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Glycemic load calculator
Combine foods and portions into a meal and see the glycemic load of each food and of the whole plate. Available carbohydrate comes from the food database; the GI is a published value. Low, medium and high bands explained.
General information, not medical advice. Glycemic response varies from person to person and this page cannot see your physiology or your medicines. If you manage diabetes, your own glucose readings and your clinical team decide what to do — not a web calculator.
Build a meal
Add foods and portions
JavaScript is off, or the meal is empty. The worked example below is computed on the server and shows exactly what the builder does; the full food table underneath carries every food, its GI and its glycemic load per 100 g.
Worked example: a rice, chickpea and banana lunch
Here is exactly what the builder computes, worked through on the server so it is here whether or not JavaScript runs. The meal is 150 g of cooked white rice, 100 g of chickpeas and one 120 g banana.
| Food | Portion | GI | Available carb (g) | Glycemic load |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole meal | — | — | 0.0 | 0.0 Low GL |
The whole meal lands at a glycemic load of about 0 on roughly 0 g of available carbohydrate. Notice the chickpeas: they carry real carbohydrate but their low GI keeps their contribution small, while the rice does most of the work. Swapping the white rice for a lower-GI grain, or trading some of it for more chickpeas, is what actually moves the number.
Source: International Tables of Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load Values (Atkinson, Foster-Powell & Brand-Miller) — GI values · checked 2026-09-02
Source: USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy (public domain) — carbohydrate and fibre per 100 g · checked 2026-09-02
How the number is worked out
available carbohydrate (g) = (carbohydrate − fibre) per 100 g × grams ÷ 100
glycemic load = glycemic index × available carbohydrate (g) ÷ 100Fibre is subtracted because the part of carbohydrate that is fibre is not digested to glucose in the small intestine, so it does not drive the blood-sugar rise the index is about. That is why a food can be high in total carbohydrate yet modest in available carbohydrate — legumes and whole grains are the everyday examples.
The glycemic index itself is a measured property. Volunteers eat a portion of the food containing a fixed amount of carbohydrate, their blood glucose is followed for two hours, and the area under that curve is compared with the same amount of pure glucose. Because it is measured in people, it comes with a spread: the value on this page is a representative published figure, not a constant of nature.
The bands, and what they do not mean
| Band | Glycemic index | Glycemic load (per meal) | Typical foods |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low | GI 55 or less | GL 10 or less | Most fruit, legumes, dairy, pasta, whole grains |
| Medium | GI 56–69 | GL 11–19 | Some breads, brown rice, couscous, honey |
| High | GI 70 or more | GL 20 or more | White bread, baked and mashed potato, rice cakes |
These bands are widely used, but they are population conventions, not personal thresholds. Two people can eat an identical high-GL meal and see very different glucose curves. The honest use of this page is to compare foods and meals against each other — is this swap lower or higher — rather than to chase a target number.
Every food, its GI and its load per 100 g
Glycemic load below is for a flat 100 g portion, so the foods are comparable. In a real meal the load scales with the grams you actually eat — that is what the builder above is for.
Source: GI: International Tables of Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load Values (Atkinson, Foster-Powell & Brand-Miller). Carbohydrate and fibre: USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy (public domain) · checked 2026-09-02
Where a published GI can mislead
- Ripeness. A green banana and a spotted one are different foods to your gut; GI rises as starch turns to sugar.
- Cooking and cooling. Al dente pasta is lower than soft; a potato cooled and eaten cold forms resistant starch and behaves lower than the same potato hot.
- Processing. Rolled oats are lower than instant; stone-ground bread is lower than fluffy white — the finer the starch, the faster it digests.
- The rest of the plate. Fat, protein, acid and fibre eaten alongside all slow the real rise, which the single-food number cannot capture.
- You. Individual glucose responses to the same food vary enough that two people can rank foods differently. Your own meter is the only measurement that is about you.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between glycemic index and glycemic load?
Glycemic index ranks how fast the carbohydrate in a food raises blood glucose, on a 0–100 scale against glucose. Glycemic load scales that by how much carbohydrate is actually on the plate: GL = GI × available carbohydrate in grams ÷ 100. A food can be high-GI and low-GL if a normal portion carries little carbohydrate — watermelon is the classic example.
What counts as a low or high glycemic load?
For a single food or meal the usual bands are 10 or less (low), 11 to 19 (medium) and 20 or more (high). Across a whole day, roughly 80 or less is treated as low and 120 or more as high. These are rules of thumb, not thresholds with a clinical meaning for an individual.
Is glycemic load about calories?
No. It is about carbohydrate quality and quantity, not energy. A spoon of olive oil has calories but no carbohydrate, so its glycemic load is zero. Glycemic load says nothing about protein, fat or the total calories of a meal.
Why does my blood glucose not match the number?
Because glycemic response is individual. Published GI values are averages measured in groups of people under test conditions. Your own rise depends on the rest of the meal, how the food was cooked and cooled, the time of day, your activity and your own physiology. Treat the figure as a comparison between foods, not a prediction of your glucose.
Does adding protein or fat change the glycemic load?
It does not change the calculated number, because the formula only uses carbohydrate. It does tend to slow the real-world glucose rise, which is one reason a mixed meal usually behaves more gently than the carbohydrate alone would suggest.
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See the carbohydrate you actually ate
TempoLife logs the foods and portions on your plate, so the carbohydrate quality of a real day sits next to everything else you track.