ConverterHub

Glycemic Load Calculator

See a food's real impact on your blood sugar

How it is calculated

The tool multiplies the glycemic index by the available carbohydrate in one serving and divides by 100: GL = GI × carbs / 100. GI is a number from 0 to 100 (no unit) and carbs is in grams per serving. A GI below 0 or above 100, or negative carbs, returns no result. The load is shown to one decimal place and sorted into a band: 10 or below is Low, above 10 up to 19 is Medium, and above 19 is High.

The carbs figure must be for the portion you actually eat, not per 100 g, unless your portion is exactly 100 g.

Worked example

Take a food with GI = 55 and a serving containing 30 g of carbohydrate. Step 1: 55 × 30 = 1650. Step 2: 1650 / 100 = 16.5. Since 16.5 is above 10 but not above 19, the tool reports the band Medium. The glycemic load of this serving is 16.5.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Entering carbs per 100 g from the label when you eat a different portion; the load then describes the wrong amount of food.
  • Entering total weight of the food in grams instead of the carbohydrate grams inside it.
  • Typing the GI as a fraction such as 0.55; the tool expects 55, so the result would be 100 times too small.
  • Entering a GI above 100 (for example a value relative to glucose bread scale); the tool returns nothing for it.

About this calculator

This calculator computes glycemic load as GL = (GI × carbohydrate grams per serving) / 100, combining a food's glycemic index (how fast its carbs raise blood sugar) with the actual amount of carbs in a real portion. A food can have a high GI but a low GL if a typical serving contains little carbohydrate — watermelon is the classic example — which is why GI alone can be misleading.

Diabetes educators and dietitians rely on GL rather than GI alone to plan meals that keep blood sugar stable, and endurance athletes use it to choose carbohydrate sources that release energy at the right speed before, during and after training.

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