Glycemic Index Chart: 35+ Common Foods

A glycemic index chart is the fastest way to see, at a glance, which carbohydrate foods raise your blood sugar quickly and which ones do it gently. The table above lists 35-plus everyday foods — breads, grains, cereals, fruit, vegetables, legumes, dairy, snacks, and drinks — with their typical GI, a realistic serving, the glycemic load for that portion, and a color-coded band.

Use it as a quick reference for finding lower-GI swaps and spotting patterns. The short guide below explains how to read the numbers and why the same food can show up with a different value somewhere else. If you want the full background first, start with what the glycemic index is.

How to read this chart

Every food falls into one of three bands, based on how fast and how high it pushes blood sugar compared with pure glucose:

• Low GI — 55 or under. A slow, steady rise. Most fruit, legumes, dairy, and minimally processed grains live here.
• Medium GI — 56 to 69. A moderate rise. Basmati rice, honey, and sweet potato are typical examples.
• High GI — 70 and above. A fast spike. White bread, most potatoes, cornflakes, and rice cakes sit at the top.

Two things are worth keeping in mind. First, every GI value is an average. Researchers test groups of people and report a typical figure, but the same food can land a few points higher or lower depending on ripeness, cooking, processing, and brand. Treat the numbers as a guide, not a guarantee.

Second, GI alone doesn’t tell you about a real plate of food, because it’s measured using a fixed 50 grams of carbohydrate. That’s where glycemic load comes in. Glycemic load combines a food’s GI with the actual amount of carbohydrate in a normal serving, so it reflects what a portion really does to your blood sugar. A load of 10 or under is low and 20 or more is high. Watermelon is the classic case — high GI, but a low glycemic load because a slice is mostly water. The chart shows both numbers side by side so you can weigh speed against portion.

What the categories tell you

Reading down the chart, a few patterns jump out.

Breads and grains are a mixed bag. White bread, white rice, and couscous land in the medium-to-high range, while sourdough, quinoa, and even white spaghetti come in lower than people expect — pasta’s dense structure slows digestion. Swapping a refined grain for a less-processed version of the same food is one of the easiest ways to bring a meal’s GI down.

Breakfast cereals show the processing effect at its starkest. Cornflakes and instant oats are high-GI, but rolled oats and muesli — the same grains, less processed — drop into the low-to-medium range.

Fruit is mostly low-GI, with apple, orange, strawberries, and grapes all sitting comfortably under 55. The higher numbers, like watermelon and pineapple, still tend to carry a modest glycemic load because the portions are mostly water.

Vegetables split along starch lines. Non-starchy and root vegetables like carrots are very low, while potatoes — baked or boiled — are among the highest-GI foods on the whole chart. Sweet potato lands a useful notch lower than a regular baked potato.

Legumes are the standout low-GI group. Kidney beans, chickpeas, lentils, and baked beans all sit in the 20s to low 40s, thanks to their fiber and protein. They’re an easy way to anchor a meal at the low end.

Dairy and alternatives are reliably gentle. Milk, plain yogurt, and soy milk are all low-GI. Even ice cream scores low, because its fat slows digestion — a good reminder that a low GI doesn’t automatically make a food a health food.

Snacks, sweets, and drinks are where it pays to look twice. Rice cakes and pretzels are surprisingly high-GI for “light” snacks, while dark chocolate is low. Among drinks, sugary sodas and juices act fast, so they’re worth keeping an eye on even when the chart shows a moderate-looking number.

Why the same food shows different numbers

If you compare two charts, you’ll often see the same food listed with slightly different GI values. That’s normal, and it comes down to a handful of factors:

• Ripeness. A firm, slightly green banana has a lower GI than a soft, spotty one, because some of its starch hasn’t yet turned to sugar.
• Processing. The finer a grain is milled, the faster it digests. Steel-cut oats are low; instant oats are high — same grain, different processing.
• Cooking. Pasta cooked al dente has a lower GI than the same pasta boiled soft, and a longer-cooked potato climbs higher.
• Pairing. What you eat alongside a carbohydrate matters. Adding fiber, fat, or protein — say, nut butter on toast — slows the whole meal down.

This is also why brand matters. Two boxes of cereal or two loaves of bread can digest quite differently depending on their exact ingredients and how they’re made. A printed chart can only ever show a typical value. For more on the portion side of the picture, see glycemic index vs glycemic load.

Putting the chart to work

You don’t need to memorize a single number to benefit from this. The most useful move is to scan down the chart for a food you eat often and find a lower-GI version of the same thing. Sourdough in place of white bread, sweet potato instead of a baked potato, rolled oats rather than instant — small swaps like these lower a meal’s overall impact without changing what you eat in any dramatic way.

It also helps to read the GI and the glycemic load together rather than fixating on either one alone. A high-GI food in a tiny portion, like a thin slice of watermelon, may matter less than a moderate-GI food you eat a big bowl of. And because fiber, fat, and protein all slow digestion, pairing a carbohydrate with them flattens the curve — which is why the same toast lands differently with avocado and eggs than it does on its own.

How FoodCheck GI helps

No chart can cover every brand, recipe, or restaurant meal — and the GI of the actual food in your hand may differ from the average printed here. That’s the gap FoodCheck GI closes. Point your phone at a nutrition label, a barcode, or the meal on your plate, and it instantly shows the glycemic index, the glycemic load for that portion, hidden sugars, and the full nutrition breakdown, color-coded so you can decide at a glance. Instead of guessing which row on a chart is closest, you get the real number for the food you’re about to eat.