The Tesco supermarket chain was the first to embrace the GI diet with gusto. Last January, it published its own GI diet book jointly written by Rick Gallop, author of the best-seller, The Gi Diet.
Since then, approximately 17,000 people in Britain and Ireland have signed up to the Tesco GI diet online.
The supermarket chain has also begun to label their products with GI ratings.
"So far, we have the GI ratings on 5-10 product lines mainly in the bakery range but by the end of this year, we hope to have 1,000 own label products with GI ratings," says a Tesco spokesperson from Britain. So far, products in the Tesco supermarkets in Ireland don't have GI ratings. By means of explaining the delay, she adds, "Labelling started at the end of the year in Britain but it takes three months to test one product alone."
Breda Gavin, dietician with Superquinn says the Irish supermarket chain hasn't come out in support of the GI diet. "There's no conclusive research about it in terms of its value as a weight loss programme but two years ago, we produced a booklet in partnership with the Diabetes Federation of Ireland explaining how diabetics could control their blood sugar levels by incorporating knowledge of the GI ratings of food into their diet," she adds.