Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
groups such as cereals, legumes, fruits, and spices that have active ingredients
with the ability to reduce glycemic and insulin response in humans.
6. CEREAL-BASED INGREDIENTS
Cereals are an important staple consumed worldwide in different
forms such as breads, breakfast cereals, porridges, bakery products, etc. Some
cereals are rich in specific ingredients that have the ability to influence the
blood glucose levels. While common cereals such as rice and wheat are not
regarded as containing functional ingredients, less-common cereals such as
oats, barley, and rye are reported to be rich in soluble fiber and phytochem-
icals that can help maintain blood glucose and insulin levels. Insoluble fiber
has also shown some effect on modulating blood glucose especially after the
second meal. When a high-fiber cereal was compared with a low-fiber cereal
and white bread and then followed by an ad libitum meal after 75 min, the
blood glucose response before the ad libitum meal was not different. But,
after the ad libitum pizza meal, the blood glucose was modulated in the case
of the high-fiber cereal (
Samra & Anderson, 2007
). The high-fiber cereal
had 33 g insoluble fiber compared to the low fiber, which had just 1 g
and may have resulted in favorable results even after the second meal for
reasons unknown.
A comparison of the common starchy foods in China showed that brown
rice had a high GI value compared to some other foods such as taro, adlay,
yam, and mung bean noodles (
Lin, Wu, Lu, & Lin, 2010
). The result for
brown rice was surprising irrespective of its high-fiber and resistant starch
content. However, the authors assumed that the soaking process preceding
cooking might have resulted in starch gelatinization and increase in glycemic
response in healthy subjects. As expected, the mung bean noodles had low
GI and other foods had medium GI.
6.1. Barley
A healthy diet rich in dietary fiber could play an important role in the pre-
vention of diabetes.
b
-Glucan is a soluble dietary fiber present in cereals as
linear homopolymers of glucose linked via
b
-(1
!
4) and
b
-(1
!
3) linkage.
Barley is an excellent source of
b
-glucan.
b
-Glucan incorporated into var-
ious food matrices has been shown to lower the GI of foods (
Keogh, Lau,
intestine thereby slowing gastric emptying and controlling nutrient
