baguettes. The other is low GI (more desirable): carbohydrates that break down slowly during digestion, leading to a gradual glucose release. Examples here are pasta, whole grains, fruit, legumes, and yams.
A low-GI diet is especially recommended for people with diabetes, abdominal overweight, and Syndrome X, say the authors, who have strong medical, nutritional-science, and diabetes education credentials. They explain the importance of understanding GI values, how GI is determined, health applications, and how to choose low-GI foods and balance the overall GI load. They give cooking tips, menu ideas, and 47 recipes. A 68-page table gives the GI values of many foods, including brand names. The New Glucose Revolution is recommended for health-conscious readers who want to understand the glycemic index and how to incorporate it into their diet. --Joan Price
Jean Carper, best-selling author of Miracle Cures, Stop Aging Now!, and Food: Your Miracle Medicine, on The Glucose Revolution
"Forget Sugar Busters. Forget The Zone. Read this book."
Andrew Weil, M.D., University of Arizona College of Medicine, author of Spontaneous Healing and 8 Weeks to Optimum Health, on The Glucose Revolution
"[This book] explains what we know about the glycemic index and its importance in designing a diet for optimum health."
Joann E. Manson, M.D., Dr.P.H., Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of Womens Health, Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Womens Hospital, on The Glucose Revolution
"[Recommended] to both health professionals and the general public who could use this state-of-the-art information to improve health and well-being."
Artemis P. Simopoulos, M.D., senior author of The Omega Diet and The Healing Diet and President, The Center for Genetics, Nutrition and Health, Washington, D.C., on The Glucose Revolution
"At last a book explaining the importance of taking into consideration the glycemic index of foods for overall health."
Richard N. Podell, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Professor, Department of Family Medicine, UMDNJRobert Wood Johnson Medical School, and co-author of The G-Index Diet: The Missing Link That Makes Permanent Weight Loss Possible, on The Glucose Revolution
"The Glucose Revolution is nutrition science for the 21st century..... A practical guide for both professionals and patients. "
David Ludwig, MD, PhD, Director, Obesity Program, Childrens Hospital, Boston
"Clear, accessible, and authoritative information about the glycemic index. An exciting, new approach to preventing obesity, diabetes, and heart disease."
About the Author
JENNIE BRAND-MILLER, PH.D., is Professor of Human Nutrition in the Human Nutrition Unit, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences at the University of Sydney, and President of the Nutrition Society of Australia. She has taught postgraduate students of nutrition and dietetics at the University of Sydney for over twenty-four years and currently leads a team of twelve research scientists, whose interests focus on all aspects of carbohydratediet and diabetes, the glycemic index of foods, insulin resistance, lactose intolerance, and oligosaccharides in infant nutrition. She has published sixteen books and 140 journal articles and is the co-author of all books in the Glucose Revolution series.
THOMAS M.S. WOLEVER, M.D., PH.D., is Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, and a member of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, St. Michaels Hospital, Toronto. Since 1980 his research has focused on the glycemic index of foods and the prevention of type 2 diabetes. The co-author of most titles in the Glucose Revolution series, he lives in Toronto, Canada.
KAYE FOSTER-POWELL, M. NUTR. & DIET., is an accredited practicing dietitian with extensive experience in diabetes management. She has conducted research into the glycemic index of foods and its practical applications over the last fifteen years. Currently she is a dietitian with Wentworth Area Diabetes Services in New South Wales and consults on all aspects of the glycemic index. She is the co-author of all books in the Glucose Revolution series.
STEPHEN COLAGIURI, M.D., is the Director of the Diabetes Centre and Head of the Department of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, New South Wales. He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers to his name, many concerned with the importance of carbo-hydrate in the diet of people with diabetes, and the co-author of most books in the Glucose Revolution series.
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LISA LINTNER, author of the recipes in this book, also created the recipes for The Glucose Revolution Life Plan and is the author of VegetablesA Taste of the Country.
JOHANNA BURANI, M.S., R.D., C.D.E., adaptor of the North American edition of this book, is a Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Educator with more than thirteen years experience in nutritional counseling. The co-author of The Glucose Revolution Life Plan and Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, as well as several other books and professional manuals, she specializes in designing individual meal plans based on low-GI food choices. She lives in Mendham, New Jersey.
Reviews:
Why we gain weight--How to turn it around
The body is perfectly adapted to the diet that our human ancestors followed for hundreds of thousands of years, but cannot properly handle "industrial foods", such as refined flour. These mechanically-processed foods flood the blood stream with glucose (the simple carbohydrate that fuels the cells) and provoke an outpouring of insulin. The excess insulin compels the body to burn carbohydrate, leaving the fat to accumulate in our bodies. The deranged insulin levels can also lead to diabetes and heart disease.
