Foods containing high amounts of 'simple' carbs are typically high on the Glycemic Index (GI) and labelled as "bad".

They are often seen as more unhealthy, causing insulin spikes, subsequent crashes in energy, and low levels of satiety.

But are high GI carbs being blown out of all proportion?

First of all, it's worth defining what the glycemic index actually is.

The GI measures the rate at which a food causes the level of glucose in the blood to rise. This could be termed the "quality" of the carbohydrate.

However, this doesn't mean high GI foods are poor quality and should be avoided.

For example, watermelon is higher on the GI than ice cream. Therefore, using GI to simplistically separate foods into categories of good and bad, is flawed approach.

Introducing, Glycemic Load (GL). GL measures the quality AND quantity of carbohydrates in a meal.

Taking the GI score and multiplying it by the number of grams of carbs per serving.

This means that a small, high GI meal may have a very similar blood glucose response to a large, low GI meal.

This study shows the blood glucose response of meals with varying GL.

• Acute effect of meal glycemic index and glycemic load on blood glucose and insulin responses in humans. (Galgani et al, 2006) (PubMed Link)

But what's the key takeaway here? Well, it's this...

Unless you have a specific condition, such as PCOS or Diabetes, there's no need for you to avoid high GI carbs, or pay too much attention to them. 

Focus on your overall calorie consumption and ensure your diet is filled with whole-foods, such as vegetables and fruit. This will naturally improve the quality of your diet and the carbohydrates you consume, without overly worrying about specific foods.

And if you really want to geek out, here's a downloadable spreadsheet of foods, including their GI and GL values.

• GI and GL Food List Spreadsheet Download

• The data in this spreadsheet was created using the methodology of this study: Developing a methodology for assigning glycemic index values to foods consumed across Europe. (Aston et al, Obesity Reviews, 2010) (Full Text)