Diet taboos for diabetics

There are no foods that people with diabetes must not touch. The core dietary taboo is to avoid eating behaviors that "will cause blood sugar to spike sharply in a short period of time and increase the metabolic burden on the pancreas and blood vessels." The prerequisite for eating all foods is to match your blood sugar tolerance and control the ratio of total intake of calories to carbohydrates.

To be honest, the first pitfall for many people with diabetes is the so-called "sugar-free food". I met Aunt Zhang when I was doing missionary work in the community. She heard people said that people with diabetes cannot eat sweets, so she replaced all the snacks at home with sugar-free biscuits and sugar-free Sachima. She could eat less than half a bag a day. After the second check, the blood sugar level soared to 12.7mmol/L. She was still confused and said, "I haven't eaten sugar, so why am I still high?" In fact, this type of sugar-free food does not have additional sucrose. It is made from refined wheat flour, with a large amount of butter and shortening added. It raises sugar faster than white rice. Nowadays, there are many groups who advocate extreme low-carbohydrate diets, requiring people with diabetes to completely cut off all refined carbohydrates and not touch even a single bite of white rice or flour. This method can indeed bring down the blood sugar of some people with diabetes quickly, but many endocrinologists have also raised the risks: long-term complete carbon withdrawal can easily lead to ketoacidosis and malnutrition, especially for elderly people with diabetes who have low muscle mass. Not eating staple food at all will accelerate muscle loss and have a much higher risk of falling. Mainstream evidence-based recommendations are actually not that harsh. As long as the total carbohydrate intake of the day is controlled within the standard range (usually 2-4g per kilogram of body weight, adjusted according to the amount of activity), and the blood sugar can be stabilized below 10mmol/L 2 hours after the meal, it is perfectly fine to occasionally eat half a bowl of white rice and two mouthfuls of clear noodle soup. There is no need to force yourself to even dare to serve the New Year’s Eve dinner at home.

Don’t believe it, many of the sugar-eating giants are not sweet at all, but look particularly “healthy”. For example, the higher the degree of gelatinization of boiled white porridge and soft pimple soup, the more complete the starch is decomposed. Drinking it will raise blood sugar almost as fast as drinking glucose water. There used to be a 72-year-old man who was afraid of eating hard food that would hurt his stomach. He drank white porridge with pickles every time. After every meal, his blood sugar was above 13. Later, after listening to the doctor's advice, he changed to dry rice with half grains and half rice, with stir-fried vegetables. Within half a month, the blood sugar dropped to about 9. Freshly squeezed juices are also hard-hit areas. Many people think that their freshly squeezed juices without added sugar are always fine, right? In fact, after the fruit is turned into juice, all the dietary fiber is filtered out, and the fructose enters the intestinal tract for absorption directly. A cup of 200ml of freshly squeezed orange juice can raise blood sugar much faster than eating two fresh oranges. There was a young man who was newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and drank a glass of apple juice every morning. In less than three months, the glycated hemoglobin increased by 1.2 points during a follow-up check, which shocked him.

Another type of hidden pitfall is high-fat foods that are high in oil and salt. Many people think that people with diabetes only need to control their sugar, and it doesn’t matter whether they have too much oil or not. This is a big mistake. For example, many people grab a handful of nuts and eat them. The calories of 10 original peanuts are almost equal to less than half a bowl of rice. If they are salt-baked or honey-flavored, the additional sugar and salt will increase the burden on blood vessels, which is very unfriendly to people with diabetes who are prone to high blood pressure and high blood lipids. Of course, there are exceptions. The now popular ketogenic diet will use plain nuts as one of the main sources of fat, but the premise is that the carbohydrate intake throughout the day is strictly controlled within 50g, and the amount of nuts per day does not exceed 10g. If you cannot calculate such accurate calories, it is best not to follow the trend casually. Eat two or three at a time to satisfy your cravings.

Many people think that fruit is the natural enemy of people with diabetes. In fact, it is not at all. I know an old person with type 2 diabetes who has been suffering from type 2 diabetes for 18 years. His blood sugar has been very stable. His habit is to eat 5 strawberries at 3 o'clock every afternoon. If the fasting blood sugar exceeds 8mmol/L that day, he will eat 10 small tomatoes. In all these years, his blood sugar has never spiked due to eating fruit. If you eat low-GI fruits like strawberries, grapefruits, and cherries at about 100g each time and put them as a snack between two meals, your blood sugar will not fluctuate greatly. Instead, you can supplement vitamins and dietary fiber, which is much healthier than eating those sugar-free biscuits with a bunch of sugar substitutes.

Having said that, there is really no need to stick to the list of taboos on the Internet. Everyone's blood sugar tolerance is different. Some people's blood sugar is stable after eating half a mango, while some people's blood sugar spikes after a bite of watermelon. Instead of listening to others saying that you can't eat this and that you can't touch, it is better to buy a blood glucose meter yourself and test it every 2 hours after eating. It is better to know your body's reaction than anything else. It doesn’t matter if you are really hungry and want to eat something sweet. For example, if you have a bite of cream cake on your birthday, you can reduce your staple food by one-third. After the meal, you can go for a brisk walk for half an hour and your blood sugar will not collapse. It is better than enduring a revengeful overeating all the time and causing your blood sugar to rise and fall. After all, controlling sugar is a lifelong matter. You must first eat comfortably before you can stick to it.