Nutrition Blog

American dietitian and author of Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, Johanna Burani, shares favourite recipes with a low or moderate GI from her Italian kitchen. For more information, check out Johanna’s website. The photographs are by Sergio Burani. His food, travel and wine photography website is photosbysergio.com.

Baked Belgian Endives
Italians love ‘indivia’. Vegetable greens, raw and cooked, play a prominent role in Italian meal planning all year long but some are given special attention for holiday meals. This recipe has graced our table at Christmas and special family events. The exquisite blending of its flavors belies the simplicity of the preparation of this side dish.
Serves 8 (2 halves each)

8 endives (witlof), approximately 5 oz (150 g) each
2 tablespoons salted butter
pinch salt
pinch sugar
½ cup (approximately 2 oz) crumbled gorgonzola
5 walnut halves, chopped (about 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts)

• Preheat the oven to 190ºC (375ºF). Cover the bottom of an oven-proof casserole with vegetable spray.
• Trim a thin sliver off the root end of each endive. Slice vertically each endive in half taking care to keep loose leaves together. Under running water, gently wash them, shake off excess water and pat dry with a paper towel.
• Melt the butter in a heavy, deep skillet, large enough to accommodate the endives in one layer. Lower the flame and place the halved endives in the skillet cut side down. Sprinkle the salt and sugar. Cover tightly and cook slowly for 15 minutes.
• Using 2 spoons or small tongs, carefully turn the endives over and continue to cook for another 15 minutes.
• When the endives are full cooked, carefully transfer them to the prepared casserole. Pour over any pan juices, sprinkle the cheese and the nuts on top and bake for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Per serving
Energy: 336 kJ/ 80 cals; Protein 2 g; Fat 6 g (includes 3 g saturated fat and 14 mg cholesterol); Carbs 1 g; Fibre less than 1 g

Cut back on the food bills and enjoy fresh-tasting, easily prepared, seasonal, satisfying and delicious low or moderate GI meals that don’t compromise on quality and flavour one little bit with Money Saving Meals author Diane Temple. For more recipes check out Diane’s Money Saving Meals website.

Boeuf Bourguignon inspired by Julie and Julia
You get the flavour without spending a fortune in my simplified version of this classic French dish. It’s a heart-warming, make-ahead dish for wintry weather. I have cut back on the amount of meat and used shortcut bacon instead of a chunk of bacon to cut back on the sat fat. (Short cut bacon is a ‘half rasher’ – the streaky (belly), narrow portion of the rasher has been removed leaving the choice cut eye meat.) But I did use a good-ish red wine and a little butter (it is a French dish) combined with olive oil. Of course you can substitute margarine if you prefer. Serve with mashed potato (a low GI potato one preferably) or sweet potato and green beans. To cut the fat and calories, have a smaller serving and enjoy the hearty flavour.
Serves 6

2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
800 g gravy beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped into chunks
150 g (5 oz) shortcut bacon, fat trimmed, chopped into large dice
½ teaspoon dried thyme
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1½ cups red wine
1 cup beef stock
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 bay leaf
8 small pickling onions, peeled, and halved if large-ish
300 g (10 oz) button mushrooms
¼ cup parsley

• Preheat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF).
• Chop the meat into largish chunks (remember, meat shrinks when cooked).
• Heat 1 tablespoon butter and all the oil in a large saucepan and brown the meat well in 2 batches on a high heat. Remove all meat from pan. Add the onion, carrots, bacon and thyme and cook, stirring occasionally on a low heat for 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and wine, bring to the boil and simmer for about 3 minutes until the wine has reduced a little. Stir in the stock, tomato paste, bay leaf and beef, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
• While the casserole is simmering away, Place the pickling onions on an oven tray lined with baking paper and mix with remaining butter that has been melted, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Roast in the preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until soft.
• Add the mushrooms the casserole dish and continue cooking, covered, for 15 minutes until the meat is tender and the mushrooms are softening. Stir in the roasted onions and cook for another 5 minutes until heated through. Top with parsley.

Per serving
Energy: 1700 kJ/ 406 cals; Protein 36 g; Fat 20 g (includes 8 g saturated fat and 95 mg cholesterol); Carbs 10 g; Fibre 5 g

Gratineed fruit
This made-in-minutes (about 15 minutes) recipe from Lyndey Milan: The best collection. Fast, fabulous food makes the perfect sweet and light finish to a festive feast. Choose fresh seasonal fruit – it’s hard to go past mangoes or strawberries for a summery dessert. If serving with wine, choose a sweeter style of sparkling wine. Lyndey’s book is available from major bookstores or online.
Serves 4

2 large mangoes (allow 1 cheek, sliced per person)

Zabaglione
2 egg yolks
4 teaspoons marsala
4 level teaspoons caster sugar
Zest of 1 lemon

• Prepare the fruit and preheat the grill (if it is one that takes time to warm up).
• Put all the zabaglione ingredients in the top of a double boiler, or straight into a saucepan if you are careful. Beat with a balloon whisk over a gentle heat until the whole thing has trebled in volume and is light and frothy throughout.
• Put the fresh fruit into ramekins and top with the zabaglione. Pop under a preheated griller until brown. Be careful not to burn it.

