Pancakes, syrup and a glass of orange juice
Pancakes with syrup and a glass of orange juice: about 115 g of carbs before 9 am, almost all fast. The juice adds another 24 g of sugar.
- Digestible carbs
- 116 g
- GI
- 59 (est.)
- Glycemic load
- 68
- In cans of cola
- 3.0
A diner breakfast of pancakes, butter and syrup is about 90 g of carbs, and the glass of juice on the side brings it to about 115 g. There's very little protein on the plate.
Two eggs with one slice of toast is about an eighth of the load. If you want the pancakes, eat the eggs first and skip the juice.
What the hill looks like
Here's the meal next to its swap in our teaching model, drawn for a healthy adult from published averages. Your own curve will differ, but the gap between the two is the point.
- Pancakes, syrup and a glass of orange juice peaks near 135 mg/dL (7.5 mmol/L) at 50 minutes and is 108 at two hours.
- Two eggs and one slice of toast peaks near 95 mg/dL (5.3 mmol/L) at 50 minutes and is 92 at two hours.
A teaching model built from published averages for a healthy adult, not a prediction for you. People eating the same meal can differ a lot. How the model works
What would flatten it
- Make it smaller. Half the starch is half the load, since the load is carbs times GI.
- Walk for 10 minutes after. In 41 adults with type 2 diabetes, 10-minute walks after each meal made the rise 12% smaller than one daily walk, and 22% smaller after dinner.
- Eat the protein and vegetables first. The same meal with the carbs 10 minutes later lowered the peak by more than 40% in 15 people with prediabetes.
- Swap the drink. Any sweet drink on the side adds its whole load, and water adds none.
Run this meal in the simulator, switch on a walk or carbs last, and watch where the sugar goes.
What the numbers rest on
GI worked out from its parts, a GI estimated from a similar food, no fiber listed, so total carbs.
- Pancakes with butter and syrup: 91 g digestible carbs from USDA Nutritive Value of Foods, item 816, p. 62: Pancakes with butter, syrup, 2 pancakes (232 g). GI 61, Sydney GI database, Pancakes, prepared from wheat flour and water (Australia 2009): stands in, the GI of plain pancakes used; syrup is sugar.
- Orange juice, 1 cup: 24.5 g digestible carbs from USDA Nutritive Value of Foods, item 332, p. 32: Chilled (refrigerator case), 1 cup (249 g). GI 50, Atkinson 2008 Table 1, Orange juice.
This is about blood sugar for people without diabetes. If you take insulin or a sulfonylurea, your targets and meal plan come from your prescriber.
The 100 meals that raise blood sugar most · The 100 that keep it steady
7 sources
- US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Nutritive Value of Foods, Home and Garden Bulletin 72, 2002ars.usda.gov
- Atkinson FS, Foster-Powell K and Brand-Miller JC, International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values, Diabetes Care, 2008pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- University of Sydney, Glycemic Index Research and GI Database, accessed November 15, 2026glycemicindex.com
- Dona, A.C., et al., (1)H NMR spectroscopy for the in vitro understanding of the glycaemic index. British Journal of Nutrition, 2013. 109(11): p. 1934-9, via the University of Sydney GI databaseglycemicindex.com
- Reynolds AN and others, Advice to walk after meals is more effective for lowering postprandial glycaemia in type 2 diabetes than advice that does not specify timing, Diabetologia, 2016pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Shukla AP and others, The impact of food order on postprandial glycaemic excursions in prediabetes, Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 2019pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Hutchins KM and others, Continuous glucose monitor overestimates glycemia, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2025pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
