Glycemic Index

zakoenig

Does anyone know if MyFitnessPal has a way to determine the glycemic index of the foods that we log? If not, I think that would be a cool feature to add in for upcoming updates.

Alatariel75

It doesn't, because there's no definitive register of it. Labels don't have it, and MFP is a library, not a research database. It can only reflect info that already exists.

RodaRose

Science says that the Glycemic index is BS -- too many variables. If you are concerned about sugar amounts, pay attention to your daily carbs in grams. Eat more fiber if you wish -- that was one of the goals of the glycemic index.

lemurcat12

GI varies person to person (recent study about that) and also only applies if foods are eaten on their own, which isn't going to be how most of us eat.

Also, it would still be GL that you'd need, adjusted to the serving that you ate.

mjbnj0001

Alatariel75 wrote: »

It doesn't, because there's no definitive register of it. Labels don't have it, and MFP is a library, not a research database. It can only reflect info that already exists.

My wife got me a series with a nutritionist as part of Christmas this past year. He's not a fan of calorie-counting and macros, but supports GI/GL. I'm a faithful believer in CICO and counting, and use MFP daily. To accommodate GI/GL, I've needed to export the MFP daily reports and cross-reference glycemic foods data to track and control to GI/GL meal and daily targets. It's been tough work to (a) find relevant GI data and (b) correlate it to MFP food data and produce meaningful results.

I've been using data from dietgrail.com for GI and GI. There's also a published version available for Amazon Kindle. I have needed to back into portion comparability between MFP USDA data and the dietgrail DB by reverting to the basic formula for GI and GL. A lot of work.

After a number of months, the process has gotten much easier as I've built up a database for the foods I typically eat and linked them to usable MFP entries. Oh, and I've lost about 35lbs this year thus far.

I have some confidence in this combined approach, and I'm not completely sold on GI/GL, as a sole thing. At this point, I am thinking it's a useful tool or approach and MFP-style CICO has obvious utility and demonstrable success as well.

mjbnj0001

RodaRose wrote: »

Science says that the Glycemic index is BS -- too many variables. If you are concerned about sugar amounts, pay attention to your daily carbs in grams. Eat more fiber if you wish -- that was one of the goals of the glycemic index.

See my entry above about my cross-referencing MFP data and GI/GL data.

One surprising result I have after several months of data is that there seems to be a higher correlation between GI/GL from starch in the foods I've been eating than total carbs or total sugar or total fiber as reported in MFP USDA data (I've been doing regression analyses). I haven't found corroborative info online regarding this. I tend to home-cook most things, so I'm using MFP USDA data more than branded foods labeled data.

I also eat to control sugar (don't have a sugar problem and don't want it). Other than an uptick in summer fruit consumption, which also raised GI/GL numbers, I keep to a good macro target in this area.

mjbnj0001

lemurcat12 wrote: »

GI varies person to person (recent study about that) and also only applies if foods are eaten on their own, which isn't going to be how most of us eat.

Also, it would still be GL that you'd need, adjusted to the serving that you ate.

See my above entries on this topic.

This one-at-a-time measurement is a reflection of how immature the available data is, and how hard it is to do live human testing (experiments). There are no good published answers that I've seen to situations such as beef stew, which typically contains potato, carrot, onion and a green, such as peas, all of which contribute to total GL of the meal, but in some complex way impacted by the fiber they also contribute; I usually just add the numbers for a meal total. Another assertion in the online articles, not strongly backed by data, is that *perhaps* vinegar reduces GI, thus GL; think ... is German-style potato salad thus less a GI-impactful meal than a mayo-based one? Who knows?

I'm trying to link MFP-style counting with GI/GL and it's sort of working for me. But is tough work. And I'm a bit of a numbers guy to begin with.

mjbnj0001

lemurcat12 wrote: »

GI varies person to person (recent study about that) and also only applies if foods are eaten on their own, which isn't going to be how most of us eat.

Also, it would still be GL that you'd need, adjusted to the serving that you ate.

Also meant to say that it doesn't need to be absolutely accurate, just good enough. My tracking seems to work for me in the fact that doing all this work has led me to about 35 lbs loss this year thus far. Maybe I'm just working the spreadsheets too much to actually eat, LOL!