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Lessons from Jon Barron
Carbohydrates & The Glycemic Index    In this week's excerpt from Lessons from the Miracle Doctors, Jon Barron elucidates how when you're talking about carbohydrates, it eventually comes down to a discussion of the glycemic index.
 "The glycemic index, and identifying high-glycemic foods, is one of the hot areas of nutritional science right now. Not to make light of it, it is an extremely important dietary consideration, but with two huge "howevers." Diabetics have been using the glycemic index for years to help in controlling their insulin levels. Quite simply, foods that adversely affect blood sugar by elevating insulin levels are considered "high-glycemic" foods, and foods that do not elevate insulin levels are "low glycemic."
High-glycemic foods can cause your body to store fat, make you feel fatigued, cause your brain to go "fuzzy," and lead to heart problems such as elevated LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels and high blood pressure. Obviously, these are conditions to be avoided. Keep in mind that high-glycemic unprocessed fruits and vegetables have compensating benefits. Raisins, for example, are high glycemic, but also one of the highest antioxidant foods known. With that caveat in mind, high-glycemic foods that cause elevated insulin levels and concomitant problems include: - Bananas
- Raisins
- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Corn
- Breads, cereals, pastas, and rice of all kinds
- Virtually all snack foods
- Sugars of all kinds and sodas
There are two "howevers" to the glycemic index: chewing and fiber.
Chewing
If you chew your food well enough, it slows down the entire eating process, which spreads out the glycemic response. It also allows the amylase in the saliva to effectively start breaking down the carbohydrates, which takes a huge burden off your pancreas. And it allows time for your stomach to signal your brain that you're full (it normally takes twenty minutes for your brain to catch up with your stomach), so you end up eating less.
So, how much do you need to chew your food? There's an old saying: "You should drink your solids and chew your liquids." What that means is that you should chew the dry food you eat until it turns to liquid in your mouth (about forty chews per mouthful), and that you should swish liquids back and forth in your mouth (chew them as it were) an equal number of times. This helps mix enzymes into the food or liquid and begin the digestive process.
Fiber
The presence of fiber in a meal slows down the absorption of carbohydrates in the intestinal tract. Beyond that, there are also several natural fibers that can be taken as supplements with meals that block carbohydrate receptor sites in the intestinal tract, thereby further slowing the absorption of high-glycemic carbohydrates and the resulting glycemic response. These include high fiber foods such as nopal cactus, konjac mannan (glucomannan), and fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum). We will cover these particular fibers in more detail later when we focus on diabetes.
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