I’ll spare you the sugar-is-bad-for-you rap because unless you’ve been living under a rock you know that already. You might NOT know that many foods you consider “good” are digested into blood sugar so quickly they might as well be candy bars. These are the high-glycemic-impact foods. Unless you want to end up in my office in your 40’s feeling fat, depressed, tired and old all over, try replacing these with foods that are metabolically more gentle. (Please don’t make the mistake of trying to eliminate carbohydrates altogether — this is equally bad for you but in a different way.)
For instance, white potatoes and rice cakes convert to sugar really quickly as you digest them. Replacement? A couple whole-grain crackers or sweet potatoes, carrots, beets or beans will give you similar starchy comfort plus some colorful micronutrients and far less sugar spike. Starchy foods in general are best eaten a half-cup at a time — about the size of a tennis ball. Flour-based products (bread, noodles) should be made of whole grains only. Donate your giant pasta plates to Goodwill; REAL Mediterraneans are eating vegetables. Try a bed of sautéed spinach with garlic under your grilled chicken breast instead of a mountain of vermicelli or rice.
Dairy foods and fruits are fine foods but also have high sugar impact. Take those little cups of yogurt with fruit on the bottom. Looking closely at a yogurt label, you might see a number close to 40 under “grams of carbohydrate.” This figure reflects the lactose (milk sugar) in the yogurt, the natural sugars in the fruits, plus whatever was added to make that jelly goo. There are four grams of sugar in a teaspoonful, so a yogurt with 40 grams of carbohydrate is about equal to eating 10 teaspoons of sugar. Spoon that much out of a bowl and see what a big pile you make. (I call this “sugar show and tell.”) Try plain Greek yogurt (or cottage cheese) and a small quantity of fresh fruit instead.
Finally, a low glycemic food style does not include fruit juice, even those cute natural ones with the bright colored labels. These are metabolically the equivalent of a soda pop with some naturally occurring vitamins. In nature, fruit sugar comes with fruit fiber — so have your oranges and berries whole instead. In fact, try to have all your foods as close as possible to the way they came out of the ground. Eating “close to the earth” will keep you standing a whole lot longer.
Susan Fekety is a Yale-educated advanced practice nurse with special expertise in nutrition and dietary therapies. She provides women’s health care and coordinates the First Line Therapy program at True North Health Center in Falmouth. Contact her at