The glycemic load (GL) of food is a number that estimates how much the food will raise a person's blood glucose level after eating it. One unit of glycemic load approximates the effect of eating one gram of glucose. Glycemic load accounts for how much

carbohydrate In organic chemistry, a carbohydrate () is a biomolecule consisting of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) atoms, usually with a hydrogen–oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water) and thus with the empirical formula (where ''m'' may o ...

is in the food and how much each gram of carbohydrate in the food raises blood glucose levels. Glycemic load is based on the

glycemic index The glycemic (glycaemic) index (GI; ) is a number from 0 to 100 assigned to a food, with pure glucose arbitrarily given the value of 100, which represents the relative rise in the blood glucose level two hours after consuming that food. The GI of ...

(GI), and is calculated by multiplying the grams of available carbohydrate in the food by the food's glycemic index, and then dividing by 100.

Description

Glycemic load estimates the impact of carbohydrate intake using the glycemic index while taking into account the amount of carbohydrates that are eaten in a serving. GL is a GI-weighted measure of carbohydrate content. For instance,

watermelon Watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a flowering plant species of the Cucurbitaceae family and the name of its edible fruit. A scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, it is a highly cultivated fruit worldwide, with more than 1,000 varie ...

has a high GI, but a typical serving of watermelon does not contain many carbohydrates, so the glycemic load of eating it is low. Whereas glycemic index is defined for each type of food, glycemic load can be calculated for any size serving of a food, an entire meal, or an entire day's meals. Glycemic load of a 100 g serving of food can be calculated as its carbohydrate content measured in grams (g), multiplied by the food's GI, and divided by 100. For example, watermelon has a GI of 72. A 100 g serving of watermelon has 5 g of available carbohydrates (it contains a lot of water), making the calculation (5 × 72)/100=3.6, so the GL is 3.6. A food with a GI of 90 and 8 g of available carbohydrates has a GL of 7.2 (8 × 90/100=7.2), while a food with a GI of just 6 and with 120 g of carbohydrate also has a GL of 7.2 (120 × 6/100=7.2). For one serving of a food, a GL greater than 20 is considered high, a GL of 11–19 is considered medium, and a GL of 10 or less is considered low. Foods that have a low GL in a typical serving size almost always have a low GI. Foods with an intermediate or high GL in a typical serving size range from a very low to very high GI. One 2007 study has questioned the value of using glycemic load as a basis for weight-loss programmes. Das et al. conducted a study on 36 healthy, overweight adults, using a randomised test to measure the efficacy of two diets, one with a high glycemic load and one with a low GL. The study concluded that there is no statistically significant difference between the outcome of the two diets. Glycemic load appears to be a significant factor in dietary programs targeting metabolic syndrome,

insulin resistance Insulin resistance (IR) is a pathological condition in which cells fail to respond normally to the hormone insulin. Insulin is a hormone that facilitates the transport of glucose from blood into cells, thereby reducing blood glucose (blood sugar ...

, and weight loss; studies have shown that sustained spikes in blood sugar and insulin levels may lead to increased

diabetes Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...

risk. The Shanghai Women's Health Study concluded that women whose diets had the highest glycemic index were 21 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than women whose diets had the lowest glycemic index. Similar findings were reported in the Black Women's Health Study. A diet program that manages the glycemic load aims to avoid sustained blood-sugar spikes and can help avoid onset of type 2 diabetes. For diabetics, glycemic load is a highly recommended tool for managing blood sugar. The data on GI and GL listed in this article is from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

(Human Nutrition Unit) GI database. The GI was invented in 1981 by Dr Thomas Wolever and Dr David Jenkins at the University of Toronto and is a measure of how quickly a food containing 25 or 50 g of carbohydrate raises blood-glucose levels. Because some foods typically have a low carbohydrate content, Harvard researchers created the GL, which takes into account the amount of carbohydrates in a given serving of a food and so provides a more useful measure. Liu et al. were the first to show that based on their calculation, the glycemic load of a specific food—calculated as the product of that food's carbohydrate content and its glycemic index value—has direct physiologic meaning in that each unit can be interpreted as the equivalent of 1 g carbohydrate from white bread (or glucose depending on the reference used in determining the glycemic index). It became immediately apparent that such direct physiological quantification of glycemic load would allow patients with diabetes to do "glycemic load" counting as opposed to the conventional “carbohydrate counting” for monitoring the glycemic effect of foods. The concept of glycemic load addresses the concern about rating foods as good or bad solely on the basis of their glycemic index. For example, although the glycemic index for carrots is reported to be as high as 1.31 times that of white bread, the glycemic load for one serving of carrots is small because the amount of carbohydrate in one serving of carrots is minimal (≈7 g carbohydrate). Indeed, ≈700 g carrots (which provides 50 g carbohydrate) must be eaten to produce an incremental glucose response 1.31 times that of 100 g white bread (which also contains 50 g carbohydrate) Special notes : it's a received idea due to a mistake in 1980, carrots do not have a GI (glucidic index) similar to white bread. They have 19 when they are raw and 47 (moderate) when they are boiled. Source :

List of foods and their glycemic load for a 100 g serving

:''All numeric values provided in the table are approximate. Note that 100 g may not represent a typical serving size. For example, a typical rice serving would be 150–200 g with a corresponding increase in GL, whilst a banana may weigh more than 100 g. Reference tables which give GL by typical serving size will show different values.'' {, class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:right;" , - !

