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Glycemic Load Calculator

Enter the glycemic index and carbohydrate content to find the glycemic load of your meal.

How it is calculated

The tool first finds the load of one serving, then scales it by the number of servings: GL per serving = GI × carbs ÷ 100 and GL total = GL per serving × servings. GI is the glycemic index of the food (a number, usually 0–100), carbs is the grams of available carbohydrate in one serving, and servings is how many you eat. If servings is left empty, zero or negative, it counts as 1. Both results are shown with one decimal. The tool only does the arithmetic: it does not label the answer as low, medium or high, and it does not check that the GI is a realistic value or look up any food.

Worked example

Take a food with a glycemic index of 55 and 30 g of carbohydrate in one serving, eaten as 2 servings. Load for one serving: 55 × 30 ÷ 100 = 16.5. Total load for the meal: 16.5 × 2 = 33.0. The first figure, 16.5, is what one serving contributes, and the second is what the whole plate contributes, so half the portion would give 16.5 in total.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Entering the total weight of the food in grams instead of its carbohydrate grams. A 150 g portion of food may contain only 30 g of carbohydrate, and it is the 30 that goes in the field.
  • Using total carbohydrate when the label separates fibre. The formula is meant for available carbohydrate, so subtract fibre if you want to follow the usual definition.
  • Entering carbs for 100 g while eating a different portion. Carbs must be for the serving, and servings then multiplies it.
  • Entering the GI as a fraction, such as 0.55. The formula expects the usual whole-number scale, so 55.
  • Adding the GI values of several foods. Glycemic index does not add up; calculate each food's load separately and add the loads.

About this calculator

Glycemic load refines the older glycemic index (GI) concept, which ranks foods by how quickly they spike blood glucose relative to pure glucose, by also accounting for portion size. The formula is GL = (GI × grams of carbohydrate per serving) ÷ 100, so a food with a high GI but a small carb portion (like watermelon) can have a modest glycemic load, while a moderate-GI food eaten in a large carb portion can load blood sugar heavily.

This calculator takes a food or meal's glycemic index and its carbohydrate content per serving and returns the glycemic load, generally classified as low (≤10), medium (11–19), or high (≥20). People managing diabetes or insulin resistance, dietitians building meal plans, and athletes timing carbohydrate intake around training use it because it reflects real-world eating far better than GI alone.

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