We all know refined carbs (white rice, white bread, sugar) are bad for you because they have no/low fiber and have a high glycemic index.
However, since Huel has lots of fiber, does eating refined carbs with huel LOWER the glycemic index of refined carbs THAN eating refined carbs alone?
^If the answer is yes, does that mean it’s safer/healthier to eat refined carbs with huel since you’ve effectively lowered the GI index? If not, why?
EDIT: I’m on a 100% Huel diet (breakfast, lunch and dinner), which helps me hit my total macros for fats and protiens but NOT my carbs, and it also hits my total daily fiber-intake (any more would create too much bloating). For those reasons, I supplement huel with 4 slices of white bread (3 times a day) to fulfill my total daily macro and fiber requirments.
As I understand it, it’s the average GI of a meal that matters, not the GI of each item in a meal. If you eat 50% high GI items and 50% low GI items, in a single meal, you end up with a medium GI meal. So if you have the bread at the same time as the Huel, your blood sugar won’t spike like it would if you ate the bread on its own.
But I don’t think GI matters much if you don’t have diabetes.
Refined carbs are generally seen as unhealthy because they aren’t filling so can lead to overeating and like you said are low in nutrients.
However, they’re not unsafe and there’s nothing wrong with eating them once in a while.
The glycaemic index tells you how quickly a carbohydrate containing food is digested and absorbed. So, if you eat white bread with something that slows down digestion and absorption like fat you will lower the glycaemic index. So yes Huel will probably lower the glycaemic index but it doesn’t matter if you’re having the white bread on its own.
You can find out more about the glycemic index here.
That’s my understanding too. Tapioca starch as an example has a pretty high GI but other ingredients bring the overall GI of Huel RTD (as an example) right down.
It’s about balance and generally speaking Glycemic Index isn’t a sensible measure by itself anyway - Snickers bars and ice-cream are both low-GI foods, but you wouldn’t want either for a meal. Well, not a healthy one anyway.