Glycemic Load

The idea of foods having a  high or low glycemic load (or index) is key to healthy eating for diabetics, and is actually useful for everyone, including the rudely healthy.  Unlike the concept of calories, it actually seems a bit complicated and ill-defined  when you first encounter the idea.  It did to me, anyway. Basically it's to do with how fast or slowly your blood glucose levels rise after consuming a portion of a food.

Glycemic load can vary a lot for a food, depending on how the food is cooked, for instance.  Basically, the less cooked or processed the food, the slower it will be to digest, and  thus the lower its glycemic load so, for example,  gram for gram, whole rice in grains would have a lower GL than ground rice, even before you factor in cooking methods.   Raw carrots have a lower GL than cooked carrots, the latter being more easily digested.   I found it worth the bother to try and sort it out in my mind, but I lay no claim to being an expert.

In case anyone needs more information about the concepts of the glycemic index or glycemic load this link to the official GI web site (set up by the people at Sydney University who first popularised the idea) has loads of stuff worth looking at.  There are clear explanations of the various terms in use,  an expanding data base of foods and their Gl values, plus links to appropriate books on amazon , etc. It's probably a good first port of call for anyone wanting to find out what GI is all about.