✦ Nutty ancient wheat flavour ✦ Marginally higher protein ✦ B vitamins and minerals ✦ Contains gluten

Spelt is an ancient species of wheat with a distinctive nutty, slightly sweet flavour and harder hull than modern wheat. It has marginally higher protein and slightly more B vitamins and minerals than common wheat, contains gluten (not suitable for coeliac disease), and some people with wheat sensitivity find it more digestible — though evidence on this is modest.

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Preparation note

Cook whole spelt berries after overnight soaking in 3 parts water for 45-60 minutes. Spelt flour can replace wheat flour in bread recipes though its different gluten requires less kneading.

Sources: CoFID 2021

Macronutrients per 100g

361
kcal
Energy
14.6
g
Protein
70.2
g
Carbs
10.7
g
Fibre
2.40
g
Fat
2.00
g
Sugars

How to read GI & GL

GI (Glycemic Index) rates how fast the carbohydrates in a food raise blood glucose compared to pure glucose (= 100). Low GI ≤ 55 means a slow, steady rise. But GI says nothing about how much carbohydrate you're actually eating.

GL (Glycemic Load) fixes that. It multiplies GI by the actual grams of carbohydrate per typical serving: GL = GI × carbs per serving ÷ 100. This makes it the more useful number for real-world blood sugar management.

Why they can disagree — a food with low GI can still carry a high GL if the serving is large and carb-dense. Conversely, watermelon has a high GI (72) but a low GL (4) because a normal portion contains very few carbs. Always read both together.

Low GL ≤ 10 Modest total glucose impact per serving.
Medium GL 11–19 Moderate impact — manageable for most.
High GL ≥ 20 Significant carb load per serving. Consider a smaller portion.

Source: Atkinson et al., International Tables of GI & GL Values 2021, Am J Clin Nutr.

Glycemic Index & Load

63
GI Score
🟡 Medium GI
28
GL / Serving
High Load

Medium GI food — moderate effect on blood sugar. Pair with protein, fat, or fibre to lower the overall meal GI.

Glycemic Load (GL = GI × carbs ÷ 100) accounts for portion size. A high GL — keep portions modest.

Source: Atkinson et al., International Tables of GI & GL Values 2021, Am J Clin Nutr

Vitamins & Minerals

Nutrient Per 100g % Daily Value* Level
Glutamic acid 4.38 g —
Aspartic acid 1.10 g —
Leucine 1.01 g —
Proline 0.803 g —
Valine 0.745 g —
Arginine 0.730 g —
Phenylalanine 0.715 g —
Serine 0.657 g —
Isoleucine 0.584 g —
Alanine 0.584 g —
Glycine 0.511 g —
Tyrosine 0.511 g —
Threonine 0.482 g —
Lysine 0.438 g —
Methionine 0.380 g —
Histidine 0.350 g —
Cysteine 0.263 g —
Tryptophan 0.175 g —

* % Daily Value is the proportion of an adult EU Nutrient Reference Value (NRV) supplied by 100g of this food. NRVs are the labelling standard — the same basis as the “%RI” figures printed on food packaging — so these percentages are directly comparable with a shop label. They are a single adult figure and do not vary by age or sex, which is why they sometimes differ from UK dietary reference values: the NRV for vitamin C is 80mg where the UK RNI is 40mg. When Nutriofia assesses your own intake in the reports and trackers, it uses the age- and sex-specific UK values instead.

Fibre is shown without a percentage. Our fibre values use the UK Englyst NSP method, while the published 30g daily goal is an AOAC figure — the two are measured differently and a single percentage would mislead. How we source and normalise our data →

Sources: CoFID 2021
Grains & Cereals Wheat & Bread Grains High fibre High protein 🇬🇧 CoFID 2021