Glycemic index of Indian foods
Every value here was measured by feeding the food to people and sampling their blood. That is the only way a glycemic index can exist — which is why this table is short and why the ones with three hundred rows are not real.
The instrument, before anything is loaded onto it
15measured values
The dial below is the scale every food page on this site is read against. Its two divisions — 55 आणि 70 — are the published cut-points separating low, medium and high glycemic index, not lines drawn here. What sits on the scale is a food. Nothing on it is a reading taken from a person.
15 foods carry a needle. Every other food on this site carries a blank, because no study has measured it.
स्रोत·Indian J Med Res 2022 · J Food Sci Technol 2022 · Prev Nutr Food Sci 2020·cut-points from the FAO/WHO carbohydrate consultation, 1998·पुनरावलोकन जुलै 2026
Nothing here can diagnose you, and nothing here is a treatment plan. Blood glucose results are interpreted by a doctor alongside your history, your symptoms and a repeat test — a single number on a screen is not a diagnosis. If any reading concerns you, or if you feel unwell, see a doctor rather than a website.
How a glycemic index is assayed
- Volunteers eat a portion of the test food containing exactly 50 g of available carbohydrate — whatever weight of that food that turns out to be.
- Their blood glucose is sampled repeatedly over the following two hours, and the area under that curve is measured.
- The same people are tested against 50 g of pure glucose, which scores 100 by definition. The test food's area is expressed as a percentage of it.
- The published value is the group mean, and it carries a standard deviation — several of the Indian values on this site have one of five points or more.
- Nothing in that sequence can be shortcut. A glycemic index cannot be derived from a composition table, so a food with no study has no glycemic index here.
GI = (area under the food's 2 h glucose curve
/ area under 50 g glucose) x 100
GL = GI x available carbohydrate in the portion (g) / 100
Bands: low 0-55 | medium 56-69 | high 70+
The register
The measured values
| Food | GI | Band | कार्बोहायड्रेट | GL for the stated portion | स्रोत |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ragi mudde (finger millet stiff porridge) | 98.2 | High | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 26.7 ग्रॅम | 39.3 (one ball, about 150 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Jowar roti (sorghum) | 84.1 | High | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 49.4 ग्रॅम | 24.9 (one roti, about 60 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Onion dosa | 79.7 | High | प्रसिद्ध केलेले नाही | cannot be calculated | J Food Sci Technol 2022 |
| Makki roti (maize) | 74.8 | High | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 44.8 ग्रॅम | 20.1 (one roti, about 60 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Wheat flakes chivda | 72.5 | High | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 42.8 ग्रॅम | 9.3 (a 30 g bowl) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Bajra roti (pearl millet) | 70.1 | High | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 47.8 ग्रॅम | 20.1 (one roti, about 60 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Adai (mixed lentil pancake) | 66.2 | मध्यम | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 32.6 ग्रॅम | 21.6 (one adai, about 100 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Multigrain roti (whole-grain blend) | 64.7 | मध्यम | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 55.4 ग्रॅम | 21.5 (one roti, about 60 g) | Prev Nutr Food Sci 2020 |
| Wheat dosa (godhuma dosa) | 61.8 | मध्यम | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 32.5 ग्रॅम | 18.1 (one dosa, about 90 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Jowar idli (sorghum idli) | 61.3 | मध्यम | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 27.6 ग्रॅम | 13.5 (two idli, about 80 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Methi paratha | 60.2 | मध्यम | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 42.4 ग्रॅम | 20.4 (one paratha, about 80 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Dalia upma (broken wheat) | 51.7 | कमी | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 26.3 ग्रॅम | 27.2 (one katori, about 200 g) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| Vada sambar | 36.9 | कमी | प्रसिद्ध केलेले नाही | cannot be calculated | J Food Sci Technol 2022 |
| White peas sundal (safed vatana) | 29.8 | कमी | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 13.6 ग्रॅम | 4.0 (a 100 g bowl) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
| White chickpea sundal (kabuli chana) | 24.1 | कमी | प्रति 100 ग्रॅम 22.3 ग्रॅम | 5.4 (a 100 g bowl) | Indian J Med Res 2022 |
15 foods. That is a small table on purpose — glycemic index is measured by feeding a food to volunteers and sampling their blood, so it exists only where somebody has run that study. Sites listing a GI for hundreds of Indian dishes are, for most of those dishes, publishing a guess.
