A glycemic load chart helps determine how food affects blood sugar and insulin levels. It lists foods on a scale of 1 to 100, with lower numbers indicating a lower impact on blood sugar. Glycemic load is a better indicator than glycemic index as it takes into account serving sizes. Foods with a lower glycemic load are healthier for those with heart disease, diabetes, or wanting to lose weight. Vegetables, beans, nuts, and whole grains rank lower on the chart, while refined carbohydrates rank higher.
A glycemic load chart is a tool to determine how carbohydrate-containing foods affect blood sugar and blood insulin levels. Using the chart can help health conscious people make food choices when planning meals. A glycemic load chart lists foods on a scale of 1 to 100, with lower numbers indicating that a food has less of an effect on blood sugar and insulin.
A score of 20 or more is considered high, between 11 and 19 is medium, and 10 or less is considered low. Foods with a lower glycemic load are healthier for people with heart disease, diabetes, or who want to lose weight, because they enter the bloodstream more slowly and do not spike blood sugar levels.
Scientists have known that different qualities of carbohydrates have different effects on the body for quite some time. For years they used the glycemic index to measure the amount of foods that raise blood sugar levels. To calculate the glycemic index of a food, scientists use a standard measure of 50 grams of carbohydrate to measure its effect on blood sugar. The problem is that foods contain different amounts of carbohydrates. The glycemic index can exaggerate the impact of foods that only contain a small percentage of carbohydrates, while minimizing the impact of foods that have a lower glycemic index, but contain higher percentages of carbohydrates.
Using the glycemic index can be helpful, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Glycemic load may be a better indicator of a food’s impact on blood sugar than glycemic index because it takes into account actual serving sizes. To calculate glycemic load, a food’s glycemic index is multiplied by 100 and divided by the amount of carbohydrates in a standard serving size.
For example, carrots score 47 on the glycemic index chart but only 2 on the glycemic load chart. This is because the glycemic index does not take into account the low percentage of carbohydrates that a carrot contains. It would take 1.5 pounds (700 grams) of carrots to equal the amount of carbohydrates used to measure the glycemic index of carrots. Based on a standard serving size, the glycemic load graph offers a more realistic measure of the impact of carrots on blood sugar.
Foods that rank lower on the glycemic load chart tend to be vegetables, beans, nuts, and foods that contain more whole grains and more fiber. Refined carbohydrates rank higher on the glycemic load chart. People who want to lose weight or manage heart disease or diabetes should choose less processed foods for most meals and can use the glycemic load chart to discern which foods will help meet their health goals.
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