This book shows that by choosing our carbohydrates with a just little more care, we can restrain these outbursts of insulin and encourage the body to burn more fat. By simply choosing Basmati rice over other varieties, or substituting a sweet potato for an ordinary potato, or buying sourdough bread or bread made with whole-wheat, stone-ground (coarser) flour rather than white flour, we can smooth out the glucose spikes and enjoy better health.
This concept of "glycemic index" (GI) is indeed revolutionary. Each food is rated on a scale of 0 to 100, with pure glucose (as in corn syrup) set at 100. Anything with a GI value of 70 or more is a High-GI food; Intermediate-GI foods range from 56-69, and Low-GI foods have scores from 0 to 55. These values are derived by testing actual foods on actual volunteers, whose blood glucose levels are measured periodically over a couple of hours after they have eaten the food.
The book includes 67 pages of tables so that you can look up the GI values of hundreds of foods, and then use those values to choose which foods you would wish to emphasize and which you would wish to avoid.
The authors go on to explain the factors that influence its GI value. These are the degree to which the starch granules are expanded or even burst during cooking; the particle size (as in finely- or coarsely-ground flours); the chemical structure of the starch (straight- or branched-chain); the type of sugar in the food (sucrose, fructose, galactose, etc.); the quantity and nature of the fiber in the food (its coarseness, solubility and viscosity); and the acidity. In sum, you end up with a solid scientific understanding of why one food will support your health and another will sabotage you.
Choosing low-GI foods virtually guarantees that we are eating foods with a low energy density and a high capacity to satisfy our appetites. We feel fuller on less calories, and the feeling of satisfaction lasts longer. The authors describe a South African study in which volunteers ate the same number of calories from carbohydrate, protein and fat, with the only difference being that one group got low-GI and the other got High-GI carbohydrates. After 12 weeks the low-GI group had lost an average of 20 pounds, versus 16 pounds for the high-GI group. Again, the ONLY difference was in the nature of the carbohydrates.
There is already an international symbol, registered in the US and other countries, indicating that a food has been properly test for its GI value. Watch for it on food labels as the public catches on to the value of this information. P>My only complaint with this book is that the essential information on the link between glucose, insulin and health is scattered throughout the text, rather than being presented in a single succinct statement. But don't let this stop you. If you are concerned about weight, health, and diet, get this book.
This is an excellent book for learning how to eat in such a way that you naturally move towards your optimal weight, and do so without hunger if you're overweight and need to lose. A few of the previous reviewers apparently skimmed through the book and/or missed many of the qualifying details provided in the book about foods. Potatoes indeed have a high GI value: the bigger and older the potato the higher the value. So those small young red potatoes have a lower GI value than those big white Idahos most of us eat. Also, the authors stress that the goal of this approach is not to condemn all "high GI" foods and avoid them like the plague; the goal is to learn how to balance them out with sufficient low GI foods that you don't provoke the classical insulin spike associated with high GI foods. And the approach is not a "high carbohydrate diet." The GI values specifically measure carbohydrates and their different effects--as measured in the lab-- on insulin response. Meats, fish and dairy are pretty much "no GI" foods (as are a large number of vegetables by the way), and the authors encourage us to eat them abundantly (but to tilt towards the lean side of the meats and to still make sure we don't overeat). The main idea with meats, cheeses and other high protein foods is that they are "calorically dense" and that you can easily overeat them, the more fat they contain the easier. This is not a "plug and chug" kind of a dietary approach. The authors expect their readers to be reasonably intelligent and mentally hard working in devloping their individual eating plans. The GI values were not simply "invented" because they sounded good in theory. They were discovered as a result of extensive experimentation with human subjects and extensive post-eating blood draws. If you want a brain-dead approach that will simply tell you "this food is good, this food is bad" or that will tell you "today is Tuesday, this is what you can have for lunch" than this book is not for you. You are going to have to exercise your brain cells as well as your fork and your cardiovascular system (exercise is strongly encouraged) if you are going to get anything out of this approach. In the very few weeks I've used this approach I've already lost 13 pounds with no discomfort whatsoever and a fair amount of "cheating" (actually there is no cheating in this approach. If you pig out on a particular food at one time you simply adjust your eating plan accordingly for the next day or so and proceed. Forget the guilt). If you want to take it slow and easy, just remember to throw in some veggies with every meal, and try to have a low GI fruit with every meal as well (and horrors!! another contradiction!! Bananas are both "good" and "bad." Young bananas that are still very slightly green have a tested low GI value; older bananas with a lot of black spots on them have developed their sugars and now have a high GI value. Focus on eating slightly green bananas and forget the paranoia about them). The whole process is about learning which foods have low GI values and which foods have high GI values, and of thowing in some low GI foods whenever it seems appropriate and convenient, remembering that meats, poultry, fish and dairy are essentially "no GI" foods and including them in their lean incarnations as much as possible.