Sunday, December 28, 2008

Bean, bean, the magical fruit

A University of Toronto study showed that beans and nuts, which have low glycemic index, might be better than a whole-grain diet in controlling blood sugar. Extra bonus: a low-glycemic diet significantly boosted HDL (aka, the "good cholesterol") levels.

The low-glycemic diet in the study included beans, peas, lentils, pasta, quickly boiled rice and certain breads, like pumpernickel and rye, as well as oatmeal and oat bran cereals.

For meatier reading, see the New York Times article and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Both require you to login, but the NY Times is free.


Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

2 comments:

  1. KJanuary 13, 2009 at 8:36 AM

    What does "quickly boiled rice" mean? Rice that you cook on the stovetop, as opposed to a rice cooker? Why does the preparation matter if the ingredients are the same.

    - Ivana Hunnerstan

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anorexia VerbosaJanuary 20, 2009 at 11:30 PM

    "Quickly boiled" refers to the cooking time. Cooking, processing, and age (ripeness, for example) change the glycemic index of food. Rice that is quickly (as in, short time) boiled requires more time to digest than rice that is boiled for a long time. Thus a lengthier cooking time increases the glycemic index of rice. This is true of pasta as well.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)