Some patients have many misconceptions about their diabetic diet:
Myth 1: Diabetes is mainly caused by eating sugar or eating too many sweets.
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In fact, diabetes is a chronic, systemic metabolic disease caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors over time. The risk factors for diabetes include genetics, high-calorie, high-fat diet, low physical activity, obesity, increasing age, and psychological stress.
Myth 2: Diabetes diet therapy is primarily about controlling sugar or staple food intake.
This is false. The key to diabetic dietary therapy is to control total daily dietary calories.
Myth 3: You can skip diet control as long as you take more glucose-lowering medications.
Dietary therapy is the foundation of comprehensive diabetes treatment.
Misconception 4: Diet therapy is starvation therapy.
Dietary therapy is about appropriately limiting total caloric intake while maintaining a balanced ratio of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and other nutrients, and never about starvation or severe partial eating.
With too little food and insufficient nutrition, the body’s resistance decreases, which can easily lead to various infections. The massive breakdown of protein and fat during starvation leads to ketoacidosis.
In addition, when a person is excessively hungry, glycogen breakdown and gluconeogenesis increase, resulting in reactive hyperglycemia after hypoglycemia, leading to fluctuations in blood glucose, which is instead detrimental to blood glucose control.
Myth #5: Coarse grains contain less sugar, so there is no harm in eating more.
In fact, the carbohydrate content of staple foods such as flour, rice, millet and corn is similar, ranging from 75% to 80%. However, because millet and corn are rich in dietary fiber, they can slow down the absorption of glucose in the intestine. Therefore, there is a certain difference in the degree of postprandial blood glucose elevation when consuming the same amount of coarse and fine grains. For example, if you eat 100 grams of corn, 80% of its carbohydrates are converted into blood sugar. The same amount of flour is converted into blood glucose in 90% of cases.
In addition, roughly processed flour is low in sugar (about 60%) and has a low “glycemic index”. The “diabetic foods” on the market today are many made from these flours. For these reasons, people with high blood sugar may want to replace fine grains with coarse grains. Usually, coarse and fine grains should be combined. The company’s main goal is to provide a comprehensive range of products and services to the public.
Myth #6: Fruits contain a lot of sugar and should not be eaten at all.
Many patients have a problem with fruit.
Many patients are afraid to ask for fruit. The fact is that some fruits are relatively low in sugar (e.g., apples and pears, 10%-14% sugar; watermelon, 4% sugar), and a small amount of them does not affect blood sugar too much, but the key is to eat them in moderation.
For patients with postprandial blood glucose below 10 mmol/L, you can eat 1 apple or pear per day, but put it between meals and count the calories from the fruit within the total calories. If a larger amount of fruit is eaten, this number of calories should be deducted from the total diet. In other words, eat fewer staple foods.
Myth #7: People with diabetes should not eat sweets.
Sweet foods mainly refer to sucrose. There are many natural or synthetic sweeteners available, such as stevia, xylitol, fructose, aspartame, saccharin, etc., which are not high in calories and can be used by diabetics.