Q: Is it okay to feed my child low GI (glycaemic index) rice?
Answered by: Ms Nur Liyana Norazizan, Clinical Dietitian, Pantai Hospital Klang (PHK)
Yes. Simply put, GI (Glycaemic Index) is a measure of how rapid our blood sugar levels rises. It is a rating system for foods containing carbohydrates.
Low GI-foods ranked of 0-55 cause a steady and long-lasting rise and fall of blood sugar level whilst high GI foods ranked of 70-100 cause a significant immediate rise and fall of blood glucose.
Getting a balance of high and low GI food is the key. Low GI foods allow the blood sugar level to go up and down more steadily than high GI foods. This means, providing low GI rice to your child provides them with prolonged satiety, they will feel full longer and thus they are less likely to snack on unhealthy snacks or overeat which may lead to childhood obesity.
Consuming high GI food is OK but by combining foods with low GI in your child’s body, it will yield an intermediate GI food as a result – they balance each other out. For instance, adding dates into your child oatmeal will yield an intermediate GI food yet still provides prolonged energy for your child to be active throughout the day. Studies have suggested that when a small amount of sugar was added to a low-GI breakfast, a significant reduced food intake at lunch was observed.
Studies have also shown in a group of primary school students that low-GI foods have significant impact on the next food intake in which the mean energy is lower as compared to high-GI food. Pre-meal satiety scales were inversely related to subsequent food intake.
However, not all of our child’s food has to be low GI. Ideally, maintain half of your child’s carbohydrate that comes from low GI food as it promotes satiety and fat oxidation at the expense of carbohydrate oxidation. Low-GI rice is definitely a good substitution choice but that does not take into account that one may consume more than the recommended intake.
On another note, many high fat foods are low in GI since they contain a small amount of carbohydrate – potato crisp is a good example of this. Thus, we need to look at the whole food, Glycaemic Index is only just a rating system for carbohydrate content, in which does not imply how nutritious they are.
Keep lower GI foods as daily basis food and high GI as once in a blue moon option.
