Most of us would agree that vegetables are healthier than meat. But meal won’t raise your blood glucose level. Vegetables will.

The trick is to learn what vegetables won’t raise your blood glucose levels too much. That’s where the glycemic index comes in.

Nobody has done more to educate the world about the value and the use of the glycemic index than Professor Jennie Brand-Miller of the University of Sydney in Australia. I can’t even keep track any more of all the books that Jennie has written in the past decade about the GI. She even wrote one with me, The New Glucose Revolution: What Makes My Blood Glucose Go Up…And Down?

Her most recent book in “The New Glucose Revolution” series is her Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook. This new book, just published on September 28, is the most important resource ever for vegetarians with diabetes.

There isn’t even much on the Web that I have felt good about recommending now that Virginia Messina’s article “Diabetes and a Vegetarian Diet” is no longer online. Instead, it is now a part of her book, The Vegetarian Way. That book, and another book, Defeating Diabetes, which I reviewed in an earlier issue of this newsletter, have been the best resources that vegetarians who have diabetes have to work with.

Jennie’s new book on the GI for vegetarians has 80 vegetarian and vegan recipes. But what I found to be much more interesting and valuable were the sections at the front and back of the book that bracket the recipes.

Here vegetarians with diabetes will find what they need to know about all sorts of vegetables, everything from legumes — beans and lentils — to nuts and seeds. Aside from vegetables, all vegetarians also have a wide variety of fruit to choose from. And unless the vegetarian is a vegan, he or she can benefit from eggs and dairy products.

Marlowe & Company in New York just published The New Glucose Revolution Low GI Vegetarian Cookbook. This 186-page trade paperback lists for $19.95. The ISBN-13 is 978-1-56924-278-0; the ISBN-10 is 56924-278-X.

[As of 29Dec2006, this book is available via Amazon for $14.16.]