Food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is in ...

Glycemic index The glycemic (glycaemic) index (GI; ) is a number from 0 to 100 assigned to a food, with pure glucose arbitrarily given the value of 100, which represents the relative rise in the blood glucose level two hours after consuming that food. The GI of ...

!! Carbohydrate
content
(g) !! Glycemic Load (100 g serving) !!

Insulin index The insulin index of food represents how much it elevates the concentration of insulin in the blood during the two-hour period after the food is ingested. The index is similar to the glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL), but rather than relyi ...

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Baguette A baguette (; ) is a long, thin type of bread of French origin that is commonly made from basic lean dough (the dough, though not the shape, is defined by French law). It is distinguishable by its length and crisp crust. A baguette has a dia ...

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Banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", disting ...

, Mean of 10 studies, , 52 (low) – 55 ± (low–medium)
Note: Glucose Score & Insulin Score multiplied by 0.7 for Glycemic index & Insulin index respectively., , , , 10 – 11 ± 1Calculation using data already tabulated and data from Holt, 1997., , ± 4 , - , align=left,

Cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&n ...

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Carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', na ...

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Corn tortilla In North America, a corn tortilla or just tortilla (, ) is a type of thin, unleavened flatbread, made from hominy, that is the whole kernels of maize treated with alkali to improve their nutrition in a process called nixtamalization. A simple ...

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Potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Uni ...

, mean of 5 studies, , 50 (low) – 99 ± 25 (high), , , , 9 – 18 ± 5, , 85 ± 8 , - , align=left,

Rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

, boiled white, mean of 12 studies, , 64 – 93, , 25, , {{Ntsh , 16 – 23Calculation based on Miller, 1992, , {{Ntsh, {{#expr:(40+79*.7+67*2)/4 40 ± 10 – 55 ± 8 – 67 ± 15 , - , align=left,

Watermelon Watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a flowering plant species of the Cucurbitaceae family and the name of its edible fruit. A scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, it is a highly cultivated fruit worldwide, with more than 1,000 varie ...

, , {{Nts, 72 (high), , {{Nts, 5, , <{{Nts, 4, , — , - , align=left,

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

, , {{Nts, 38 , , {{Nts, 47 , , {{Nts, 4 , , , - , align=left,

Apricot An apricot (, ) is a fruit, or the tree that bears the fruit, of several species in the genus '' Prunus''. Usually, an apricot is from the species '' P. armeniaca'', but the fruits of the other species in ''Prunus'' sect. ''Armeniaca'' are al ...

, {{Nts, 57 , {{Nts, 31 , {{Nts, 4 , , - , align=left,

Cherry A cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus ''Prunus'', and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit). Commercial cherries are obtained from cultivars of several species, such as the sweet ''Prunus avium'' and the sour '' Prunus cerasus''. The n ...

, fresh , {{Nts, 22 , {{Nts, 48 , {{Nts, 3{{Cite book , last=Blades , first=Mabel , url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1236259087 , title=The glycemic load counter : a pocket guide to GL and GI values for over 800 foods , date=2021 , isbn=978-1-64604-249-4 , location=Berkeley, CA , oclc=1236259087 ,

References

{{reflist

External links

{{refbegin * {{cite web , author1=Human Nutrition Unit , author2=School of Molecular Bioscience , title=Glycemic Index , work=International GI database , publisher=University of Sydney , url=http://www.glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php , ref={{harvid, Glycemic Index – Searchable database of over 2600 foods with their glycemic index and load values.
List of low GI foods
– Provided by th
University of Sydney
with some additional foods.
International Tables of Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load Values – 2008
Article providing data about 2500 food items systematically gathered from published and unpublished sources of reliable glycemic index (GI) values. Glycemic load (GL) values per serving and amount of available carbohydrates (total carbohydrate minus fiber) per serving are also provided. *
Table A1
GI and GL values for subjects with normal glucose tolerance. *
Table A2
GI and GL values for subjects with imparied glucose tolerance, together with data obtained from small samples, and data showing wide variability. *
Simplified version of Table A1
with short introduction by D. Mendosa. * {{cite journal , vauthors=Foster-Powell K, Holt SH, Brand-Miller JC , title=International table of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2002, journal=Am. J. Clin. Nutr. , volume=76 , issue=1 , pages=5–56 , date=July 2002 , pmid=12081815 , url=http://www.ajcn.org/content/76/1/5.full, doi=10.1093/ajcn/76.1.5, doi-access=free 750 items *
Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load calculator
Total values for any combinations of foods and any number of servings are computed according t

. Data are gathered from the above mentioned International table by Foster-Powell et al. (2002). {{refend {{Authority control Diabetes Nutrition sv:Glykemiskt index#Glykemisk belastning

Description

List of foods and their glycemic load for a 100 g serving

See also

References

External links