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Have you ever eaten a snack in hopes of curing your afternoon slump only to feel up and then down again? That’s called a blood sugar (glucose) dip. For people with diabetes, this kind of fluctuation can be pronounced and dangerous. For everyone else, as the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center notes, it can be the ultimate downer and productivity killer.
Fortunately, there’s a free, easy-to-use tool that can help you keep your blood sugar level steady, regardless of whether you have diabetes.
Meet: the glycemic load.
By using an easy formula (no major arithmetic required!), you can learn how quickly foods that contain carbs — from cookies to carrots — lead to blood sugar spikes or dips, and, if you have diabetes, potentially help or hurt your A1C number. (That’d be the two- to three-month average of your blood sugar levels, as the American Diabetes Association notes.)
Here’s how glycemic load and its counterpart glycemic index work.
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Glycemic Load vs. Glycemic Index: What’s the Difference?
Maybe you’ve already heard of glycemic index. “The glycemic index ranks foods based on how quickly they’re digested and raise blood glucose levels,” says Sandra Meyerowitz, MPH, RD, owner of Nutrition Works in Louisville, Kentucky.
Glycemic load is similar but markedly different, especially when it comes to making food choices to better manage diabetes, notes the Mayo Clinic. “It’s glycemic load that takes into consideration every component of the food as a whole,” Meyerowitz adds, “so it’s a different number. It changes everything.”
Because the glycemic load of a food looks at multiple components, the same food can be high on the glycemic index but carry an overall low glycemic load. In these cases, the food is a better choice for blood sugar management than suspected, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
Glycemic load is a classification of foods with carbohydrates that measures their impact on the body and blood sugar. “It’s used to help you know how high your blood sugar could go when you actually eat the food, and this measurement also lets you know how much glucose per serving a particular food can deliver,” explains Melissa Nieves, RD, with Kemtai, a virtual personal trainer company and who is based in Bayamón, Puerto Rico.
The glycemic index ranges from 0 to 100, where 100 is pure glucose or sugar, according to the British Diabetic Association (BDA). “The lower a food’s glycemic index, the slower blood sugar rises after eating that food, and vice versa,” continues Nieves.
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How to Calculate a Food’s Glycemic Load With Glycemic Index
You can calculate a GL with the following formula:
GL = (GI x the amount of carbohydrate) divided by 100
Here is an example with an apple: (40 x 15) divided by 100 = 6
Thus, a medium-sized apple would have a low glycemic load, making it a great snack for people managing diabetes. More on this next!
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Glycemic Load and Diet: The Effect on Your Health
The University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) defines glycemic load values as:
- Low GL: 10 or less
- Medium GL: 11 to 19
- High GL: 20 or higher
Look at the GI ranges, as a comparison:
- Low GI: 55 or less
- Medium GI: 56 to 69
- High GI: 70 or higher
According to Diabetes.co.uk, a global diabetes community, this information helps determine which foods can keep your blood sugar level consistent, meaning that you avoid the highs and lows caused by blood sugar jumping too high and quickly dropping — aka the candy bar effect.
For optimal health, the Glycemic Index Foundation recommends keeping your daily glycemic load under 100. This will help get your A1C down if you have diabetes and make you less likely to avoid unpleasant side effects of low blood sugar called hypoglycemia, which can trigger irritability, confusion, headaches, fatigue, and even seizures, warns the American Diabetes Association (ADA).
If your blood sugar is too high in diabetes, called hyperglycemia, symptoms may include frequent urination, increased thirst, vomiting, and shortness of breath, the ADA says.
Keeping the glycemic load of your diet in mind can help you avoid diabetes-related complications as well. A review of 27 journal articles found that consuming low GI/GL foods improve A1C as well as blood lipids, body weight, blood pressure, and inflammation in people with moderately controlled type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
“It makes more sense to use the glycemic load because when you eat a food, you don’t just eat one food by itself — you eat a whole bunch of foods together,” says Meyerowitz. Looking at the total picture of foods you eat, rather than just the individual pieces, gives you a clearer and more accurate picture of the foods that make up your diet.
RELATED: 7 Healthy Meal Tips for Type 2 Diabetes
Glycemic Load and Diet: Glycemic Loads in Favorite Foods
Here is a glycemic load reference list with many common foods to let you know which are low, medium, and high, per UCSF.
Foods with a low glycemic load of 10 or less include:
- ¼ cup peanuts (GL of 1)
- 8 oz skim milk (GL of 4)
- 2 cups watermelon (GL of 4.3)
- 1 cup kidney beans (GL of 7)
- 1 cup all bran cereal (GL of 9)
Foods with a medium glycemic load of 11 to 19 include:
- 1 cup cooked oatmeal (GL of 11.7)
- 1 tablespoon (tbsp) honey (GL of 11.9)
- 1 large banana (GL of 12.4)
- 1 medium donut (GL of 17)
- 1 cup boiled brown rice (GL of 18)
Foods with a high glycemic load of 20 or more include:
- 1 cup corn flakes (GL of 21)
- 10 large jelly beans (GL of 22)
- 1 Snickers candy bar (GL of 22.1)
- 1 medium baked russet potato (GL of 23)
- 2 tbsp raisins (GL of 27.3)
Check out this more complete list form the Cleveland Heart Lab.
Why Using Glycemic Load Independently Isn’t Enough to Maintain Health
Knowing the glycemic load of food is a helpful meal planning tool, but you shouldn’t rely on this ranking system alone.
“There is research to support that diabetic patients benefit from knowing how to apply GI and GL as a dietary approach for diabetes management, but it’s important to mention that variability in nutritional content of different foods with the same GI value is a concern,” warns Sotiria Everett, EdD, RD, clinical assistant professor in the department of family, population, and preventive medicine’s nutrition division at Stony Brook Medicine in Stony Brook, New York.
Plus, various factors can change where a food ranks on the glycemic index and glycemic load. For example, some foods with carbs become easier to digest after a longer cooking time, which can subsequently raise their glycemic load, says the Canadian Society of Intestinal Research.
So while adding low glycemic load foods can help balance your glycemic response, focusing on overall dietary quality and promoting the healthful aspects of a diet may be a better approach to help reduce chronic disease, says Dr. Everett. “Glycemic index and glycemic load are both tools to assist with diet and nutrition, but not to be completely relied upon as the sole source and guide for all meal planning.”
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