Per serving
Energy: 960 kJ/ 229 cals; Protein 4 g; Fat 3 g (includes 0.8 g saturated fat and 106 mg cholesterol); Carbs 42 g; Fibre 5 g

Home cooking with low GI ingredients is a new feature in GI News. Libby Warne and her husband Dan made the decision to eat the low GI way to help Dan manage his blood glucose (he has type 2 diabetes) and to lose some weight. They post all the recipes Libby creates and cooks on their website with Dan’s photos. For more recipes, check out lowgicooking.com

Baked lemon and raspberry cheesecake
For me the party season is a killer for lashing out on various combinations of sugar, butter, cream and eggs – so I am all for alternatives. Enter stevia. With this cheesecake you can treat your friends and family with a lower-cal version of baked cheesecake – the sweet stevia offsets the tangy lemon and the bright red raspberries piled on top of the creamy base make it the perfect centrepiece for any occasion. Prepare it a day ahead to allow time to set and cool. And just have a sliver if you need to watch your weight. Of course, substitute an equal amount of sugar if you don’t have stevia. Just be aware that there’ll be more calories and carbs than in our nutritional analysis.
Serves: 10

Base
1 cup whole almonds
1 cup wholegrain oats
1/2 cup wholegrain, wholemeal flour
1/4 cup grapeseed (or olive) oil
3 teaspoons hermesetas stevia
3 tablespoons (about 50 ml) lemon juice
1 egg

Filling
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) smooth ricotta
1/2 cup lemon juice
Seeds of one vanilla bean scraped off (or 1 teaspoon vanilla essence)
Zest of one lemon grated finely (2 level teaspoons flat)
3 heaped tablespoons stevia hermesetas
4 eggs

Topping
Fresh raspberries or thawed frozen raspberries

• Preheat the oven to 160ºC/325ºF. Lightly grease a 30 cm/12 in diameter springform pan with olive oil.
• To make the base, pulse almonds and oats together in a food processor with a sharp blade, until coarse grains form, but chunks of almond are scanty. Add the flour, stevia and egg and continue to pulse. While pulsing, gradually add the olive oil and lemon juice, checking the consistency as you go. The end result should press together in your fingers and form a crumbly dough that holds together well, but does not stick to your fingers. Scrape out crumbed mix into the springform pan. Press down, loosely at first, then gradually more firmly. When flat, press down more tightly using a cup with a flat base, till the surface is as smooth as possible. Bake for 10 minutes then remove from oven.
• Meanwhile, make the filling. Combine ricotta and eggs in the (cleaned) processor and pulse for 2–3 minutes until completely smooth. Gradually add lemon juice, zest, vanilla bean scrapings and stevia.
• Pour topping into base, and bake for 40 minutes or until golden and just set in the centre. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely. Refrigerate overnight.
• Remove from fridge half an hour before serving. Transfer the cheesecake to plate you wish to serve it on and top with raspberries. Fresh blueberries, strawberries, passionfruit, or mango would also make excellent toppings. You can also add 2 tablespoons of liqueur to the cheesecake while cooking in place of half the lemon juice – cointreau is particularly good, and amaretto is my absolute favourite.

Per serving
Energy: 1350 kJ/ 323 cals; Protein 14 g; Fat 23 g (includes 5 g saturated fat and 118 mg cholesterol); Carbs 13 g; Fibre 3.5 g

The veggies have it – again
Healthy eating is one of the best gifts a mother-to-be can give her growing baby says dietitian Kaye Foster-Powell in her Low GI Family Cookbook. ‘We shape our children’s health and wellbeing from the moment they are conceived. What a woman eats when she is pregnant influences her baby’s health in many ways. The nourishment her baby receives in the womb shapes how its body grows. The flavours of the foods she eats can play a part in her child’s later food preferences, and her baby’s birth weight can predict the risk of chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease later in life.’

A new study published in Pediatric Diabetes reinforces the healthy eating message revealing the results of a Swedish study that suggest that pregnant women who eat vegetables every day seem to have children who are less likely to develop type 1 diabetes.

‘This is the first study to show a link between vegetable intake during pregnancy and the risk of the child subsequently developing type 1 diabetes, but more studies of various kinds will be needed before we can say anything definitive,’ says lead author and clinical nutritionist Hilde Brekke from the Sahlgrenska Academy.

Hilde Brekke

The researchers analysed blood samples from 5724 five year-olds in the study. In type 1 diabetes, certain cells in the pancreas gradually get worse at producing insulin, leading to insulin deficiency. Children at risk of developing type 1 diabetes have antibodies in their blood which attack these insulin-producing cells.

Of the children tested, 3% (191 children) had either elevated levels of these antibodies or had fully developed type 1 diabetes at the age of five. These risk markers were up to twice as common in children whose mothers rarely ate vegetables during pregnancy. The risk was lowest among children whose mothers stated that they ate vegetables every day.

Applying the term ‘vegetables’ to all vegetables except for root vegetables, the researchers looked at the mothers’ (self reported) daily consumption of veggies. The most frequently consumed vegetables in Sweden between 1996–99, when the data was originally collected, were tomatoes, cabbage, onions, lettuce and cucumbers.

