● Food Intelligence · Fruit
Across 6,038 single-item meals where 3,271 Signos members ate an orange alone, the average glucose peak was +31.3 mg/dL — but the range is wide: a light-carb meal with oranges averages +29.5 mg/dL, while a very heavy carb load pushes that to +48 mg/dL. Form and pairings matter too: the cohort mean for a whole orange anchors the calculator at +33 mg/dL, while pairing with Greek yogurt trims the peak by −4 mg/dL.
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Yes — for about half of members, with an average peak of +31.3 mg/dL across 6,038 single-item meals where members ate an orange alone. Across our single-item cohort of 6,038 orange logs from 3,271 unique members, the mean glucose peak was +31.3 mg/dL — putting whole oranges in a moderate-response tier. Three levers drive most of the variance: total meal carb load (the single biggest factor, at +49% when the meal hits ≥60g carbs), sugar content (≥20g raises the peak ~49%), and what you pair the orange with. The cohort mean for a whole orange anchors the calculator at +33 mg/dL, but load it into a high-carb meal and the average climbs to +48 mg/dL. The IQR spans 25 mg/dL (p25: +17, p75: +42). Important: this analysis is whole orange only; orange juice is a separate food and is not represented.
Some members spike +29.5 mg/dL. Others spike +48.1. The only way to know how you'll spike is to measure with a Signos CGM.
Oranges produce a mean peak of +31.3 mg/dL across 6,038 single-item meals where members ate an orange alone — moderate by CGM standards, but with an IQR of 25 mg/dL (p25: +17, p75: +42), signaling that individual response varies far more than the average implies. Three levers explain most of that range. First, total meal carb load dominates: meals in the very heavy carb bucket (110g+ carbs) spiked +48.1 mg/dL on average — 63% more than the lightest-carb meals (+29.5 mg/dL). Second, the meal's overall sugar content matters: high-sugar logs (≥20g sugar, n=7,190) ran ~49% higher than the low-sugar baseline. Third, protein pairings offer a modest but measurable counter-pressure — Greek yogurt trimmed the mean peak from 33.4 to 29.7 mg/dL in 510 paired logs. These effects are observational from matched-pair Welch's t-tests, not controlled trials.
This page is grounded in 23,786 logged meals containing oranges from approximately 9,300 unique Signos members, captured through the Signos production PPGR cohort. The page-primary cohort is the single-item cut: 6,038 meals where an orange was logged alone, from 3,271 unique members, with a mean peak of +31.3 mg/dL, median +28 mg/dL, and IQR p25 +17 / p75 +42 mg/dL. Data was filtered to meals with a measured glucose rise between 0 and 100 mg/dL (ppgr_case='regular') to exclude outliers and sensor artifacts. Statistical comparisons between modifier groups use Welch's t-test on matched pairs; all effects reported at p<0.05 minimum, with the dominant modifiers reaching p<0.001. Orange logs were identified via a regex cohort match on the canonical food name "Oranges" and its whole-fruit sub-forms (whole orange, orange slices, mandarin, clementine). Orange juice, orange chicken, orange soda, orange creamsicle, orange marmalade, blood orange, and orange sherbet are explicitly excluded from this cohort — orange juice in particular is a distinct food category (Harvard GI 50 vs the whole orange's GI 40) and conflating the two is the most common error we see in glycemic-response questions about oranges. A minimum of 100 matched meals was required for any food pairing to appear in the recipe builder.