Organically Thought

Nutrition: What is Glycemic Index? – as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. It is really important when you are looking at this big group called carbohydrates to understand that it is a huge group. The Glycemic Index is something that was developed to try to help us understand how that group called carbohydrate has consequences in the bloodstream in terms of sugar. So, the Glycemic Index is kind of like the speedometer on your car. What these really smart people at Harvard figured out, about 20 some years ago, was that every carbohydrate you eat breaks down at different rates and the body finds the glucose, or the sugar, in that carbohydrate at different rates, and then dumps it over into the bloodstream at different rates in different amounts. So, really what this Glycemic Index is about is about looking at kind of what is the speed of that sugar, or what is the speed of that carbohydrate? And you can imagine this group called carbohydrate is enormous. It contains everything from spinach to table sugar. It is all your vegetables. It is all your fruits. It is all your grains and everything made from them. So, it is really important to understand how quickly they have a consequence in the body. When you are looking at the Glycemic Index, that speedometer goes from 0 to 100. High Glycemic is considered above 55. So, it is a really good idea for us to kind of keep in mind, and it is easy to remember, your speed limit is 55. You know, there are going to be times you go <b>…<b>