Some data on desserts for those watching their glucose, ranked from best to worst

0. Dark chocolate
1. Dry Indian milk-solids (mawa/khoya) 
2. Chickpea flour (besan) based sweets like soan-papdi, ladoo
3. Western-style cookies and cakes
4. Sugar-syrup based wet Indian sweets (gulab jamun, rosogolla, jalebi)

Blogger at ribbonfarm.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

One problem in comparisons is that Western desserts are usually consumed in larger quantities (by weight) per conventional serving, but even adjusting for that, this ranking is roughly right.

The big jump is from 2 to 3. The moment you add white flour or sugar syrup, you're basically sugar-bombing your body.

One of my interesting findings from months of experimentation with various foods is that white flour and white rice are both probably worse than well-chosen Indian sweets. One of the small wins for personal nempirical science. On my scale of badness, they're probably at 3, alongside cookies and cake

My go-to dessert is now the peda, a level 1 dessert. Mildly sweetened pucks of milk solids with flavorings like pistachio and saffron. Deceptively simple because good pedas are *very* hard to find

Among western desserts I suspect things like crime brûlée are best

I forgot icecream. I’d say they’re at a 2.5 on my scale but can be worse depending on brand/flavor. And kulfi scores better than western icecream (less added sugar is the reason I think)

Oh, I didn't even include things like donuts. They are kinda off the charts bad. The worst things I've tested. Anything that looks fluffy, light, and made of sugar and white flour is going to be scary high spikes.