‘We cannot say with certainty on the basis of this study that it’s the vegetables themselves that have this protective effect, but other factors related to vegetable intake, such as the mother’s standard of education, do not seem to explain the link,’ says Brekke. ‘Nor can this protection be explained by other measured dietary factors or other known risk factors.’

For a delicious way to up your veggie intake, tuck into Johanna Burani’s ‘Baked Belgian Endive’ recipe (see GI News Kitchen in this issue).

Chinese herbs show promise for diabetes prevention
A recent Cochrane review examined 16 randomised controlled trials of 15 different Chinese herbal medicines traditionally used for blood glucose control. ‘Chinese herbal medicines have been used for this purpose for a long time, so there is plenty of anecdotal evidence for their safety and effectiveness, but we were interested to find out whether scientific research could provide a basis for recommending these alternative treatments,’ says lead researcher, Suzanne Grant of the Centre for Complementary Medicine Research at the University of Western Sydney in Australia.

The researchers considered data from 16 clinical trials including 1,391 people who received 15 different herbal formulations. They found that the herbs generally helped lower ‘and normalise’ blood glucose levels in people with ‘pre-diabetes’. According to their findings, combining herbal medicines with lifestyle changes is twice as effective as lifestyle changes alone at normalising blood glucose levels. Trials included in the review lasted from one month to two years. No adverse effects were reported in any of the trials.

‘Our results suggest that some Chinese herbal medicines can help to prevent diabetes, but we really need more research before we can confidently say that these treatments work,’ says Grant. ‘The real value of the study is as guidance for further trials. We need to see more trials that make comparisons with placebos and other types of drugs, and better reporting on the outcomes of these trials.’

‘If people with pre-diabetes do want to try an herbal product,’ says Grant, ‘they should first consult their doctor and, ideally, take any herbs under a guidance of a health provider qualified in herbal medicine.’ In traditional Chinese medicine, herbs are recommended based on individuals’ unique situations, and not as a one-size-fits-all prescription. As far as safety, the review found no serious side effects attributed to the herbal products. However, Grant noted, like all medicines, herbs have the potential for unexpected side effects or interactions with other drugs.

Lower GI of your baking with whole pea flour
We are often asked for tips to help people lower the GI of their baking from cakes to cookies and muffins, slices and winter warming puddings. A new study published in the Journal of Food Science suggests that that using whole yellow pea flour instead of wheat flour will certainly help.

Christopher Marinangeli

PhD candidate Christopher Marinangeli, MSc, RD, of the University of Manitoba and colleagues baked banana bread and biscotti using either whole yellow pea flour or whole wheat flour as the primary ingredient. Subsequent GI testing in 19 healthy volunteers found that the whole pea flour banana bread and biscotti produced a lower glycemic response that was similar to plain boiled whole yellow peas. The whole yellow pea biscotti produced a lower glycemic response than biscotti containing whole wheat flour. The volunteers found the flavour of the banana bread and biscotti made with whole yellow pea flour acceptable.

‘We add Xanthan gum to all recipes because it creates a better texture to the final product since the pea flour lacks gluten, says Christopher Marinangeli whose team made this tiramisu using whole yellow pea flour. We are currently testing the tiramisu recipe in the GI News Kitchen and will publish it early in the new year. Meanwhile, here’s the biscotti recipe used in the study. If you use the new low GI sugar (Logicane) says GI Symbol’s Dr Alan Barclay, you will lower the GI of your baking even more!

Whole pea flour chocolate and hazelnut biscotti
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
280 g whole yellow pea flour
3 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 cup (200 g) white sugar
100 g hazelnuts, toasted, skins removed and chopped
85 g semi sweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon instant coffee
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon cloves

Preheat oven to 150ºC (350ºF) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

• In a small bowl whisk together the eggs and vanilla extract. Set aside.
• In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer) beat the flour, xanthan gum, sugar, baking powder, salt, spices, and espresso powder until combined. Gradually add the egg mixture and beat until a dough forms, adding the chopped nuts and chocolate chips about halfway through. With floured hands divide the dough in half.
• On a lightly floured surface roll each half of dough into a log about 25 cm (10 in) long and 5 cm (2 in) wide. Transfer logs to the prepared baking sheet, spacing about 7.5 cm (3 in) apart, and bake for about 35–40 minutes, or until firm to the touch (logs will spread during baking). Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.
• On a cutting board, with a serrated knife, cut each log crosswise, on the diagonal, into 2 cm (3/4 in) slices. Arrange the slices on the baking sheet and bake 10 minutes, turn slices over, and bake another 10 minutes or until firm to the touch. Remove from oven and let cool. Store in an airtight container.

We know that pea flour is unlikely to be in a supermarket aisle near you right now. Chris suggests checking Asian/Indian food stores for it. Otherwise substitute with chickpea flour (besan).

For more information, contact the University of Manitoba’s Richardson Center for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals, 196 Innovation Drive, Winnipeg MB, R3T 2N2 Canada. peter_jones@umanitoba.ca