The Glycaemic Index (GI) is an easy tool to help you sift through the sweet stuff. A food's GI score reflects how much that food pushes up your blood-sugar level. Scores range from 0 (water) to 100 (table sugar). Foods with a score of 70 or more are considered high GI. You'd be surprised at what foods rank extra-high on the scale - even so-called health foods like rice cakes, baked potatoes, Cornflakes and shredded-wheat cereals. Unfortunately, if you're a fairly typical Australian teenager, you've probably been eating high-GI foods all your life. What's the big deal about a high-GI number? As you might have guessed, it comes back to insulin again. If a food bumps up your blood-sugar and insulin levels, it's likely to put bumps on your skin too. Research clearly shows that acne thrives on a diet full of high-GI foods.
Professor Neil Mann from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology conducted a study with Australian teens, and concluded: 'Eating rapidly digested carbohydrate foods [high GI] which are mainly processed snack foods, biscuits, cakes, pastries and bread along with rice, potatoes and sugary drinks causes a rapid increase in blood-sugar levels and insulin production in the body. This causes blocked skin pores as well as an overproduction of oil in the skin pores. The trapped oil then becomes infected and acne results'. For healthy, blemish-free skin, always opt for foods with a GI score of less than 55. These low-GI foods cause a smaller, slower rise in your blood-sugar and insulin levels, so they are far less likely to trigger breakouts. As a bonus, low-GI foods provide a slow release of energy that will keep you going and going. So nix the high-GI foods.
Sometimes, however, low GI isn't so good. You've probably noticed your school's tuckshop has introduced lots of low-GI options. That sounds great, but the problem is that low GI doesn't always equal healthy. Potato chips are low GI, and so are chocolate cake and chicken nuggets - but they're high in trans fats and other things that are bad for your skin and your health. So it's helpful to remember that in general, low GI or not, the less processed a food is, the better it is for you.
This yummy spice is what makes apple pie taste so good, and cinnamon has some surprising health and beauty benefits, too. Studies have found that just ½ teaspoon of cinnamon significantly reduces blood-sugar levels and improves blood-sugar metabolism. This is great news, because as you know, you want to keep your blood-sugar low to prevent breakouts and beat acne, and it's very easy to add cinnamon to what you would normally eat. Even soaking a cinnamon stick in your tea produces this blood-sugar lowering effect!
Sure, lollies may be fat-free, but just one innocent-looking snake has more sugar than a sugar cube, plus artificial colors and flavours. So when you start crashing at 3 p.m., do yourself a favour and have a sugar hit from nature instead. An orange, an apple or a slice of pineapple should do the trick.
Don't worry, you don't need to say goodbye to all things sweet. To sweeten things up from time to time, raw honey, stevia, agave syrup or xylitol are all great choices (most of these are available at health food stores). These don't bump up blood-sugar levels as much as other sugars do. But stay away from artificial sweeteners. Some of them have never even been proven safe. And although they're kilojoule-free (calorie-free), that doesn't mean that you'll lose weight or be healthier if you use them. In fact, studies have shown that artificial sweeteners actually cause people to eat more. There have also been more health complaints about the synthetic sweetener aspartame than any other food additive on the market today. How come? In your body, aspartame breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde. Remember formaldehyde from science class? It's a smelly, toxic chemical used to kill bacteria and preserve dead bodies.
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