Carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion, and require little energy to digest, release glucose rapidly into the bloodstream. I eat a lot of complex carbohydrates in the form of vegetables, but very little pasta and bread. My Grand Dad believed that chronic high insulin levels have detrimental effects.
This is similar to the information provided by the Glycemic Index, except that the Glycemic Index does not take into account the amount of energy your body has to expend to digest the food.
Wikipedia has this example of low and high GI foods, where Low is better.
Low GI 55 or less: most fruits and vegetables (except potatoes, watermelon), grainy breads, pasta, legumes/pulses, milk, products extremely low in carbohydrates (fish, eggs, meat, some cheeses, nuts, cooking oil), brown rice
Medium GI 56 - 69: whole wheat products, basmati rice, sweet potato, table sugar, most white rices (e.g. jasmine)
High GI 70 and above: corn flakes, rice krispies, baked potatoes, watermelon, croissants, white bread, extruded breakfast cereals, straight glucose (100)
Fructose has a low Glycemic Index but this is an exception where this measure fails. Animals eat food high in fructose to build up fat for the winter. Studies with animals have shown that animals fed Fructose become obese while animals fed an equivalent caloric amount of Sucrose do not become obese.
So there more to it than what is captured by the Glycemic Index.
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