calorie "dense" vegetables.. help me with a list here-

[stabmaster]

I can't seem to get enough carbs without eating yams and oats 6 times a day- but I know this need not be the case. 17 drums of broccoli and spinach would suffice as well. I'm seeking vegetables that are rather calorie dense but also have a low GI. For instance, potato and corn are calorie dense, but they are high GI. Yams and sweet potatoes take the crown with 80-120 cal per 1/2 cup and they're rather low GI.

I can't find the GI of many veggies. I found squash and artichoke hearts to have like 40-50 cal per 1/2 cup. How do these stack up as far as GI goes? Any more veggies you can think of? I know there are many out there- I need some help finding them!

[janderstein]

peas are a very calorically dense veggie, comparable to oats. carrots although high GI are dense, and have a lot of great vitamins. Apples and different fruits are also very beneficial, even though it seems as if there is a general consensus that fruit is bad.

[oddball182]

how about olives? (i think they are a vegtable)

[Cardinal]

I think your best bet may be to get/make/use mixed veggies. Something like stir fry or perhaps even a simple combo of three or four. Example might be corn, green beans, peas, carrots.

You are packing a greater combo of nutrients this way and have more contol over digestion rate. GI is whatever you want.

In a way, I am more or less looking for the same thing. Oats and potatoes are too calorie dense for me and I tend to overeat on those a lot.

[BoxSquat]

Originally posted by oddball182
how about olives? (i think they are a vegtable)

I'd say they are a fruit cos they have seeds

[Skullder]

olives are not calorie dense. a super colossal sized olive is only about 12 calories.

[stabmaster]

Originally posted by Skullder
olives are not calorie dense. a super colossal sized olive is only about 12 calories.

right but olives contain olive oil. I could have been more clear: calorie dense and lowfat. i consider olive low carb. If i want a low GI meal i realize i can eat corn and a tub of butter. I can do many things to reduce the glycemic- especially loading fat in there. Long and short of it is that i've been playing with ratios for the longest time- I'm not afraid of eating 50% fat (keto) or 35% fat (nearly keto) or even less. It's the "even less" that is tough for me. I always tend to take the salmon and eggs meal which is not a bad source of fats but just not going to keep my glycogen full at the end of the day (and that's what it's all about folks low GI and high glycogen). Ok it's not what its "ALL" about- but I am starting anew and this time around that's what i'm doin so there!

Green beans and peas are definitely on my list. I eat them occasionally but i can move that status up to "often."

Things in the pumpkin family tend to fit the status- but I must do some more searching.

as for stir fry- i think i lived off of stir fry for a year. I like the stuff- but it's hard making it taste good "dry." I am not really into putting stir fry sauce on it anymore in order to avoid sugary stuff. I remember eating about 2 bags of it on a carb-up and it turned out being like 130 calories.

a couple of ideas i have are condensing medium or low calorie dense veggies. One example is french onion soup- i can make a single bowl out of 2 large onions- 150 calories. Another is a dip i can make from an eggplant. The glycemic is impossible to figure out unless i want to use my blood sugar analyzer and both of these things take time and yield a trivial number of calories. For quick and easy- these are not ideal... but the idea is novel- and there might be good examples of using condensed veggies (tomato paste? etcetc).

[Cardinal]

It helps a lot knowing your motivation for wanting to find these. I have GI problems from too much stir fry as well as too much fat. For the time being I can't handle the standard fair low carb veggies. I also need a more stable, i.e. lower GI response throughout the day w/o much fat. I get hypoglycemic ridiculously easily (it can happen when I eat broccoli, lol).

Here is what I am thinking about doing to stabilize insulin/make stuff work.

1) Go very high in protein at each meal. This will help to reduce the GI of whatever veggie you want. You could also get enough to get some conversion to glucose this way if you can handle lots of low fat meat.

2) Go ahead and have a tiny bit of fat with each meal. Can't hurt and should help with GI value.

3) Fruit might not be such a bad thing to include sometimes. I am thinking apples for example. About half glucose and half fructose if I remember correctly. So decent at filling muscle glycogen. This and milk products tend to send me a strong fed signal, which is nice w/o the excessive volume.

4) I am sure you are probably just as in tune with your body if not moreso than most. I have gotten to a point where I know when a meal causes too strong of an insulin spike. I basically need to take a nap within a half hour of eating if there are too many carbs. Remember glycemic load can be extremely important here too (read eat small meals). No need to for most to test glucose levels imo. I can also tell when my mind becomes foggy from too high GI carbs. I guess this comes from having keto experience. I guess what I am getting at is there are tons of signals your body will send you when you get a meal that is too high in GI and if you pay attention to them, maybe that can be a way of safely working in the large number of CHO you eat using veggies.

5) Check the nutrient database for glucose/fructose content of veggies. This will influence how it is stored obviously and you can find some good stuff this way.

6) Don't forget about other GI lowering factors. I really like polydextrose for instance. It is used in a lot of sweet tasting products. Other gentle fibers found in various food/sold as supps have a GI lowering tendency. Think about using xantham or guar gum as thickeners for shakes, thickeners for sauces for veggies or soups. Stuff like that.

I am pretty much just throwing out ideas here. A lot of these things can help to reduce the volume of what you ingest and thus increase caloric density, may reduce bloat etc.

[LordNeon]

Originally posted by janderstein
peas are a very calorically dense veggie, comparable to oats. carrots although high GI are dense, and have a lot of great vitamins. Apples and different fruits are also very beneficial, even though it seems as if there is a general consensus that fruit is bad.

There is no such consensus. Fruit has vitamins, phytochemicals and antioxidants. It's great for your diet. Keto dieters probably want to avoid it, though.

[Salford Reds]

If you can, eat vegetables raw. Carrots are good like that, as are peas, potatoes and corn. Potatoes raw are actually low GI. In addition, you gain a lot more of the "good stuff" when you haven't cooked the vitamins out of them.

[Skullder]

Originally posted by Salford Reds
If you can, eat vegetables raw. Carrots are good like that, as are peas, potatoes and corn. Potatoes raw are actually low GI. In addition, you gain a lot more of the "good stuff" when you haven't cooked the vitamins out of them.

unless you steam them...