The Everything Low-Glycemic Cookbook: Includes Apple Oatmeal Breakfast Bars, Parmesan Artichoke Dip, Creamy Cauliflower Soup, Mushroom Pork Medallions, ... Biscotti ...and hundreds more! (Everything®) Read Free

for energy, the brain relies primarily on carbohydrates. Mental performance increases with the consumption of healthful carbohydrate-rich foods. Studies have shown that after eating a low- glycemic and low-carbohydrate meal, test subjects display improved intellectual performance in areas such as short-term memory, mathematics, and reasoning. This is true not only for the average person, but also for college students, elderly individuals, and even patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Such studies have shown that the improvement in memory and intellectual performance is greater with low GI meals as compared to meals containing high GI carbohydrates.
Food and Appetite
    The types of foods you eat often dictate how much food you eat. This is because some foods are better at suppressing appetite and controlling hunger. It is also important to consider the quality of food in managing weight. Foods that contain a lot of calories and fat in a standard serving are referred to as being “energy-dense.” For example, a large chocolate-chip cookie can have as many as 500 calories, the same number of calories as six fresh peaches. It is easier to consume excess calories from the one cookie than from the six peaches, since you generally aren’t going to consume that many peaches in one sitting. When eating mostly low energy-dense foods, your appetite will become suppressed by eating fewer calories and less fat.
    How does energy density relate to the glycemic index? The principle of energy density explains why choosing simply a low-fat or low-carb diet for weight control is not always the best answer. Often, low-fat foods are supplemented with sugar to make them taste better, and they end up having just as many calories as the alternatives. At the same time, some low-carb diets are high in fat, and fat is extremely energy-dense. A diet using the glycemic index allows for reasonable amounts of carbohydrates, fat, and protein and places more emphasis on the type of fat than on the total amount. The GI diet includes many servings of fruits, vegetables, and lower GI carbohydrates—an approach that focuses on the quality of the foods.

Low GI and Gluten-Free
    Gluten is the term used for several types of proteins found in wheat, barley, and rye. The proteins gliadin and glutelin found in these grains form a substance called gluten. Gluten is a “storage protein,” which means that it holds the key ingredients for the grains to continue thriving. These grains are used in many baked goods because gluten provides excellent elasticity, structure, and texture. Gluten causes pizza to have a chewy, stretchy texture. It gives French bread its soft white center and chewy crust and makes cinnamon rolls stretchy, soft, and light. Gluten helps give structure to bread dough when rising, so that the bread becomes tall and stays tall after baking and cooling. Gluten is found primarily in traditional breads, pasta, cakes, muffins, crackers, and pizza, all foods that are typically high on the glycemic index.
    Avoiding gluten can be difficult for several reasons. The biggest reason is that it’s not often listed on the package because it’s simply a protein found in a number of foods and food products. In addition to wheat, the following foods, mostly derivatives of wheat, also contain gluten:
Barley
Bulgar
Couscous
Durum flour
Farina
Graham flour
Kamut
Rye
Semolina
Spelt
Triticale (a cross between rye and wheat)
    Many of the whole grains listed here can be a healthful addition to a low-glycemic diet if you do not need to avoid gluten. However, these gluten-containing grains still contain carbohydrates and still should be eaten in moderation.
Celiac Disease
    Celiac disease (also known as celiac sprue or gluten-sensitive enteropathy) is an auto-immune and digestive disorder that occurs in about one in 100 people in the United States. For people with this disorder, gluten can cause serious damage to their intestines if it is ingested. If you have celiac