Low GI explained

I came across a fabulous page summarising the benefits of a low GI diet today. Worth a post in its own right.

And to add a pretty picture, here is the low GI pizza I made last week. I've been experimenting with low GI pizzas recently. I'm planning a pizza post in the next few weeks to display my efforts.

Rhubarb and Blueberry

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but I think serendipity makes a pretty good step-mother. As I was chopping up another bunch of rhubarb to bake, I was putting away the rest of the shopping and as I picked up the punnet of blueberries, and had the What If thought. It wasn't a combination that I'd thought of before, or seen anywhere. But a quick google and I was reassured- people make rhubarb and blueberry jam and rhubarb and blueberry crumbles so it must be a thing worth pursuing, or at least trying.

So I chucked half a punnet of blueberries into my rhubarb, and it was fabulous. Blueberries aren't my favourite berry, but they are frightfully good for you. The book Low GI Eating Made Easy says that apart from strawberries (GI 40), most berries have so little carbohydrate it's difficult to test their GI. On GI news they rave over blueberries as a superfood and wild blueberries in particular, which they give a GI of 53. Which is a tad confusing it must be said.

My rhubarb blueberry combo was fantastic on some nice thick strawberry vanilla yoghurt. Once again baked with a bit of maple syrup and a sprinkling of maple sugar, which really enhances the maple flavour.

Crunchy Granola Suite

A recipe so good it has it's own theme music. I just can't think of granola without thinking Crunchy Granola Suite. Perhaps Neil Diamond's Crunchy Granola Suite and indeed his whole Hot August Night is so old and daggy that it's cool again? Perhaps Neil Diamond was never cool.

I'm more a cereal than toast for breakfast kind of gal. I've been happily eating store bought cereal for years. My current favourite is lovely, but only available now at one supermarket in town that I don't normally go to. A few days ago, Hannah disrupted this state of zen with her Spiced Fig, Pepita and Molassess Granola. Since then I've been plotting when to make it and thinking about how I would adapt it. Not that her recipe doesn't sound fab. It does. I just want to make it more low GI. Whilst she is young enough to chase the tall dark and handsome granolas of her dreams, I'm more after a midlle-aged quiet, low GI soul muesli. After all if you're going to go to the trouble of making your own muesli, you may as well tweak it and make it just like you want it.

Glorious Sunday Morning Low GI Maple Apple Muesli

• 2 2/3 cups (240g) rolled oats (not instant)
• 1 cup (120g) pepitas
• 2 1/2 tblsp (50mL) Logicane Low GI sugar
• 2 tsp (10mL) maple sugar
• 3 tblsp (60mL) maple syrup
• 1 tblsp (20mL) sesame oil
• 1 tblsp (20mL) canola oil
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 2/3 cup (140g) dried apples, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F). Mix oats and pepitas in a bowl.
2. In a separate, larger bowl, whisk together the sugar, molasses, sesame oil, spices, and almond extract. Tip the oats and pepitas into the wet ingredients and stir well to combine.
3. Spread the mix onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes,  take out and stir  to avoid its edges burning.
4. Add  the chopped apples and stir through, then put muesli back in the oven for another 8-10 minutes, until starting to look toasted. Remember, the muesli will crisp up as it cools.
5. Eat multiple handfuls from the baking tray as the muesli cools.

Notes

I have some fabulous Canadian maple syrup (low GI 54!) in the fridge, and a packet of maple sugar that a lovely friend sent me from Canada. So I had to make use of those. I don't know the gi of the maple sugar, so only replaced some of the low Gi sugar with it. The GI of molasses is unknown but predicted to be about the same as sugar (which is only a moderate 60). Figs are medium GI, whilst dried apples are an astonishing low GI treat with a GI of 29.

I was chicken and didn't want to double the sesame oil from the original, so I used half sesame oil, half canola. It's the right balance for me. 

The whole house fills with a delicious spicy aroma with this in the oven

It is delicious- particularly at step 5.

I'm looking forward to gobbling this batch up so I can make another and use a special spice mix I've got burning a hole in my pantry. 

Broad beans 101- Smashed broad beans and baby peas

I don't know that I've actually eaten broad beans before this week. Not through any active decision. I'd never eaten them, didn't know what to do with them, and so I didn't search them out, but then they hardly sought me out either. And what if I have favism and don't know it yet? That would be particularly tragic, go on a low GI diet and die. But still, you have to take some risks in life.

 Somewhat surprisingly to me broad beans are a medium GI food (63), whereas almost every other bean seems to be very low GI.

There were three broad bean recipes in the Sydney Morning Herald this week. I made one of them today (Smashed broad beans and baby peas on brushcetta with ricotta and mint), and have another kilo of broad beans in the fridge waiting to make a second recipe. Luckily it turns out that I like broad beans, and they are really quite tasty. I fiddled with the recipe and used wholemeal pita chips, it was a really tasty weekend lunch, and felt frightfully good for me.  I topped it with my first ever batch of homemade cheese (that will be a post to come- it's quite delicious).

Broad beans are quite fun to pod, although like everything a kilo seems like a little too much fun for one day. It is however quite evocative of those rare times when I helped my mother shell peas as a child. The pods have a cool texture, all padded on the inside.

Podded, ready to cook

Just a few quick minutes in the pot and they're done

Then podding them for the second time is actually the most time consuming part of the whole process. Apparently you can eat them without this step, but this coarse grey covering does taste really quite unpleasant by itself, so it's worth it to spend the extra time and get rid of it.

And then you're left with beautiful green gems that - I forgot to photograph! But you can see them here, mixed with the baby peas (GI 48).

I did want to rotate that photo, but can't today for some reason.

Lemon and Broccolini Chicken Soup

I made this soup the week before I renewed my efforts to eat a low GI diet. Happily this soup is something I would eat anyway, but just happens to be low GI. I used the batch for my work lunches that week and felt very virtuous.

