Glycemic index: practical advice from your dietician expert.
We had made the point in a previous article on the main principles of the glycemic index. Here are our tips for adapting your eating habits and becoming knowledgeable about "low GI" food.

Become Unbeatable on the Diet Low GI!
Become Unbeatable on the Diet Low GI!

The 3 Practical Tips to Remember

The first tip to put in place is to have a healthy breakfast, a meal that we usually take very sweet and very "high GI" in France ... with the guarantee of the famous "little hollow" of 11h due to hypoglycemia. Breakfast is very important because it is the first meal of the day and it will influence all the other meals taken afterward, especially to manage your feeling of satiety.

Forget the sweet biscuits and white bread to replace them with whole grain cereals. This is an opportunity to try new pieces of bread (cereals, sesame, poppy, rye ...), the rye bread with a GI of 45 against 70 for the traditional baguette! In the same way, oat flakes have a GI of 38.
Combine grain products with low glycemic index foods. For that, bet on salty. 1 boiled egg and 2 small slices of defatted bacon have a glycemic index of 0 (since they contain no or little carbohydrates). They will provide more protein (about 11 g) satietogenic power you need to hold until lunch.

For a healthy full breakfast, add a dairy product and a fruit for its vitamins and minerals, but not just any fruit because not all are equal in terms of glycemic index. Oranges, peaches, nectarines, and apples have a GI of 35 while banana and melon have a GI of 60. In general, favor citrus fruits and red fruits whose glycemic index is between 25 and 45 on average.
Second tip: review how you eat starchy foods. Here are the foods to put on your shopping list:

Pulses: broken peas, lentils, red beans ... have a glycemic index close to 25.
Systematically complete starchy foods: pasta, rice, and bread are available in full version in supermarkets. Have an example in mind that will convince you quickly: basmati rice has a GI of 58 while a bowl of complete rice is 50. Another argument: these foods have the advantage of being richer in fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals.

NB: take the habit of cooking these starchy foods "al dente", that is to say crunchy. For pasta and rice, opt for a cooking time that is 1 to 2 minutes shorter than the recommendations of the package and for the pulses, taste! They must remain crisp and not mashed.
Third and last trick: adding an acidic ingredient would reduce the glycemic index of your meal. A few drops of vinegar in your raw vegetables or a drizzle of lemon juice on a fruit salad will reduce the glycemic response after meals.

Note that as we saw in our previous article, high GI foods are not to be banned altogether since they can intervene in the recovery process after a workout or intense physical effort. You can then add to a meal or a snack a fruit cereal bar (GI = 63), a glass of orange juice (GI = 52) or fruit salad with syrup (IG = 64).

  • Turn your favorite recipes way "low GI"
  • To put your foot in the stirrup, here are some examples of recipes like "low GI" while remaining very greedy.


For Bolognese spaghetti with a GI about 30% lower than the classic recipe:



  • Use full spaghetti (GI 40 vs 58 for classic spaghetti) cooked al dente
  • Ground beef with 5% fat
  • Fresh tomatoes instead of very sweet concentrates (30 to 45 GIs)
  • Add 30 g of grated parmesan at the end of the preparation which will bring a little fat to reduce the absorption of carbohydrates (but also calcium!)

The famous chocolate mousse: chocolate, sugar, and eggs, impossible to prepare a low GI version? Think again. It suffices to replace half of the chocolate with unsweetened cocoa (GI of 20 against 49) and replace the sucrose with agave syrup (GI of 15 against 70 for the white sugar). You will also see that the good taste of cocoa will be strengthened!

Another example with rice pudding: replace the rice with quinoa (GI 35 to 55) and naturally perfume your preparation with 2 vanilla pods to which you will add only 2 sachets of vanilla sugar.

You now have all the cards in hand to better manage your blood sugar in the long term, and therefore the balance between feeling hungry and feeling full.