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By Darina Allen; I have seen innumerable diet fads come and go, but have never advocated any regime. I simply encourage people to seek out fresh, naturally produced, seasonal local food.
The more I learn about the mass production of food and the problems associated with the intensive production systems and factory farming, the more convinced I am that organic is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson is passionate about organic food, good animal husbandry and the importance of local producers. Antony and his Irish wife, Jay, own four restaurants in London, among them Notting Grill and Kew Grill. Both restaurants specialise in organic meat, fruit and vegetables, often supplied from the Worrall Thompson's own farm. Antony is a keen proponent of healthy eating, especially since he was diagnosed with syndrome-X, a pre-diabetic condition. He vowed to reverse this condition by eating well, losing weight and giving up cigarettes.
He structured his diet on the sound principles of the glycaemic index, which measures the speed at which foods are broken down by the body to form glucose, the body's source of energy. High GI foods break down quickly and leave you looking for the next food fix. Low GI foods break down more slowly and leave you feeling fuller, longer. It is these low GI foods that form the core of the diet.
The GI diet lists foods in three colour categories: red light foods, which you avoid if you want to lose weight; yellow light listings are foods that are to be used occasionally; and green light foods you can eat as much as you like.
Antony embarked on this way of eating and wrote a book about his experience of the diet Antony Worrall Thompson's GI Diet.
The GL (glycaemic load) diet is an extension of GI principles. As it is a more precise calculation of GI and portion sizes, it allows an even bigger range of foods in your diet, with more generous portions.
Researchers have found that not all carbohydrates are the same, which means that you can't group all the carbohydrate-containing foods together.
Some carbohydrates are digested more slowly they have a low GI which means that our blood sugar levels don't yo-yo...