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Glycaemic index of selected staples commonly eaten in the Caribbean and the effects of boiling v. crushing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2007

D. Dan Ramdath ,
Renée L. C. Isaacs ,
Surujpal Teelucksingh  and
Thomas M. S. Wolever
D. Dan Ramdath
Affiliation:
Department of Preclinical Sciences, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
Renée L. C. Isaacs
Affiliation:
Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 3E2, Canada
Surujpal Teelucksingh
Affiliation:
Clinical Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago
Thomas M. S. Wolever*
Affiliation:
Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 3E2, Canada
*
*Corresponding author: Professor Thomas Wolever, fax +1 416 978 5882, email thomas.wolever@utoronto.ca
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Abstract

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Integrating information about the glycaemic index (GI) of foods into the Caribbean diet is limited by the lack of data. Therefore, we determined the GI of eight staple foods eaten in the Caribbean and the effect on GI of crushing selected tubers. Groups of eight to ten healthy volunteers participated in three studies at two sites. GI was determined using a standard method with white bread and adjusted relative to glucose. The mean area under the glucose response curve elicited by white bread was similar for the different groups of subjects. In study 1, the GI of cassava (Manihot esculenta; 94 (SEM 11)) was significantly higher than those of breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis; 60 (SEM 9)), cooking ‘green’ banana (Musa spp.; 65 (SEM 11)) and sadha roti (65 (SEM 9)) (P=0·018). There was no significant difference in the GI of the foods in study 2: dasheen (Colocasia esculenta var. esculenta; 77 (SEM 10)), eddoes (Colocasia esculenta var. antiquorum; 61 (SEM 10)), Irish potato (Solanum tuberosum; 71 (SEM 8)), tannia (Xanthosoma sagittifolium; 60 (SEM 5)) and white yam (Dioscorea alata; 62 (SEM 6)), and, in study 3, crushing did not significantly affect the GI of dasheen, tannia or Irish potato. However, when the results from studies 2 and 3 were pooled, the GI of dasheen (76 (SEM 7)) was significantly greater than that of tannia (55 (SEM 5); P=0·015) with potato being intermediate (69 (SEM 6)). We conclude that dasheen and cassava are high-GI foods, whereas the other tubers studied and sadha roti are intermediate-GI foods. Given the regular usage of cassava and dasheen in Caribbean diets we speculate that these diets would tend to be high GI, although this could be reduced by foods such as sadha roti and white yam. The range of GI between the staples is sufficiently large that health benefits may be accrued by replacing high-GI staples with intermediate-GI staples in the Caribbean diet.

Keywords

Glycaemic indexCaribbeanDiabetesGlucose
Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Nutrition , Volume 91 , Issue 6 , June 2004 , pp. 971 - 977
Copyright
Copyright © The Nutrition Society 2004

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