Swap white bread for wholegrain rye/pumpernickel or soya and linseed bread.
Try eating tabbouleh, a popular dish made with bulgur wheat.
Use pearl barley (great as a rice substitute, as rice is a high-GL food).
Substitute white flour for flours that are less processed and contain more fibre such as buckwheat flour, spelt flour, soya flour or gram flour.
When looking at food labels, look for the word ‘whole’ in front of the name of the grain, for example 100 per cent whole wheat. Even popcorn is classed as a whole grain!
Eating healthy wholegrains fits in very well with your new low-GL eating plan, as wholegrains have a lower GL than their highly processed counterparts.
Why Eat Them?
Recent research shows that eating wholegrains can help maintain the health of your heart. You will get more benefits from eating wholegrains as it is the combination of all three parts of the grain that provide the best health benefits.
Which Wholegrains Are Low GL?
Bulgur
Buckwheat
Corn on the cob and unsweetened popcorn
Oats (porridge oats makes a great brekkie!)
Pearl barley
Quinoa – if you stick to 30g it brings the GL down to around 9, so is classed as low.
Rice generally has a high GL, but wild rice and brown rice tend to have a lower GL than most other varieties – use sparingly or mix half-and-half with pearl barley or beans and pulses until you reach your target weight.
Rye
Spelt – this is an ancient relative of wheat, and anecdotally (not clinically proven) may be better tolerated than wheat by those with a wheat intolerance. Wholegrain spelt flour has a higher protein and fibre content than most wheat flours, and breads containing spelt have been tested as having a low to moderate GL.
Wheat – 30g of wholewheat has a low GL of 8.
Gram flour (chickpea flour) – chickpeas have a very low GL, so gram flour and foods containing it should have a lowish GL too.
Why We Can’t Test Flours for Their GL
Glycaemic testing involves volunteers eating an amount of a specific food that contains 50 grams of carbohydrates, three times! Eating that amount of flour is neither palatable nor advisable and, as you can imagine, volunteers are in short supply!
This is why we can only test foods containing specific flours (such as bread containing spelt flour) which will give us the GL of a portion of spelt flour bread.
Combining Flours – How to Get the Right Mix
It’s the gluten in wheatflour that makes bread rise, and as many of the alternative flours don’t contain as much gluten, you will end up with a denser, heavier loaf, which is a good thing GL-wise, as light and fluffy tends to equal quickly digested and therefore high GL.
By using alternative flours such as rye, spelt and buckwheat in a mixture with stoneground 100 per cent wholemeal wheatflour, you can create delicious bread variations, a little different in taste and texture from sliced white. Actually they taste far better!
Oats are another great addition to try in the form of oat bran, oatmeal or porridge oats, which give bread a lovely texture. We’ve also used oatmeal with great success as a crunchy crumb coating for fish and meat.
A generous handful of seeds such as linseeds, sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds in your bread adds to the flavour and will also help lower the GL.
Sourdough breads have a low GL in general, which is thought to be due to the acidic nature of the bread. Buckwheat flour makes great pancakes – you’ll find a recipe on page 110.
Nut flours are very handy in baking, but not much good in bread. They are not as ‘sticky’ as normal flour (because they have no gluten) and you will find that the finished result will be a little more delicate, yet very tasty! Don’t forget that nuts are high in calories, and you shouldn’t be eating any more than a small handful a day.
Remember that the more refined and processed a flour is, the higher the GL. The coarser the flour, and the more intact it is (i.e. it has not had all its nutritious parts refined away), the better it will be for you not only in terms of having a lower GL but also with regard to its nutritional content. That is why ‘stoneground’ wholemeal flour is better than ‘brown’ or ‘wholemeal’ flour. By using the stoneground method of processing, the grains stay more intact.
Thickening
In reality, a spoonful of refined cornflour or plain flour here and there wouldn’t be too bad if you don’t have anything else, but we have banished them from our kitchens and here is what we use in their place!
Arrowroot – this is available in the baking section of most supermarkets. It’s a ground root, as the name suggests, and is great for thickening. There are instructions on the packet, but in general you just use it the same way you would cornflour (mixing with cold water to a smooth paste before adding to anything). As it has no taste or colour this is our thickener of choice for pretty much all sweet and savoury applications.
Gram flour (chana dhal, besan or chickpea flour) – this is made from chickpeas and is a very popular ingredient in Indian cuisine, which makes a good savoury flour and thickener.
Xanthan gum – this is an effective thickener although a bit fiddly. It needs a lot of whisking as per the packet instructions and does go lumpy very, very quickly! It’s not as easy to find or use as arrowroot.
Buckwheat flour is a reasonable thickener, however don’t use in delicately flavoured foods as it has a stronger taste and so won’t work with everything.
You can replace high-GL white flours with stoneground 100 per cent wholemeal flour in most recipes.
Spelt flour is also a good thickener. Used exactly as per normal white flour, it’s great for soufflés and cheese sauces.
Organic stock cubes and bouillon powder such as the Marigold and Kallo brands make great gravies, but we love them as warming savoury drinks too! Make sure you choose organic versions, as non-organic often have hydrogenated fats in them. You can also find low-salt varieties.
A Gluten-free Diet?
What is low GL AND gluten free? This is a bit tricky, as many gluten-free products do have a lot of high-GL ingredients and are heavily refined.
Gluten-free corn pastas are generally high GL, so best avoided. However there are some lovely buckwheat (which is actually part of the rhubarb family!) and chickpea pastas available now (see our website for stockists).
Chickpea (gram) flour is a brilliant gluten-free alternative for savoury dishes. It works well as a binder and thickener with strong savoury flavours.
Spelt flour does contain a small amount of gluten.
Soya flour can be used as a gluten-free flour substitute, however it does have a strong taste which is not palatable to everyone.
Being allergic to wheat is not the same as being allergic to gluten, and so you may be able to eat rye, barley, spelt and oats if it is only wheat that causes you problems.
If you have ANY food allergies or medical conditions you need to check with your doctor before you make any significant changes to your diet. Take this book