Wonderings from the Wack

I was at a continuing education course this evening that covered this topic. Very interesting! The GI is basically a scale to determine how quickly a food makes your blood sugar level rise. For example, white bread has a higher GI than whole grain bread. Having had gestational diabetes twice I thought maybe I should check it out. In addition I can also use the 3 hours of cont. ed. credit for my licence. Our family actually eats medium GI foods the most. We could stand to eat lower GI ones more often, but we're not too bad. Even small things help, like squeezing lemon on your fish. Acidity lowers the GI. Theresa just went to a conference in Quebec and the latest word was that eating a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon a day can help keep your blood sugar lower. That might seem like a lot but if you sprinkle a bit in coffee or tea ( or use a cinnamon stick to stir with ) over the course of the day it adds up. I always put some in spaghetti sauce too. It makes it taste good.

The instructor was Theresa Dillon, who is the Diabetes Dietician at CGH. I saw her when I was pregnant with Kyle. It was around this time 4 years ago.

There are a few web sites to check out if anyone is interested.

www.glycemicindex.com

www.gitesting.com

and www.gisymbol.com.au

The last web site is about Australia's program to have the GI listed on food labels.