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Glycaemic index of tayyibat foods, portion by portion
There are hundreds of glycaemic index tables and they copy one another. This one covers only the foods the palette keeps, puts the load next to the index, and says when no reliable value has been published.
Read this first
Type 2 diabetes is followed medically. A glycaemic index table is a reading tool, not a treatment, and it replaces neither follow-up, nor medication, nor the advice of the doctor who knows you. The figures below describe the average response of healthy people to a single food, under laboratory conditions. Your own response may differ, and often does. Do not change an ongoing treatment based on a table read online, including this one.
What the index actually measures
The glycaemic index compares the rise in blood sugar after a food to that of pure glucose, set at 100. The measurement uses a fixed amount of available carbohydrate, fifty grams, on an empty stomach, with the food eaten alone. Those three conditions are precisely the ones under which nobody eats. Fifty grams of carbohydrate is a kilo of pumpkin. Fasted and alone is a protocol, not a meal. The index stays useful because it ranks foods correctly against one another, but it does not predict what your plate will do.
The load weighs more than the index
The glycaemic load fixes the index's main flaw: it accounts for what is actually on the plate. You calculate it by multiplying the index by the grams of carbohydrate in the portion, divided by a hundred. Pumpkin demonstrates it. Its index nears 75, which would file it among foods to watch. But a hundred and fifty gram portion carries only six grams of carbohydrate, and its load falls to four. It weighs next to nothing. Dates tell the opposite story. Their index stays moderate, around 55, but two dates concentrate thirty grams of carbohydrate and the load climbs to sixteen. Here it is not the nature of the food that counts, it is the amount. That is why the table gives both figures side by side.
Cooking and ripeness shift everything
A food does not have one index, it has several, depending on what is done to it. Boiled sweet potato sits near 46. The same sweet potato baked climbs toward 94. Metabolically it is no longer the same food, and no table printing a single number says so. Bananas follow their ripeness: green they drop toward 30, very ripe they reach 60. Rice depends mostly on its variety, from 48 for a basmati to over 90 for a sticky rice, the widest spread in the whole table. A potato cooled then reheated sees part of its starch turn resistant, and its index fall. Wholemeal bread deserves its own line, because it contradicts its reputation. It rises almost like white bread, around 74. Fine milling of the wheat cancels most of the bran's advantage. That is not a reason to drop it, it is a reason not to think it harmless.
What a full meal changes
None of the figures in the table describes a meal. They describe foods on their own, and that is their most serious limit. Eating a starch alongside a protein and a fat slows the stomach's emptying, and the same amount of carbohydrate arrives spread over more time. The curve flattens. This is a documented effect, independent of any dietary school, and it explains why two people eating the same rice can have two different responses depending on what sat next to it. The structure of tayyibat meals, pairing an animal protein with a whole grain and cooked vegetables, happens to work in that direction. This is not a therapeutic property, and the system was never built for it. It is simply that the combined plate is the one on which single-food figures are most often wrong.
How to read the table
Thirty-one foods from the palette appear here, the ones carrying enough carbohydrate for a measurement to mean anything. The Index column gives the published average. When two figures appear beneath it, that is the range actually observed across variety, ripeness or cooking, and the range is often more instructive than the average. The Load column applies to the portion shown just to its left, not to a hundred grams. An index is low up to 55, medium up to 69, high beyond. A load is low up to 10, medium up to 19, high beyond. Halva carries the words not published rather than a figure. Recipes vary too much between makers for a single value to mean anything, and printing an invented number would have been worse than leaving the cell empty.
| Food | Index | Portion | Carbs | Load |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Whole barley The lowest grain in the whole palette, by a wide margin. | 2822/35 | 150 g | 28 g | 8low |
Freekeh Wheat harvested green: less mature starch, so a slower rise. | 43 | 150 g | 30 g | 13medium |
Bulgur (cracked wheat) | 48 | 150 g | 26 g | 12medium |
| 5850/65 | 150 g | 35 g | 20high | |
| 52 | 150 g | 30 g | 16medium | |
Rice The widest spread in the table: basmati sits near 50, sticky rice tops 90. The variety decides more than the grain does. | 7348/92 | 150 g | 40 g | 29high |
Whole bread Counter-intuitive, and measured: wholemeal bread rises almost like white. Fine milling cancels the bran's advantage. | 7468/80 | 60 g | 28 g | 21high |
Sweet potato Boiled it sits near 46, baked it climbs toward 94. Same vegetable, two different foods. | 6346/94 | 150 g | 28 g | 18medium |
Potato Cooled then reheated, part of the starch turns resistant and the index drops markedly. | 7856/101 | 150 g | 25 g | 20high |
| 54 | 150 g | 40 g | 22high | |
Pumpkin The perfect demonstration: high index, almost no load. It holds too few carbs to weigh on anything. | 75 | 150 g | 6 g | 5low |
Cherry The lowest fruit in the palette. | 22 | 120 g | 15 g | 3low |
| 29 | 60 g | 38 g | 11medium | |
| 31 | 120 g | 17 g | 5low | |
| 32 | 120 g | 7 g | 2low | |
| 35 | 120 g | 23 g | 8low | |
| 35 | 120 g | 22 g | 8low | |
| 36 | 120 g | 15 g | 5low | |
| 38 | 120 g | 15 g | 6low | |
| 41 | 120 g | 9 g | 4low | |
Kiwi | 50 | 120 g | 14 g | 7low |
| 50 | 120 g | 22 g | 11medium | |
Banana Still green it drops toward 30, fully ripe it climbs toward 60. Ripeness decides everything. | 5130/60 | 120 g | 25 g | 13medium |
| 51 | 120 g | 20 g | 10low | |
| 53 | 120 g | 17 g | 9low | |
Dates Moderate index, heavy load for just two dates. Here the portion matters, not the index. | 5542/62 | 40 g | 30 g | 17medium |
| 59 | 120 g | 21 g | 12medium | |
Raisins (dried grapes) | 64 | 40 g | 32 g | 20high |
Honey Depending on its floral source, honey ranges from 35 to over 85. Talking about honey in general means nothing. | 5835/87 | 20 g | 17 g | 10low |
| 3023/40 | 30 g | 8 g | 2low | |
Halva No reliable published value. Recipes vary too much between makers. | not published | 30 g | 15 g | - |
Meat, fish, fats and aged cheeses do not appear in this table. Their carbohydrate content is too low for a glycaemic index to be measurable, and a printed value would mislead.
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