8 minutes ago, chromedome said:The official GI database at the University of Sydney used to list it with a GI of 54, but it's not currently on the database. Usually when that happens, it's because there's some question of accuracy/reproducibility in the underlying research. Other sources claim even lower GI, but they're mostly of the self-interested variety. It seems reasonably safe to assume that its GI is in fact somewhat lower than conventional sugar, but an exact number may take a little while to stabilize.
Of course everybody's system is different, and the GI recorded in one or another test subject won't necessarily correspond to the same food's impact on your own body. You could always eat 100g of it and then test your blood glucose, I suppose, but that's going to be a bridge too far for most of us.
I imagine that one of the problems in measuring an exact GI is that it in itself varies quite a bit. Palm sugar is produced like maple syrup - sugar trees are tapped for their sap, which is boiled to remove the water. There is no standard as to how much water to remove, and I'd imagine that most palm sugar makers aren't so precise as to measure brix or something to determine when it's done boiling. Even the "industrial" stuff that is made in a large enough volume to export has some variability. Some tubs of what I get are slightly softer than others - whether that's because one batch had slightly high water content than another when jarring or because the wax seal wasn't as perfectly applied hence some evaporation during export/shipping, who knows. But in any case, gram for gram of one brand could be very different than it is for another, or even the same brand but a different batch.
