GI

[NEEDLE LAD]

Hi
I am a newly diagnosed diabetic, I also have just attended a DESMOND course. Although we went through the pro's and cons of food sugars, fats etc, I do still find them very confusing. As a means of frustration I wrote to the 3 main producers of breakfast cereal asking the possibility in the future of adding the GI figures. I received a reply basically saying they already display enough information and the scientific community disagree with the validity of Glycaemic Index. I find this rather odd because the DESMOND group is a national affair run by the local NHS trust, conducted by a trained dietician and a Diabetic nurse. I would have thought most people who benefit from the GI are not scientists but ordinary people who do not understand percentage of this of which x percent are sugars etc or maybe just to busy to stand and read 50 or 60 labels. Surely a traffic light system of green amber and red ((low,medium, high)) would be far easier to recognise. I now ask myself do the manufacturers print the volumes by law but do not want the ordinary shopper to know what we put inside of us.

 

[Caroline]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

You are not the only one who finds lists of perecntages hard to understand. Boots do a traffic light system on their food, although it doesn't say how many carbs, it is still easy to understand.

I think it all comes down to money. Most companies don't want to do something if it is likely to cost them money, and since we still need to eat, they are in a win win situation and we are left guessing at best!

 

[Northerner]

Hi Needla Lad, welcome to the forum 🙂 I'm not too surprised by the response. I think that the companies all aperate a kind of 'cartel' agreement whereby they all do only what is legally required of them in putting certain nutritional information on packaging. With some, it's even more apparent that they are not trying to provide a genuine source of help to the consumer when they make the text so small that it can only be read using magnification! If one company starts providing extra, clear information, the rest would have to follow suit.

The traffic light system currently in operation is useful for a quick glance, but less useful for diabetics since it shows sugar levels, not carbohydrate. I suppose the best you can do currently is to assume that anything amber or red on the 'sugar' is high GI. We may be a minority of the consumer base, but we are a significant minority at over 2.4 million people with diabetes who would welcome the information you were asking for.