● Food Intelligence · Nuts & Seeds
Across 22,584 logged pistachio meals from 5,394 Signos members, the average glucose peak was +24.9 mg/dL — one of the lowest in the snack tranche. The in-shell form slows consumption naturally, most cohort meals log pistachios alone, and the only meaningful pairing penalty is dessert: on ice cream or gelato peaks jump to +38.7 mg/dL.
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Barely — averaging +24.9 mg/dL across 22,584 logs, with only 23% of meals crossing the high-spike threshold and a median peak of just +21 mg/dL. Across 22,584 logged pistachio meals from 5,394 members, the average glucose peak was +24.9 mg/dL — sitting right alongside mixed nuts (+24.9) and below yogurt (+27.6), chocolate (+29.0), and apples (+31.5). The story is unusually clean for a snack: most cohort meals log pistachios alone (n=6,448 single-item logs averaging +21.6 mg/dL), and the in-shell form slows consumption naturally. Only one pairing meaningfully changes the picture — pistachios on ice cream or gelato push the peak to +38.7 mg/dL (+14 mg/dL above baseline, n=179). Every other carb-pair we measured landed within 6 mg/dL of the no-pair anchor.
Some members spike +21.9 mg/dL. Others spike +40.5. The only way to know how you'll spike is to measure with a Signos CGM.
Pistachios are a low-carb, high-fat, high-protein nut — a 1-oz serving carries roughly 8g of carbs (3g of which is fiber) alongside 6g of protein and 13g of fat. The published glycemic index is 28 with a glycemic load of 1, both firmly in the low-GI category. Our cohort observation matches: across 22,584 logged meals the average peak was +24.9 mg/dL, with single-item logs averaging just +21.9 mg/dL. The dominant lever in the modifier table is meal-level carb load — meals with ≥60g carbs alongside pistachios ran 61% higher than the low-carb baseline (p<0.001), and the carb-bucket analysis shows a near-linear escalation from +22.8 mg/dL (light, 0–40g) to +40.5 mg/dL (very heavy, 110g+) — a 78% jump. The mechanism is observational, not yet causal, but the pattern is consistent with pistachios contributing minimal fast-digest carbs themselves while being co-ingested in mixed-meal contexts that drive the spike. Two secondary observations: morning timing trimmed the response by ~3% (small but significant, p=0.025), and the in-shell form's editorial advantage (slower consumption) does not translate into a measurable per-serving glycemic delta — the form deltas are all under 1.5 mg/dL.
This page draws on 22,584 pistachio logs from 5,394 unique Signos members — including 4,245 single-item logs (pistachios eaten alone, no pairings) — collected through the Signos production CGM platform. Data were filtered to postprandial glucose responses (PPGR) between 0 and 100 mg/dL to exclude sensor artifacts and implausible readings. Modifier effects were estimated using Welch's t-test on matched pairs against a defined baseline; all reported effects carry p<0.001 unless noted. We report mean glucose peak across a right-skewed distribution — the median single-item spike of +17 mg/dL is several mg/dL lower than the mean of +21.9 mg/dL, which is typical for this type of data. The food was identified in member logs using a regex that matched "pistachio" as a primary ingredient, excluding compound dishes where pistachios were a minor component. Any carb-pair pairing slot requires at least 100 matched meals before it appears in the recipe builder; the baklava pairing slot was suppressed at n=2 (below threshold).