I've read a lot of talk about
Lymies needing to eliminate carbs althogether. There's so much really nutritious food out there in the carbohydrate group I cannot see how
completely eliminating
all carbs could be a wise decision. Sounds like throwing the baby out with the bathwater to me. I think we definitely need to eliminate dietary sugar and limit total dietary carbs, while selectively choosing the best carbohydrate foods available.
So we need to be very careful of consuming foods that raise our blood glucose because sugar feeds infections. Ok, check. 
Eliminating simple sugars is easy, just look at the label in most cases. Since all carbs are ultimately converted to glucose in the body though we need to know more about the (complex) carbs we're eating. To know which carbs are the worst offenders though we need access to information showing their glycemic indices and their glycemic loads.
A carbohydrate food's glycemic index is the rate at which it is converted to glucose in the body. The slower the conversion the better. An index of 55 is very good. Anything lower than that number is outstanding. A food's glycemic load measures how fast this conversion will occur taking into account the amount of carbodydrates it contains in a serving. If a food converts relatively rapidly, but has few grams of carbs in it, then it will have a lower load number. A load of 10 is very good. Both numbers are important because a higher index, like 75 for example, isn't as big a deal if it's load is only 12. That means although that food will be converted to glucose somewhat faster, it has only a small amount of carbs. So a higher index is acceptable in limited amounts if the load is quite low. Just use your best judgement.
Linked is the comphrensive glycemic index and load list. It contains foods for sale worldwide. Generally I noticed that beans are great carb choices with really low indices and loads.
http://www.mendosa.com/gilists.htm
Post Edited (Sulma) : 2/27/2009 9:43:29 AM (GMT-7)