The Glycemic Index Diet for Dummies (51 page)

Calories:
The amount of energy in one serving. Shoot for lower calorie levels when choosing your foods and be willing to compare different products to find the perfect one. If you're looking at entire entrees, follow these guidelines:

• Women should consume 400 to 500 calories per meal.

• Men should consume 500 to 700 calories per meal.

Note:
These guidelines are for entire meals only. If your entree is less than the top number in the recommended calorie range, that's okay.

Total fat:
One of the three sources of calories for the body. Consuming a moderate amount of fats is important for your overall health. A gram of fat has more calories than a gram of carbohydrate or protein, causing your calorie level to add up quickly whenever you consume fats. Try to get no more than 30 percent of your calories from fat per day.

An easy way to determine the amount of fat you're consuming without breaking out the calculator is to look for 3 grams of fat per 100 calories. So, for example, a food that has 200 calories should have 6 grams of fat or less, and a food that has 300 calories should have 9 grams of fat or less.

Saturated fat:
A subgroup of total fat that's considered unhealthy. Increased saturated fats in the diet are linked with heart disease and certain types of cancer. Try to get no more than 10 percent of your daily fat intake from saturated fats.

A good rule of thumb is to only consume 1 gram of saturated fats per 100 calories. So if you're eating a food that has 200 calories, it should ideally have no more than 2 grams of saturated fats.

Trans fat:
A man-made fat that's linked with heart disease. Do your best to purchase products without trans fats. If they aren't listed on the label, go to the ingredients list and look for the terms
hydrogenated oil
or
partially hydrogenated oil;
these terms are another way of saying a food has trans fats.

You may notice that the label says
0 trans fats,
yet you still see hydrogenated oils listed among the ingredients. That means the food is made with trans fats, but for that portion size the amount of trans fats adds up to less than 0.5 grams. If you use more than the listed portion size, that minimal amount of trans fats will add up.

Fiber:
The indigestible portion of a plant that provides roughage. The more the better! Fiber helps control your blood sugar and helps you feel full for a longer period of time. It provides denseness to foods, has no calories, and can be found in fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, and foods made with grains such as cereal, pasta, bread, and rice. Shoot for 3 grams of fiber or more per serving.

Sodium:
A flavor-enhancing preservative. Sodium can cause your body to retain fluid, making you feel heavy and bloated. Scientific research shows that it may even stimulate your appetite. Avoid these negative effects by going easy on the salt shaker, choosing lower-sodium items, and limiting your sodium intake to 240 milligrams per serving.

Staying at or below 240 milligrams of sodium per serving tends to be difficult when you're dealing with packaged and canned foods because they often use sodium as a preservative. Do the best you can by finding the lowest sodium content available.

Using the ingredients list

Although nutrition facts labels include data on total carbohydrates and sugars, that doesn't give you much to go on as far as glycemic load. To determine that, you really need to know what the food is made up of. For instance, if you find whole-grain bread, you need to know what grain was used to make it — wheat, oats, or millet. Wheat and oats are fairly low-glycemic, but millet can be medium- to high-glycemic. Fortunately a food's ingredients list can give you a good idea whether you're buying a product that uses low-glycemic foods.

You can typically find the ingredients list at the bottom of the nutrition facts label, like in Figure 10-1. (However, you may find it in a different spot on the package depending on the available space.) Ingredients are listed from highest content to lowest. So the first ingredient makes up most of that food, and the last ingredient makes up the least amount.