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Issue No. 040 · Dried Fruit
Dates scored 62. Prunes scored 29.
Three dried fruit swaps that keep the sweet and cut the glycemic index by up to 33 points.
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I love a good date.
My doctor told me to treat dried fruit like candy. He never said which fruit he meant.
So I went to the glycemic index tables kept by the University of Sydney. Those tables feed each food to real people, track their blood sugar for two hours, and score the result against pure glucose. Dried fruit is not one food… it is a whole aisle, and the scores run from 29 all the way up to 62.
In other words, the fruit you grab matters more than the fruit you skip.
Here are three swaps that keep the chew and the sweet.
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🌴
Dates
62
Glycemic index
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-33
GI pts
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🫐
Prunes
29
Glycemic index
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That gap comes down to fiber and sorbitol, a sugar your gut absorbs slowly, so a prune may raise your blood sugar more gently than a date. Prunes come pitted and soft, which means they slip into any spot a date fills, from a goat cheese snack to a blended sauce.
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🥥
Dried figs
61
Glycemic index
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-26
GI pts
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🍑
Dried peaches
35
Glycemic index
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Dried figs sit in the medium zone, while dried peaches sit deep in the low zone. If you chop figs into oatmeal or onto a cheese board, chopped dried peaches do the same job with a softer rise.
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🍇
Raisins
54
Glycemic index
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-24
GI pts
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🧡
Dried apricots
30
Glycemic index
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GI scores come from lab tests and vary by variety and brand. Your own response may differ. This is not medical advice, so talk to your doctor before changing how you eat, especially if you take glucose-lowering medication.
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A 2018 Toronto trial backs this one up. Dried apricots were the only dried fruit that made a clear dent in a white bread spike when they replaced half the bread.
So toss apricots in your trail mix where the raisins used to go.
Anyway… none of these swaps ask you to give anything up.
Dates still belong in your kitchen. Eat two with a few walnuts, and the fat and protein may soften the rise.
But nobody ever handed me this list.
My doctor lumped every dried fruit into one bag marked candy. That bag hid a 33-point spread.
Pick the low scorer and keep the sweet.
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Where this comes from: GI values from the University of Sydney GI Database: dates 62, dried figs 61, raisins 54, dried peaches 35, dried apricots 30, prunes 29. Scores shift by variety and lab. A 2018 trial in Nutrition & Diabetes measured raisins at 55 and dried apricots at 42, with white bread at 71. That trial tested only 10 people and was funded by dried fruit trade groups, so read it with care. |
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Dried fruit is not one food.
Pick the low scorer.
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★ Welcome to the revolution
Jackie
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