I was looking into nutrisystem and other “healthy” meal plans just for meal planning ideas to make myself at home and I noticed a LOT of their meals are heavily carb based (a lot of pasta, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, waffles, cakes etc) I was wondering how this could be when they claim to be low glycemic. Are there ways to make these foods but not cause a sugar crash?
A meal consisting mostly of carbs can still have a low glycemic index if the source of carbs is low GI or if it’s paired with fat and/or protein. For example, consider brownies - they have a glycemic index of only 42, which is considered low. And as another example, snickers bars have a glycemic index of only 43.
The only way is to use low glycemic flour like coconut, almond or other such flours. But these flours don’t behave the same way with leavening so I usually add at least 1/3 regular flour to recipes and add more eggs. For pasta, use spaghetti squash. I cook a bit of pasta as well and do half pasta and spaghetti squash.