Spike charts online usually come from one person wearing a sensor. These come from thousands of Vively members who logged their meals while wearing a CGM. They show what typically happens, and how much people differ.
+2.5Weet-Bix
+2.2Sushi
+1.6Banana
+1.6Pizza
+1.3Pasta
+1.4WatermelonTypical rise in mmol/L, eaten on its own. Tap a food for its page.
Short answer: Across 38 everyday foods, the typical rise in blood sugar after eating ranged from 0.9 mmol/L (beer) to 2.5 mmol/L (Weet-Bix) in Vively members wearing a continuous glucose monitor. Some results surprise people: porridge rose more than ice cream, and pasta less than rice. Popular hacks helped some members and did nothing for others.
When you eat carbohydrate, your body breaks it down into glucose and your blood glucose rises. That is normal, because glucose is your body’s main fuel. Insulin then moves it out of your blood and into your cells, and your level comes back down.
A big rise is sometimes followed by a dip below where you started. In a study of 1,070 people, those with bigger dips after breakfast felt hungrier sooner and ate more over the rest of the day.
Bigger, more frequent rises mean your body releases more insulin. If your cells stop responding well to it (insulin resistance), your body has to make even more. Insulin resistance usually builds for 10 to 15 years before a standard glucose blood test picks it up.
Studies of people without diabetes have linked higher glucose levels, including two hours after a sugary drink, with a higher risk of heart disease. Higher rises after meals are also often one of the first changes on the way to type 2 diabetes.
Glucose is meant to go up after you eat. What matters is your pattern over weeks: how high you go, how often, and how quickly you come back down. That pattern is personal, so measuring it beats guessing.
If you have diabetes or take medicine that lowers glucose, talk to your doctor before changing how you eat.
Ten pairs of foods. For each one, pick the food that raised our members’ glucose more when eaten on its own. Some of these catch everyone out.
Typical rise in mmol/L when each food was the only thing logged for that meal. Foods with an arrow have their own page with the full curve and swaps.
Each bar shows the middle half of members for that food, and the dark mark is the typical rise. The wider the bar, the more people differed. Plenty of members rose less after Weet-Bix than others did after pasta.
Both get shared constantly. Here is what happened when our members tried them.
We compared the same members eating a food on its own and with only protein, fat or vegetables alongside. It helped some foods and did nothing for others. For most foods, only about half of members rose less when they paired it.
56% of 389 members rose less when they paired it.
53% of 159 members rose less when they paired it.
48% of 165 members rose less when they paired it.
| Food | Members | Alone | Paired | Rose less when paired |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Banana | 389 | 1.5 | 1.2 | 56% |
| Apple | 370 | 1.1 | 0.9 | 55% |
| Sourdough | 236 | 1.7 | 1.6 | 56% |
| White rice | 165 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 48% |
| Pasta | 159 | 1.7 | 1.1 | 53% |
| Dates | 82 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 45% |
| Sweet potato | 80 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 49% |
| Brown rice | 60 | 1.7 | 1.4 | 53% |
| Sushi | 55 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 49% |
| Mango | 49 | 1.6 | 1.4 | 63% |
| Porridge | 42 | 2.1 | 1.7 | 50% |
| Watermelon | 32 | 1.2 | 0.8 | 69% |
| Hot cross bun | 30 | 1.9 | 2.1 | 47% |
Typical rise in mmol/L for members who logged the food both ways. Paired meals may also have been bigger.
272 members logged apple cider vinegar in the 45 minutes before 498 carb-based meals. Compared with their own carb meals without it, the typical rise was the same. 49% rose less with vinegar, and the rest rose the same or more.
Some controlled studies have found small effects, and we don’t know how much members took, so this doesn’t prove it never works. It does show it isn’t a reliable fix for most people.
Hacks work for some people and not others. A CGM lets you run the experiment on yourself, with your own food.
See your own responseWear a CGM with Vively and see the rise, the peak and the recovery for every meal you log. Then try a swap and compare the two curves side by side.
Get your CGM
A glucose spike is a rise in blood glucose after eating, usually peaking 30 to 60 minutes later. Rises after meals are normal. There is no official cut-off for a spike in people without diabetes, so we show the size of the rise in mmol/L instead.
In our members, eaten on their own, the biggest typical rises were Weet-Bix (2.5), hot cross bun (2.2), sushi (2.2), porridge (2.1), Turkish bread (2.1), in mmol/L.
The smallest typical rises were beer (0.9), apple (1.2), popcorn (1.3), pasta (1.3), in mmol/L. A small rise doesn’t make a food healthy, and portion size matters.
Sometimes. In our members it helped banana and pasta, made little difference to sourdough and sweet potato, and none to white rice or sushi. For most foods only about half of members rose less, which is why testing your own meals is worthwhile.
Not on average in our members. In 272 people who logged it before carb meals, the typical rise was 1.6 mmol/L with vinegar and 1.6 without.
In a 2019 study of healthy adults who wore CGMs, glucose stayed between 3.9 and 7.8 mmol/L for about 96% of the day. How high you go, how long you stay there and your pattern over weeks matter more than any single rise.
We used meals logged in the Vively app by members wearing a CGM between January 2022 and October 2026, leaving out members who told us they have type 2 diabetes, and our own staff. The rise is the highest reading in the two hours after eating, minus the member’s average for the four hours before. We took each member’s own median first, then the median across members. Pairing curves use members in the Sydney and Melbourne time zones. Data is de-identified and only shown when at least 30 members contribute. This is observational app data, not a controlled GI test.
This is observational data from real meals, not medical advice. If you have diabetes or take medicine that lowers glucose, talk to your doctor before changing how you eat.
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Vively is a general wellness platform and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Any information, insights or guidance offered through our app, website, programs, or coaches is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for professional medical advice or care. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making any health-related decisions.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live and work, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present.