To become a master of your blood sugar control and sugar cravings, you must take both quality and quantity of carbs into account when planning your diet. Our advice is to eat fewer carbs overall and the right kinds.

Together this is called the Glycemic Load, GL for short, of a food, as shown in the table below. It takes into account both how many actual grams of carbs you eat, but also how quickly the kind of sugar in the carbs is released. The speed of release of sugar in the food you eat is called Glycemic Index, or GI for short, which is shown in the table below. Pure glucose, which is what ends up in your blood after digesting carbs, has a GI score of 100 by definition.

Dr David Unwin, a GP from the UK, has a terrific way to illustrate GL for his diabetic and overweight patients. Instead of trying to explain the concept, he simply shows them the ‘teaspoons of sugar equivalent’ for each food, as indicated in the table below.

Food	GI	Serving size	GL	Teaspoons of sugar
Cereals
Coco Pops	77	30g	20	7.3
Cornflakes	93	30g	22	8.4
Mini Wheats	59	30g	13	4.4
Shredded Wheat	67	30g	14	4.8
Special K	54	30g	12	4.0
Bran Flakes	74	30g	13	4.8
Porridge	63	150ml	6	2.2
Bread
White	71	30g	10	3.7
Brown	74	30g	9	3.3
Rye (69% wholegrain rye flour)	78	30g	11	4.0
Wholegrain barley (50% barley)	85	30g	15	5.5
Wholemeal (stoneground flour)	59	30g	7	2.6
Pitta (wholemeal)	56	30g	8	2.9
Rough oatcake	35	10.4g	2	0.7
Fruit
Banana	62	120g	16	5.9
Grapes (black)	59	120g	11	4.0
Apple (Golden Delicious)	39	120g	6	2.2

Adapted, with permission, from David Unwin’s charts in the Journal of Insulin Resistance (2016)

The GI column relates to how quickly or slowly each of these foods releases its sugar. For instance, the GI for strawberries is a relatively low 40 per cent (compared to 100 per cent for glucose). In addition, they have an extremely low glycemic load (just 1 GL), which means that a typical (quite large) 120g portion provides the equivalent of only 0.4g of white sugar. By contrast, while an apple’s GI is slightly lower, at 39 per cent, it contains more actual carbs so it has a much higher glycemic load (6 GL) and therefore it raises blood sugar levels six times as much as the same quantity of strawberries.

The last column converts the GL score into the equivalent number of teaspoons of (white) sugar. So, for example, a 120g apple would have the same blood sugar effect as 2.2 teaspoons of sugar. A banana, one of the highest sugar fruits, has the equivalent of 5.9 teaspoons of sugar.

Two oatcakes with a protein-based dip such as hummus or taramasalata (fish roe paste), high in omega 3 DHA, is only 4 GLs, or 1.5 teaspoons of sugar equivalent. Aim for 5 GLs for a snack.