Low GI Recipes: Best Ingredients for Low GI Desserts
There are gourmet alternatives to baking cakes that do not spike blood sugar levels. It's better for your health and personality! Advice from an expert in healthy pastries.
It is impossible to talk about sugar without referring to the glycemic index (or glycemic index). Brief reminder: GI is a rating criterion for foods that contain carbohydrates (sugars) based on their effect on glycemia (blood sugar level). It is measured on a scale from 0 to 100. When foods are consumed in excess, foods with a high glycemic index generate spikes in insulin (a hormone secreted by the pancreas
after eating carbohydrates) which promotes storage as fat. To put it simply, a food with a GI of 100 raises blood sugar levels twice as much as a food with a GI of 50. So eating a lot of foods with a high glycemic index keeps your blood sugar high, which can lead to Insulin resistance, and increases the risk of diseases (high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, obesity, even some types of cancer, etc.).
So we understand why addiction to pastries and other sweets is not compatible with health! But you can use tricks to succumb to temptation thanks to the lower glycemic index ingredients than those you normally use to make desserts. As Bérengère Philippon explains, "sweet love" is as the Instagrammer likes to define herself. "When I decided to cut back on sugar in my diet, I didn't want to get
discouraged." Even if the young woman was consuming less sugar and sweets than before, she trusts that she still needs "a few sweet dates." Now, however, it's very different from her experience, she painted the book I Succeeded in Ridding My Sugar 2 (Versions of Larousse) is full of healthy and gourmet tips to share with us.
Low-GI Flours: Vary them to lighten pasta
When you start cutting out sugar, you first think about reducing sugar and foods that clearly contain it (cookies, candies, chocolate, etc.). But this is not enough! Many foods contain the maximum amount of it without always measuring amounts. This is the case for flour "which generally has a lot of carbohydrates, and therefore has a lot of blood sugar," says Pringer Philippon. To understand, you need to know that flour is classified into types (T) according to the degree of its refinement (depending on
whether it contains more or less bran). The higher the type T, the lower the glycemic index of flour due to the presence of fiber. Hence the advice of our experts to prefer flour above T110, ideally T150. To prepare cakes, pancakes, pie dough, bread or pancakes, you can use: wheat flour T150, large buckwheat T150, small buckwheat, hulled barley, oats, chickpeas, buckwheat, quinoa. Avoid: T45 to T80 wheat flour, white rice flour, wholemeal rice flour, cornmeal, millet, and chestnut flour.
Note that gluten-free flours have a low glycemic index such as amaranth, lentils, coconut, lupine, almonds, hazelnuts, green banana flour ... To lower the glycemic index while maintaining the consistency of desserts, the expert advises to prepare little "homemade" mixtures such as: 60% flour with gluten and 40% gluten-free, T150 wheat flour + buckwheat flour, neutral flour + stronger-tasting flour (coconut, lupine or rye flour), medium GI flour + oat bran.
Brown sugar, agave syrup...: Beware of fake friends
Some sweetener products (coconut sugar, acacia honey, agave syrup, yacon syrup, etc.) have a lower glycemic index than others (white or brown sugar). However, it is not enough to replace one with the other, place for place! The goal is to reduce sugars of all kinds. The first tip from our experts, "Reduce sugar by a third in classic recipes, or even more if the cake contains fruit and chocolate." Then, the second tip, you have to learn the dosage differently. For example, if we use agave syrup, "We'll only use 40 grams, because it has more sweetening power than white sugar."
Beware of false friends, starting with chemical sweeteners that preserve the taste of sweetness or fructose in liquid or crystalline form. Sure, these carbohydrates have a low glycemic index (12) but many studies show that consuming them in excess is a real disaster for health. Contrary to its
reputation, coconut sugar doesn't have a GI of 35 but rather 55, so use it in moderation, "no more than 50g per recipe," warns Pringer-Philippon. And there's no misuse, she says, with agave syrup (75% fructose/25% glucose). The kind made from 100% aloe vera is preferred because some manufacturers add sugars from corn that have a higher glycemic index. Eat acacia honey (IG 35) easily because it is still rich in fructose.
As with flour, the best thing is to diversify the alternative sweeteners taking into account the advantages and disadvantages of each and choosing according to the dessert you wish to make. For example, coconut sugar is good for caramelizing a little. Thus, by playing with the sweetener board, "My cookies contain less than 10g of sweetener per serving, which is roughly the same as the sugar found in artificial fruit yogurt."
Fat: replace it with bananas or zucchini!
If the fats are all low on the glycemic index, this is not a reason to use them with a scoop. All of them do not have the same nutritional qualities and some of them (the richest in saturated fatty acids) are not allies of health. Provided you choose them well, the good fats make it possible to reduce the doses of
sugar in recipes. For this, think about the vegetable fats that really work in making pastries: oilseed mash, avocado to sweeten chocolate, coconut or cashew or almond creams for desserts and pies. Fat can also be usefully replaced with mashed bananas, compote ... and even zucchini! It works very well: there is no effect on the taste and its consistency remains close to that of a regular cake. finally,
The art of making desserts with a lower glycemic index, less sweetness, and less fat, is a lot more than we think. So for drummers! Because thanks to all the cooking tips from Bérengère Philipon, the gluttony and the fun are always there.