The glycemic index (GI) provides a measure of how quickly blood sugar levels (i.e. levels of glucose in the blood) rise after eating a particular type of food. In this study, the glycemic index and glycemic load of certain root tuber foods (yam, potato, and cassava) in both diabetic and non-diabetic conditions were compared. Glucose with a glycemic index of 100 was used as reference. The comparative studies showed the glycemic indices for cassava flour (59.34±32.42 and 40.12±25.27) respectively for diabetic and healthy subjects was significantly higher (p<0.05) than that of yam flour (49.81±10.38 and 35.50±11.71) for diabetic and healthy subjects. The glycemic index for baked sweet potato (94.80±8.01) was significantly higher (p<0.05) than roasted (82.01±5.20), fried (76.01±7.10) and boiled (46.00±5.89), for the same root tuber.