This is a Donna Hay recipe from the Sunday Telegraph Magazine 22/8/2010

Broccolini is perhaps an under-utilised vegetable. At least in our house. Not sure why, I guess I'm just not in the habit of buying it. Somehow I don't think of it. Even though it is nice. It's a relatively new vegetable, a cross between broccoli and kai-lan (Chinese broccoli), not simply young broccoli- despite the fact that my local supermarket had it labelled as baby broccoli. Although I note wiki  tells us that it's "generic name" is baby broccoli, whatever that means.

Green vegetables usually have such small amounts of carbohydrate that their GI can't be measured. Pasta generally has a low GI (30-60), portion size is important, and the pasta needs to be al dente.

Lemon and Broccolini Chicken Soup

1 1/2 litres chicken stock

2 x 200g chicken breast fillets, trimmed

2 tblsp olive oil

150g fennel, thinly sliced

1 brown onion, sliced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tblsp finely grated lemon rind

150g risoni

2 bunches broccolini, trimmed and chopped

1/2 cup basil leaves

Place the stock in a large saucepan over high heat and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Add the chicken and cook for 15 minutes or until cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pan and shred the meat. Remove the stock from the heat and set aside. Heat the oil in a saucepan over high heat. Add the fennel, onion and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes or until the onion is softened.

Add the lemon rind and stock and bring to the boil. Add the pasta and cook for 8 minutes. Add the broccolini and cook for a further 3 minutes or until the pasta is al dente and the broccolini is tender.

Stir through the shredded chicken and basil to serve. Serves 4.

Notes

Nice and quick to make, tasty and nutritious.

There was not nearly enough liquid in my soup. I added more water and it still wasn't enough.

The overwhelming flavours were from the fennel and broccolini, and occasionally the basil.

The basil immediately went black and looked unappealing.

Originally posted on my soup blog

Baked Rhubarb

Rhubarb is one of those Love It Or Hate It foods. Thankfully I'm happily in the Love It camp. And it's low GI. Well rhubarb itself is actually so low in carbohydrate as to be no GI! Although I do love it, I too must add some sweeteners to make it totally delicious.

Rhubarb is traditionally flavoured with orange juice, but for some reason I really don't like cooked orange all that much (there are some exceptions), and I really don't like the orange/rhubarb combo. So for many years I've experimented with different flavourings and sweeteners for my rhubarb. I prefer to use some maple syrup (how can that actually be low GI, but so glad it is!) and in the past have used concentrated apple juice (I'm not sure of the GI here, and since my bottle was long expired, I decided to avoid it when I made this the other day). You can also throw in some grated ginger, or do a mixture of fruits such as apple or pear (I haven't tried that yet, but it should work, indeed I've just thought of it now and want to try it).

It's so easy you don't really need a recipe, it's more just a method. If your rhubarb stems are different thicknesses then cut the thinner ones in longer pieces, and the thicker stems in shorter pieces so that they all cook in about the same time.

Rhubarb can be cooked on the stove or in the microwave, but I much prefer to bake it. Rhubarb holds its shape and colour much better if it's baked rather than stewed on the stove top, and I prefer to see the wonderful pieces of rhubarb rather than a mush of red strings.


Baked Rhubarb

1 bunch rhubarb, leaves removed, stems chopped
Maple syrup to drizzle
2 tsp LoGiCane sugar
1 cinnamon stick (optional)

Bake in a moderate oven (180C/350F) about 15-20 minutes (or until you can smell a delicious aroma drifting out of the oven).

There are lots of ways to enjoy this. I like it on my morning cereal for breakfast- by itself or with other fruits if I have them, it goes nicely with berries or banana, and of course tastes fantastic with cinnamon sprinkled on,

or with yoghurt (plain, vanilla, strawberry) for dessert or a snack.

What is a Low GI diet anyway?

GI stands for Glycaemic (or Glycemic if you're American) Index. It is a measure of how quickly your blood sugar level rises after you eat certain foods. So foods that are low GI, lead to a slow, modest rise in your blood sugar level, whereas high GI foods lead to a rapid rise, followed by a rapid decline in your blood sugar level. The glycaemic index of a food is a calculated measure, we can't work it out ourselves. It's easy to lean what are low GI foods though, and what aren't.

Low GI < 55

Medium GI 56-69

High GI >70

Low GI diets are an essential component of the management of diabetes, but it's not only diabetics who can benefit from low GI eating- everyone can, because a low GI diet basically promotes a balanced, healthy diet, chock full of the many essential nutrients our bodies need to get through each and every day. A low GI diet means lots of fruit and vegetables, modest amounts of protein and low GI carbohydrates. Low GI diets make an intrinsic sense to me as opposed to the ketogenic high protein diets that are widely popular. Choosing to put yourself into a ketotic state doesn't seem to make any sense to me. And who wants to pick a diet that will make them constipated?

There are stacks of websites with detailed information about what a low GI diet is, and which foods are preferred, so I don't need to go into too much detail here. Much of the ground breaking work in this area was done at my old stomping ground Sydney Uni by Jennie Brand-Miller. The official Glycemic Index website (and I note now that they are using American spelling) has a ton of information. They send out a helpful and interesting monthly newsletter. There are heaps of books available too, with tables of foods relevant to your local area.

I've used the low GI diet before and did lose quite a bit of weight with it, and felt much better. It's time to do it all again with renewed vigor, so join me as I embark on this process once more, and while I search out interesting low GI foods (noone wants to be miserable just to be healthy!), recipes and products. Happily some of the foods I already eat and meals I already cook are low GI, some may need a bit of tweaking, and at other times I will be launching myself headlong into the unknown in search of new low GI wonders.