New Glucose Revolution: The Glycemic Index Solution for a Healthier Future [Paperback]

It the recommended dietary changes -- and development of a GI-based diet -- that form the bulk of the book. The authors emphasize that the GI can be used in a wide range of diets to replace "bad" carbs with "good" ones, an approach that is quite reasonable and flexible. But the diet they emphasize the most is lower in protein than many others, including the Zone diet, which can be viewed as a high protein version of this diet. Individuals will need to figure out on their own protein needs (I lift weights and maintain a fair amount of muscle mass, so my protein intake is much higher than the authors recommend.)

The authors minimize the impact of sugar on diabetes, obesity and heart disease, since sugar is only a moderate-GI food. One aspect of the book that is somewhat unclear, though, is the role high-fructose corn syrup, used extensively in sodas in the United States and most other sweetened foods. The authors cite high-fructose corn syrup as a high-GI food, but don't do so for the things that contain it. Moreover, as the authors mention, fructose, and high-fructose corn syrup in particular, is processed directly in the liver, where it happens that triglycerides form. The direct role of high-fructose corn syrup in raising triglycerides is well-understood, so this seems to be an area of the GI that needs further research.

The authors also discuss how fats, like carbs, differ in quality. They cover which fats to avoid and which to add to ones diet, but it was not in the scope of this book to quantify fat quality as they did crab quality.

The GI approach to eating (and providing energy for exercise) is a well reasoned, flexible, balanced approach to nutrition and health. This book is highly recommended, particularly to those individuals that Atkins-like diets have left depleted of muscle mass and the energy to exercise or do anything cognitively taxing.

I'm sorry to hear that some have quite a bit of difficulty decoding or following the book, but really, it's not exactly a diet - it's a new yet very old way of eating and it's actually quite simple...They're encouraging you to go back to eating whole foods, not processed. So yes, if you do eat foods that include hydrogenated oils or high-fructose corn syrup, you may need to re-examine how often you eat these foods. They're bad all over - just read 'Fast Food Nation' or 'Fat Land'.

Judge for yourself - and to the person who left the comment ..."sugar is bad, don't buy the book." ...They obviously didn't READ the book - sugar is not bad - but anything is bad for you in large amounts.

A few of the previous reviewers apparently skimmed through the book and/or missed many of the qualifying details provided in the book about foods. Potatoes indeed have a high GI value: the bigger and older the potato the higher the value. So those small young red potatoes have a lower GI value than those big white Idahos most of us eat. Also, the authors stress that the goal of this approach is not to condemn all "high GI" foods and avoid them like the plague; the goal is to learn how to balance them out with sufficient low GI foods that you don't provoke the classical insulin spike associated with high GI foods.

And the approach is not a "high carbohydrate diet." The GI values specifically measure carbohydrates and their different effects--as measured in the lab-- on insulin response. Meats, fish and dairy are pretty much "no GI" foods (as are a large number of vegetables by the way), and the authors encourage us to eat them abundantly (but to tilt towards the lean side of the meats and to still make sure we don't overeat). The main idea with meats, cheeses and other high protein foods is that they are "calorically dense" and that you can easily overeat them, the more fat they contain the easier.

This is not a "plug and chug" kind of a dietary approach. The authors expect their readers to be reasonably intelligent and mentally hard working in devloping their individual eating plans. The GI values were not simply "invented" because they sounded good in theory. They were discovered as a result of extensive experimentation with human subjects and extensive post-eating blood draws.

If you want a brain-dead approach that will simply tell you "this food is good, this food is bad" or that will tell you "today is Tuesday, this is what you can have for lunch" than this book is not for you. You are going to have to exercise your brain cells as well as your fork and your cardiovascular system (exercise is strongly encouraged) if you are going to get anything out of this approach.

In the very few weeks I've used this approach I've already lost 13 pounds with no discomfort whatsoever and a fair amount of "cheating" (actually there is no cheating in this approach. If you pig out on a particular food at one time you simply adjust your eating plan accordingly for the next day or so and proceed. Forget the guilt). If you want to take it slow and easy, just remember to throw in some veggies with every meal, and try to have a low GI fruit with every meal as well (and horrors!! another contradiction!! Bananas are both "good" and "bad." Young bananas that are still very slightly green have a tested low GI value; older bananas with a lot of black spots on them have developed their sugars and now have a high GI value. Focus on eating slightly green bananas and forget the paranoia about them).

The whole process is about learning which foods have low GI values and which foods have high GI values, and of thowing in some low GI foods whenever it seems appropriate and convenient, remembering that meats, poultry, fish and dairy are essentially "no GI" foods and including them in their lean incarnations as much as possible.