The lower the GI, the better for your health.

1: Proc Nutr Soc.  2003 Feb; 62(1): 201-6.

The glycaemic index: importance of dietary fibre and other food
properties.

Bjorck I, Elmstahl HL.

Department of Applied and Food Chemistry, Centre for Chemistry and
Chemical Engineering, lund University, Lund, Sweden.
inger.bjorck@inl.lth.se

An increasing body of evidence suggests that a low-glycaemic-index
(GI) diet has a therapeutic as well as a preventive potential in
relation to the insulin resistance syndrome. The implementation of a
low-GI diet, however, will require an extended list of low-GI foods to
be available on the market. The tailoring of low-GI bread products
offers a particular challenge due to their generally high GI and
abundance in the diet. Low-GI bread products can be tailored by, for
example,enclosure of cereal kernels, sour dough fermentation and/or
addition of organic acids, or use of cereal genotypes with elevated
contents of amylose or f-glucans. Low-GI cereal foods appear to vary
in effect on 'second-meal' glucose tolerance in healthy subjects. In
addition to the slow-release properties of such foods, the content of
dietary fibre appears to play a role. The low glycaemia to starch in a
pasta breakfast (GI 54) promoted a higher glucose tolerance and
lowered triacylglycerol levels at a standardized lunch ingested 4 h
later, compared with a white-wheat-bread breakfast (GI 100). The
metabolic benefits of the low GI properties per se have been
demonstrated also in the longer term. Thus, a reduction in dietary GI
improved glucose and lipid metabolism and normalized fibrinolytic
activity in type 2 diabetics, while maintaining a similar amount and
composition of dietary fibre. However, the higher dietary fibre
content frequently associated with low-GI foods may add to the
metabolic merits of a low-GI diet. Consequently, a low-GI barley meal
rich in dietary fibre (GI 53) improved glucose tolerance from evening
meal to breakfast, whereas an evening meal with pasta had no effect
(GI 54). The exchange of common high-GI bread for low-GI high-fibre
bread, as the only dietary modification, improved insulin economy in
women at risk of type 2 diabetes. These results are in accordance with
epidemiological evidence of a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes with a
low-GI diet rich in cereal fibre. It is concluded that low-GI cereal
foods developed should preferably be rich in dietary fibre.

Publication Types: Review Review, Tutorial

PMID: 12749347 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I believe that avoiding high-glycemic foods is the secret to the
success of Atkins. This information gives excellenf guidance for
introducing carbs into your diet.

Table 1 of this paper gives the GI and GL values for 750 foods.

To copy into Excel:
Open the link and page down to "Table 1"
Select the "view in other window" link
Click in window when it pops up
Type "CTRL-A" to select everything
Type "CTRL-C" to copy
Open a blank workbook in Excel
Click an empty cell
Type "CTRL-V" to paste the data in

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/76/1/5