The Glycemic Index!

There’s a popular meme circulating on Facebook and honestly, I have no idea how this one got started! It claims all sugar is just sugar. So whether you eat honey or cake, its all turning into sugar in your blood. Somewhat true. But way oversimplified. Here’s what you need to know about sugar. There’s an awesome website called Glycemic index.com, it was created by some wonderful folks at the University of Sydney. If you’re carb sensitive like me, you’ll want to save this to your phone. That way you can look up the GI, or Glycemic index of a wide variety of foods. When you start getting fancy, you can get into Glycemic loads. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, what is the Glycemic index?

Per the University of Sydney, “The Glycemic Index (GI) is a relative ranking of carbohydrate in foods according to how they affect blood glucose levels.”

Meaning, it is a value given to a food based on how it makes your blood sugar level increase after consumption. So here’s what I’ve done to make this real simple. I’ve found a nice ranking of some of the most popular sweeteners, so you can get an idea of what you’re dealing with. If you’re on a low carb diet, what you’ll also want to look at is YOUR specific sensitivity to these individual sweeteners based on how your ketone levels change after you eat. A sweetener with a low GI shouldn’t knock you out of ketosis, while pure cane sugar will!