Diet taboos for people with high blood sugar

There is no "fasting list" that people with high blood sugar must not touch. What are really taboo are dietary patterns that cause blood sugar to rise and fall suddenly like a roller coaster, and bad eating habits that can drag down the function of pancreatic islets in the long term. Those extreme statements that "you can't eat rice and you have to avoid all fruits" are all misleading.

A while ago, I was accompanying a friend from the endocrinology department on an outpatient visit. I met a 62-year-old Uncle Zhang. He has been suffering from sugar for three years. He dared not touch the sweet food. He ate multi-grain rice every day and developed acid reflux. As a result, his blood sugar often soared to over 11 after meals. When I asked him, I found out that he had to drink a bag of "sugar-free nutrition" advertised by the merchant every morning. "Oatmeal", he had to eat half a plate of pickled radish for lunch. These two factors were the main culprits of his blood sugar fluctuations - the first ingredient in the oatmeal list was maltodextrin, which raised blood sugar faster than white sugar. The salt and invisible sugar hidden in pickled radish would aggravate insulin resistance, and raising blood sugar was a slow knife cutting flesh.

Many people may be confused when it comes to this. How can something that is not sweet raise sugar? In fact, judging whether you can eat or how much you can eat has never been based on tasting whether it is sweet or not. The core is to look at two indicators: glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL). The former refers to the speed at which the food raises blood sugar, and the latter calculates the actual impact on blood sugar based on the amount you eat. This is also the consensus of the current mainstream medical community.

Don’t be fooled by the “sugar-free” label in the supermarket. Last time I bought snacks with my relative, she bought a sugar-free Sachima, saying that she would bring it to her diabetic wife. I turned over and looked at the ingredient list. White sugar was indeed not added, but the top three were maltodextrin, refined flour, and margarine. The absence of sucrose does not mean that there are no carbohydrates that can quickly raise sugar. If you eat two of these, it will raise sugar more than eating a small bowl of rice. This is also a big pitfall that many sugar lovers have stepped on.

You may be shocked to hear this, but many foods that are even a little salty have the same ability to raise blood sugar as sugar water. For example, sticky white porridge, especially the Cantonese kind of raw porridge, boils until the starch is gelatinized. After drinking it, blood sugar will rise in 15 minutes, and the GI is higher than white sugar. ； There is also the tomato sauce and salad dressing that everyone loves to dip in, the fresh sugar in braised dishes, sweet and sour dishes, and even many takeout stir-fries put a lot of sugar in order to enhance the flavor. You don’t feel it when you eat, and your blood sugar has already quietly risen. There was a 28-year-old young man who had a physical examination and his fasting blood sugar was 7.2. He said he never eats sweet things. But upon closer inspection, he found out that he drinks two bottles of iced black tea every day, and one bottle contains nearly 13 grams of added sugar. After drinking it for three or four years, it is strange that he is not high.

Of course, there are different diet schools now. For example, the ketogenic diet, which has become very popular in recent years, advocates extremely low carbohydrates and high fat. Many people have tried it and found that their blood sugar is very stable. But don’t follow suit blindly. Nine out of ten nutritionists I know do not recommend that people with diabetes try ketogenic diet at home. This is especially true for people with kidney disease and high blood lipids. Long-term high ketone bodies will increase the burden on the body and cause problems. The traditional dietary guideline still recommends that carbohydrates account for about 50% for people with diabetes, giving priority to whole grains and mixed beans. In fact, both methods are suitable for people. The key is to combine them with your own physical condition, and don’t let the wind come.

There is another question that has been debated for many years. Can you eat fruit if you have high blood sugar? In fact, there is really no need to quit completely. For example, if you have high GI foods like mango, lychee, and pineapple, you can eat one or two mouthfuls at a time to satisfy your cravings. It’s totally fine. Just remember to fill less than half a bowl of the staple food for that meal. ； Strawberries, blueberries, grapefruit and other low-GI foods can be eaten even if you eat half a bowl at a time without any pressure. The only thing you have to pay attention to is not to squeeze the juice. It takes 3-4 oranges to squeeze out a cup of orange juice. All dietary fiber is lost. Drinking it will raise your blood sugar faster than Coca-Cola. It is a pure blood sugar bomb.

In fact, after working with many experienced diabetes patients and endocrinology doctors for a long time, I found that the most common mistake everyone makes is to turn dietary taboos into "jail-style fasting". They dare not eat anything and stare at blood sugar values ​​every day with anxiety. On the contrary, they are prone to emotional overeating and greater blood sugar fluctuations. How can there be so many things that must not be eaten? The so-called taboo is to eat half a watermelon at one time or three bowls of white rice without restraint. What is taboo is to believe in the misunderstanding of "eating sugar-free food as you like". If you are really greedy, even one bite of cream cake will make the sky fall. Just eat lighter for the next two meals and walk downstairs for an extra half hour to burn off the extra carbohydrates. After all, blood sugar control is a long-term matter. Only when you live comfortably can you persist for a long time.