Eggplant Glycemic Index (GI) - Is It High or Low?
The mystery food with many names, eggplant, aubergine, and brinjal, is often considered a vegetable, but scientists classify it not only as a fruit but, more technically, a berry. We call it a vegetable because it is used as such in cooking and due to its low sugar levels.
Because of their low carbohydrate content, the International Tables of Glycemic Index does not include eggplants in its research.
Food and Science Nutrition has studied three species of eggplant fruit and found the GIs to be 30.16±2.55 for Solanum aethiopicum, 30.60±2.57 for Solanum kumba, and 38.65±3.76 for Solanum gilo (1).
Eggplants are classified as low-glycemic-index foods. However, adding eggplant sauce has been proven to increase the glycemic index of white rice (2).
The American Diabetes Association, Mayo Clinic, and the National Diabetes Education Program of NIH all recommend an eggplant-based diet for type 2 diabetics.
Research has shown that the polyphenols in eggplants have antioxidant activities, control glucose absorption, and reduce associated hypertension (3).
However, one study has found eggplants to increase oxidative stress, making it a potential risk factor for atherosclerosis (4).
Check the glycemic index chart page for more GI values.
References
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6341174/
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273770974
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960852407005342
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15207376/
