A Good Food Day: Reboot Your Health with Food That Tastes Great (5 page)

The only shake I used to drink was one made from a half-quart of ice cream. Of course, a few hours later I was nursing a milkshake hangover (with some form of bread).

When I started creating the breakfast habit, my focus on high-protein options led me to protein powder, and a shake was the easiest way to use it. I’ve since moved away from protein powders, because I’m more into using whole foods to get my necessary nutrients. However, shakes still do it for me, especially in the spring and summer when something cold for breakfast seems like a good idea. I also love shakes because of the mobility factor: I’m usually pouring the contents of the blender into a glass jar and flying out the door.

My morning shake is the only time I’m okay with drinking my calories, because I know it’s filled with quality whole foods. The protein comes from ingredients like almond butter, chia seeds, Greek yogurt, and oats. The liquid base varies, but it’s typically almond milk—it’s thinner than cow’s milk, but it still has body; and its nutty flavor and faint sweetness work well in all kinds of shakes. The key to thick, creamy shakes isn’t milk or ice cream—it’s frozen bananas. I recommend cutting peeled bananas into chunks before freezing them, especially if you’re not working with a high-powered blender. Frozen fruit in general is great for shakes because it adds flavor, fiber, and a frosty quality that eliminates the need for ice.

Why Slow and Low Is Best

Bread is my biggest weakness, and it used to be the first thing I ate every day. Whether it was an artisanal loaf or the cheap, sliced stuff, I was in. My craving for bread was matched only by a fierce love for pasta (heaven distilled into a food). I knew they weren’t healthy foods, but I didn’t know they were making me a blood-sugar train wreck. When I visited my doctor complaining of slothlike fatigue, he pointed out that I was eating too much white flour and sugar—refined carbs that have no fiber or nutrients. This caused my blood sugar to spike and then drastically dip, cueing exhaustion and cravings. My blood tests confirmed I was prediabetic, basically the last stop on the road to full-blown type 2 diabetes.

Had I learned about the Glycemic Index (GI) and Glycemic Load (GL) a lot sooner, I could have started choosing better-quality carbs. Carbohydrates are basically long chains of glucose (sugar) molecules, which your digestive system breaks down and releases into your bloodstream to be used for energy. By ranking how high and how quickly carbohydrate-containing foods raise your blood sugar level, both the GI and GL help you figure out the best carbs to eat and make it much easier to control your blood sugar, manage your weight, and keep your body humming along with a steady (rather than spiking) supply of energy.

The GI scale is 0 to 100: Foods under 55 are low GI, between 56 and 69 are medium, and above 70 are high. The higher the GI ranking, the quicker that food can send you into a wild sugar rush followed by an exhausting crash. You can easily pick those foods out of a lineup—white bread, white pasta, French fries, potato chips, soda, candy. When you regularly consume too many servings of high-GI foods like I did, you’re more likely to pack on pounds and increase your risk of developing insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes (
see more on how this works
). The lower a food’s GI ranking, the longer it takes to break down in your gut, resulting in a slow-and-steady drip of glucose into your bloodstream. Choosing complex carbs with low GI—almost all vegetables, most fruits, and some beans and grains—is especially crucial at breakfast so you set off with a steady supply of energy for the day. These foods also tend to be higher in fiber, keeping you fuller longer.

By using the GI as a general guide, I started swapping in low-GI alternatives for my usual crew. I replaced refined and white flour breads with whole-grain breads, like the sourdough rye bread I use in the
Breakfast Sandwiches
. I chose nuts instead of potato chips, whole wheat pasta instead of white flour pasta. Simply by choosing lower-GI foods, I reversed my prediabetic state and came back to normal blood sugar levels in just a matter of months. (See the
chart
detailing the whole scale of the GI/GL index.)

But of course there are some head-scratchers within the index. The GI values for watermelon and carrots are high, and spaghetti has a lower GI than brown rice. This flies in the face of all
common sense. The solution? The Glycemic Load, a relatively new measurement that factors in a key piece of information that the GI doesn’t: the amount of carbohydrates in a realistic portion of the food. Let’s use watermelon as an example. The carbohydrates in watermelon quickly turn into sugar, so it’s high on the glycemic index at 72. But an average serving size of watermelon doesn’t have many carbohydrates; you would have to practically gorge on the stuff to get a rapid rise in blood sugar. So thanks to the GL, foods like watermelon, carrots, and cantaloupe are cleared of their former bad-for-blood-sugar reputation. A GL of 10 or less is low, 11 to 19 is medium, 20 or more is high. In a real-life portion size of watermelon (½ cup), the GL value is 4, making it low glycemic.

Ultimately, both indexes are useful. The Glycemic Index helps you choose better-quality carbs, and the Glycemic Load guides you to reasonable portion sizes. I’ve found the best strategy is to use them together: familiarize yourself with where things fall on the scale and try to stick to mostly low- and medium-GI and GL foods, only dabbling in high. At breakfast, this means going for
steel-cut oats
instead of instant oatmeal,
muffins
or
pancakes
made of whole-grain flour rather than white flour, and whole fruit instead of just fruit juice. A great reference for more information on the glycemic index and glycemic load is
The New Glucose Revolution
by Jennie Brand-Miller.

The most noticeable difference from my high-GI carb frenzy to now is my energy level. I’m no longer dragging around in a fog of exhaustion. My tastes have also changed—I now crave the nuttier whole-grain breads rather than whatever I can get my hands on. Before, I was caught in a loop of “I can’t get no satisfaction” when it came to bread. Now, by keeping my blood sugar steady with the help of low-GI eating, I’ve realized a level of satisfaction from food that I was completely missing out on before.