The glycemic index (GI) is a measure of the effect carbohydrates have on blood glucose levels. Understanding the GI values of specific foods can help reduce harmful spikes in blood sugar, as sugars and carbohydrates are broken down and your metabolism releases insulin to aid in digestion. Limiting your intake of high GI foods is a first-step towards controlling your cravings, increasing energy, and weight loss.
The GI is entirely based on the quality of carbohydrates and sugars you are intaking, not the quantity (although if you want to include portion control as well you can look at Glycemic Load (GL) of foods, looking for levels < 20). By its very definition, foods with minimal to no carbohydrates will have no measurable GI value — so in general carb-free foods such as most meats, seafood, poultry, and vegetables have no GI value.
Foods with a low GI (scores of 0-54) help you feel less hungry, provide you with a feeling of having more energy, and may lead to weight loss and provide a reduced risk of diabetes and improved heart health. While looking through these GI scores, please be aware by itself this does NOT constitute a diet — there are some fruits with higher GI scores than some less-healthy processed food snacks. The food list by itself is not a diet plan, its simply a measure on the effect of how your body breaks down the carbohydrates and that food’s impact on your insulin. To learn more, see our blood sugar chart.
Foods with a high GI score are associated with a fast, sharp spike in insulin. This often leads to intense cravings shortly after you’ve just eaten – for me a good example is after eating a toasted bagel… I want another one immediately. I don’t feel full, I want more… That’s from foods with a high GI.
Glycemic Index Food List
High GI Foods = GI of 70+ (Try to avoid these)
Medium GI = GI of 55-69 (use caution)
Low GI = GI of 0-54 (these are your target zone, but remember this doesn’t mean these are necessarily “good for you foods”, they’re just a representation of their GI score.
Yes agree the color coded spread sheet is a brilliant Idea, but add a lot of more foods, fruits and drinks, how to see that done . Thank for what you already provided .
What is the GI index of dried prunes and baby prunes. I like them for fiber, but I have type 2 diabetes.
You don’t list the newer nut milks like cashew or almond, etc. No mention of wheat or veggie pastas? What about dried fruits? I add them to my raw oatmeal with walnuts, chia seed & flax seed. What about Coco Wheats? I love that cereal. I add chia seeds & honey. What about nectarines?
Almond milk have a glycemic index of 0, and cashew milk’s GI is very close to 0, since almond milk do not contain any carbohydrates and cashew milk have 1g of carb in every cup.
I thank you for your website. it help me with myA1C and lowering my sugar
Does anyone know the glycemic index of wild rice?
Wild Rice has a GI of ‘medium’ which is 56 – 96.
SUGAR BUSTERS
A great book with all you will need!
Why do you list so many “bad” foods and not enough of the “good” foods? People need to be educated on the value of the good foods and not have a list of bad stuff thrown in front of them. I’m no expert, but I believe your list could use a revision, including more good than bad. This would at least give people more good choices.
The list provides the GI number. What else are you looking for. Both low and high GI numbers give us a clue about what we feel is good or bad to eat based on our goals.
The list of foods you have tested forGI is amazing but i am surprised that GI an be so low in foods that I, as a health coach would not recommend to my clients as they are so high in other ingredients that, for health or nutritional, purposes I would not recommend to my clients to put anywhere near their body. All soft drinks for instance and cakes and etc. So many people where I live are on benefits and feed themselves on cheap bread and soft drinks, fries and other undesirable foods that make them obese and whilst a lot of this food in low in GI it is still causing them to get diabetes from obesity. It would be good to include in this list a column for high bad fats in a food item or amount of sugar that creates this huge problem in foods people love and are cheap to buy. GI index is a good guide but does not answer the lack of good nutritional in foods that create major problems creating obesity and ill health amongst the majority of people I see.
You could make a spreadsheet with this information plus the fat content in another column. Highlight the bad foods in red, the moderate foods in yellow, and the good foods in green. Tell your clients to eat something like 90% of their foods from the green, 10% from the yellow, and only have foods from the red as a treat like once a week. I am also on benefits and I stay away from big name grocery stores, even Walmart, for my produce. I shop at farmers markets, that take the benefits, and at ethnic stores (Mexican, Asian, Middle Eastern) because they have much better prices. The food isn’t as pretty as the big name stores, but it tastes the same or better.
This is a great idea! For a spreadsheet. It is the basis for the GI diet I just purchased.
