Glycemic Index 101

How to Calculate the Glycemic Load of any Food

Chapter 15:

Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load

As we stated in Chapter 13, the Glycemic Load a is a way of ranking every food that you eat in order to determine even more information than the GI shows.

Calculating the Glycemic Load is a simple matter of multiplication. You simply multiply the food’s Glycemic Index rating with the number of grams of carbohydrates it contains in the serving size you are eating. If the food’s GI Rating is below 100, use a decimal point to show that it is less than one.

For instance, a baked potato has a high GI rating of 85. The number of grams of carbohydrates in a medium baked potato is 37. By multiplying .85 and 37, we get just over 31. Therefore, a baked potato has a Glycemic Load of 31, making it a better choice in our daily diet.

This is a great example that shows how the GI has provided us with an abundance of useful information and how the Glycemic Load can take that information and make it more practical for us to use on a daily basis.

The average range in the Glycemic Load is lower than the GI. A food may be considered pretty high on the Glycemic Load ranking if it is above 50.

Let us now figure the Glycemic Load of the carrots we discussed in Chapter 13. As we mentioned, it would take over 3 cups of cooked carrots to eat 50 grams worth of carbohydrates. Carrots as you may remember have a GI rating of 39. A typical and more realistic serving of cooked carrots would be about 1/2 cup and this serving contains 8 grams of carbohydrates. Therefore, we multiply 8 (grams of carbs) by .39 (the Glycemic Index in decimal form) to get a Glycemic Load of 3 !!! This shows that eating carrots is an even better choice than the GI reveals.

The best recommendation is to keep the total number of your daily Glycemic Load to fewer than 150. This is much easier than counting calories or fat grams and it ensures that you are making the best choices.

You can find the information on how many grams of carbohydrates are in all of your food by looking at the nutritional label. Use the number listed there to multiply with the GI rating and be able to further enhance your weight loss and improve your health.

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