Once upon a time people simply sat down to dinner, eating to fill up an empty stomach or just for the pleasure of it. Nobody said, "Wow that cream soup is loaded with calories," or asked whether the bread was a high fiber loaf or fretted about the chicken being served with the skin still on. There were no fast food restaurants, frozen dinners, or low fat cookies. Now our dinner tables, if we sit down at all, are often a battleground between health and pleasure. Some of us eat on the run and other plan meals with the precision of a column of ants carrying their food source back to a remote nest. Information about nutrition that was so certain in past years is now evolving. As it does, the "rules" or "guidelines" get modified. It's crazymaking.

Nevertheless, one of the more interesting developments has to do with how carbohydrates work. Much of what we are learning flies in the face of the reasons that support low carb dieting-especially diets like Sugarbusters or The Zone which recommend avoiding all foods that have a high glycemic index.

The glycemic index of a food is a measure of how fast your blood sugar (blood glucose) jumps after you eat a food. The standard is 100-the value of white bread (some scientists use pure glucose), which produces one of the greatest effects on blood glucose. Every other food is ranked accordingly. A food with a high glycemic index shoots your blood sugar high and is followed by an equally fast drop in blood sugar levels. This is bad news for a diabetic who needs to have stable blood sugar levels. Conversely a food with a low glycemic index raises blood sugar slowly and that level recedes slowly. When you look at a chart that ranks foods based on their glycemic index you will discover that most fruits and root vegetables have a high glycemic index but the glycemic index of beans, whole grains and high fiber vegetables is low.

This has always bothered me. Carrots, with a glycemic index of 92 are discouraged in this system. Carrots are the best vegetable you can eat to prevent macular degeneration-a form of blindness that can occur as we age. "Why," I'd think with my logical thinking cap on, "would this 'no carrots' rule be a good one? Why would air popped popcorn, which is filled with fiber be verboten because it has a glycemic index of 79?" It turns out my intuitive logic is right on. There's another piece to the glycemic pie. It's called the glycemic load of a food.

The glycemic load doesn't focus on how high it raises blood sugar, it tells you how much sugar is in the food. This more accurately predicts the effect the food will have on your blood sugar. The glycemic load is calculated by multiplying the grams of carbohydrate in a serving of food (it's on the food label) by its glycemic index then dividing the result by 100. Doing this gives carrots a glycemic load of only 10. That air popped popcorn has a glycemic load of 4. Both, as I expected, are wise choices when it comes to eating carbs because they don't throw your blood sugar out of whack after all. (The same is true of apples, potatoes, rice and spaghetti!)

You can go on the Internet to find the glycemic load of various foods THE NEW GLUCOSE REVOLUTION, the most popular series of books on the subject have guidelines, as does Dr. Gabe Merten's HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL GUIDE TO HEALTHY EATING.

So, if you've been avoiding them, put those important carrots back in your diet, go for balance and look at the long-term effect of the choices you make. Lest you think I forgot, all the healthy eating you can do won't do you much good if you aren't exercising. Health and well-being is a multi-pronged goal. Tune up your metabolic engine, feed it good fuel, get rest and avoid stress. It's the best insurance to a long and healthy life.