But the spreadsheet is genius.
Hello. The reason some foods have surprisingly low GI values is because they contain fructose which is digested slowly by the liver. As a result, there is not much of an insulin spike. Other sugars are digested rapidly in the stomach and small intestine and they create a substantial insulin spike.
Bill, you have little knowledge. Fructose, as found in whole fruits is digested slowly, only because when it contains high amounts of fiber, the fiber slows down the process of digesting the fructose that much of it passes not absorbed. Drinking squeezed orange juice is poison to the body as the OJ has little fiber in it. Instant spike and terrific crash leaving you sleepy in ten minutes and then hungrier 30 minutes later. Avoid all forms of fructose unless it is in whole fruits, then only eat enough fruits to meet the 100% RDA on vitamin C. Too much vitamin C antioxidant will actually starve your red blood cells from oxygenation. But then again, go ahead and consume as much fructose as you wish, I won’t!! Tend to stick with blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and apple peel… in other words, find the most nutrition and fiber per carb gram.
I have eaten wheat free for over a year and have been cooking/baking with almond flour, coconut flour and flaxseeds and flaxseed meal. I want to compute the GL of these products I bake but can find no glycemic index for any of these products. As a matter of fact, I can find no referendce to whole wheat or any other kind of wheat flour and do not understand why. If you know of any place I can find glycemic index numbers for almond flour or almond meal, flaxseeds and other products that are not wheat, please advise – with all the attention on these products, I do not understand the void – can you help me?
Thanks
The University of Sydney has an excellent website full of glycemic index info. http://www.glycemicindex.com
15. What about flour? If I make my own bread (or dumplings, pancakes, muffins etc) which flours, if any, are low GI? What about sprouted grain breads?
To date there are no GI ratings for refined flour whether it’s made from wheat, soy or other grains. This is because the GI rating of a food must be tested physiologically that is in real people. So far we haven’t had volunteers willing to tuck into 50 gram portions of flour! What we do know, however, is that bakery products such as scones, cakes, biscuits, donuts and pastries made from highly refined flour whether it’s white or wholemeal are quickly digested and absorbed.
What should you do with your own baking? Try to increase the soluble fibre content by partially substituting flour with oat bran, rice bran or rolled oats and increase the bulkiness of the product with dried fruit, nuts, muesli, All-Bran or unprocessed bran. Don’t think of it as a challenge. It’s an opportunity for some creative cooking.
Bread made from sprouted grains might well have a lower blood-glucose raising ability than bread made from normal flour. When grains begin to sprout, carbohydrates stored in the grain are used as the fuel source for the new shoot. Chances are that the more readily available carbs stored in the wheat grain will be used up first, thereby reducing the amount of carbs in the final product. Furthermore, if the whole kernel form of the wheat grain is retained in the finished product, it will have the desired effect of lowering the blood glucose level.
So to those of you who want the list sorted or changed in some way (i.e. serving sizes), simply copy and paste the chart into your spreadsheet program of choice and presto! you can edit it yourself…
Thank you! I would have thought this was only transferable to PDF. Instead I have a nice editable spreadsheet.
You can click on the column heading and this chart will sort on that column. You have the choice of ascending or descending order.
wat is GI of carrot juice
I don’t know the answer, but I imagine that juicing increases the concentration of sugars because there is a lot more than 1 carrot in a glass of carrot juice and you are removing the fiber.
Why is it that apprently the longer you cook some foods i.e pastas the higher the GI?. I’ve heard that pasta & potatoescooked one day & then reheated the next day have a much lower carbohydrate index; is this true?
The more well-done the pasta is, the faster it goes into your bloodstream. Al Dente takes longer, therefore blood sugar does not spike.
The longer the starch cooks the more it gets broken down and therefore, is more readily digested. And yes, it’s true. Serving the pasta or potato cold has an even better gylcemic effect than reheating.
Thank you for this list.
My doctor informed me of your site.
1) do you have a spreadsheet format of this GI and GL List ?
2) would you be able to add GI and GL for food we submit to you?
Thank you
I like that you included "packaged" food items to your list, especially the cereals, however it would be easier for the reader if they didn't have to do the math as some cereals are listed at 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 3/4 cup, etc. Why not use 1/2 cup across the board? Also, it would be nice if the lists had been sorted, either A-Z or lowest to highest on the GI scale.
Gabriele