स्रोत·Indian J Med Res 2022 · J Food Sci Technol 2022 · Prev Nutr Food Sci 2020·15 values, each traced to the study that ran the assay·पुनरावलोकन जुलै 2026
Source: Shobana S, Geetha G, Ramya Bai M, et al. Carbohydrate profiling & glycaemic indices of selected traditional Indian foods. Indian J Med Res 2022;155(1):56–65. Link
Source: Shakappa D, Naik R, Sobhana PP. Glycemic carbohydrates, glycemic index, and glycemic load of commonly consumed South Indian breakfast foods. J Food Sci Technol 2022;59(9):3619–3626. Link
Source: Nagaraju R, Sobhana PP, Thappatla D, Epparapalli S, Kandlakunta B, Korrapati D. Glycemic index and sensory evaluation of whole grain based multigrain Indian breads (rotis). Prev Nutr Food Sci 2020;25(2):194–202. Link
The awkward case
Rice, honestly
The most-searched food in this subject, and the one where a single number would be most misleading.
| Rice | Published GI range | What moved it |
|---|---|---|
| White polished rice | 64 – 93 | Varies with variety and cooking time; longer boiling generally pushed values higher. |
| Parboiled rice | 39 – 79 | The widest spread of any category. Pressure-parboiled rice sat at the bottom of the range, quick-cooking parboiled at the top. |
| Basmati rice | 50 – 96 | Commonly sold as a low-GI rice. Several commercial basmati samples in the review fell in the low-to-medium band, but others did not. |
| Brown rice | 51 – 87 | Not automatically low. Brown rice generally produced a lower response than white rice cooked the same way, but the range still reaches high. |
This is why SugarCheck does not print "the GI of rice". Variety, amylose content, whether it was parboiled and how long it was boiled each move the result by more than the difference between the low and high categories. Anyone quoting one number for rice is quoting one study and calling it a fact.
स्रोत·Boers et al., Br J Nutr 2015;114(7):1035–1045·systematic review of rice characteristics and processing·पुनरावलोकन जुलै 2026
Source: Boers HM, Seijen ten Hoorn J, Mela DJ. A systematic review of the influence of rice characteristics and processing methods on postprandial glycaemic and insulinaemic responses. Br J Nutr 2015;114(7):1035–1045. Link
Divisions on the scale
The categories
| Category | ग्लायसेमिक इंडेक्स | Glycemic load, per serving |
|---|---|---|
| कमी | 55 or less | 10 or less |
| मध्यम | 56 to 69 | 11 to 19 |
| High | 70 or more | 20 or more |
स्रोत·FAO/WHO expert consultation on carbohydrates, Rome 1998·the origin of the 55 and 70 divisions·पुनरावलोकन जुलै 2026
Glycemic load matters more than glycemic index for anything you eat in a normal portion. The arithmetic, with worked examples →
PeakForm is a training and accountability programme. It is not a treatment for diabetes or prediabetes, it is not a substitute for your doctor's advice, and nothing on this site should be acted on before speaking to one.
Carbohydrate per real Indian serving
What is knowable for hundreds of Indian dishes is how much carbohydrate a normal serving contains — from composition tables rather than feeding studies. Every food page gives that, and gives the glycemic index only where one has been measured.
Questions this report anticipates
What is the glycemic index of Indian foods?
Why does this site list so few foods?
What is the glycemic index of rice?
Is low glycemic index food good for diabetes?
Glycemic index values from the peer-reviewed studies named beside each row. Composition figures from the Indian Food Composition Tables 2017 (ICMR–NIN). General information only — NOT medical advice, and never a diagnosis. Only a doctor can interpret your results and diagnose or treat diabetes. If a reading concerns you, see a doctor rather than a website. Every threshold, equation and glycemic index value used on this site is listed with its publication on the data & method page, and every publication is listed with its issuing body and its date in the source register.
स्रोत·Published reference ranges + GI tables·पुनरावलोकन जुलै 2026
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