THESIS

understand a food's effect on blood sugar (Jenkins et al. 2002). The carbohydrate in
watermelon, for example, has a high GI but there isn't a lot of it, so watermelon's
glycemic load is relatively low. A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19
inclusive is medium, and a GL of 10 or less is low Foster et al. 2002).
6.2.3 Relationships between glycemic index and glycemic load
Foods that have a low GL almost always have a low GI food with an
intermediate or high GL range from very low to very high GI. Both GI and GL in
cake products are listed in Table 12. The GI is of foods based on white bread, where it
is set to equal 100. The other is the glycemic load, which is calculated from the
glycemic index divided by 100 multiplied by its available carbohydrate content (i.e.
carbohydrates minus fiber) in grams.
Table 12 Glycemic index and glycemic load representative in cakes.
Cake types GI (bread
= 100)
Glycemic
Load
Avail. Carb
per serving
Serving Size
(grams)
Angel food cake 95 ± 70 27.55 29 50
Banana cake 67 ± 80 25.46 38 80
Chocolate cake 79 ± 10 41.08 52 111
Cupcake, strawberry-iced 104 ± 12 29.12 28 53
Pound butter cake 73 ± 12 18.98 26 38
Sponge cake, plain 66 ± 60 23.76 36 63
Pound cake (Sara Lee) 77 ± 80 21.56 28 53
Source: Jenkins et al. (2002a)
6.3 Low glycemic index butter cake
The food industry is being challenged to redesign traditional foods for
optimal nutritional value, in response to some population sectors with particular
nutritional necessities and making them as tasty as or better than the original. One
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