As a very damaging and deceptive pseudoscientific conclusion, “diabetics can’t eat fruit”, is widely circulated in the society. Once a very representative, more than ten years have not touched the fruit of diabetic patients, his logical derivation is simple: can not eat sweets + fruit is very sweet → can not eat fruit.
The poor ten years or so is a personal tragedy, but also diabetes can eat fruit? The dereliction of duty of disease health education. In the Internet era, the high-speed dissemination of information is a double-edged sword, as a doctor, must use this sword well to issue and deliver the voice of science.
I. Glucose production index (GI)
Suppose, we organized all foods to take an examination, and the question was the ability of each food to raise blood sugar.
It is easy to guess that the best score is glucose itself, and we set its score as 100. For other foods that contain equal amounts of glucose, we compare their ability to raise blood sugar to the best-performing glucose, and we get their respective scores – this is the food’s ‘glycemic index’.
See what I mean? The glycemic index is actually a measure of how much effect various foods may have on blood sugar. In general, foods with a very high index (greater than 70) are less suitable for people with diabetes, while those with a very low index (less than 55) are healthy foods suitable for diabetes.
The following results are publicized for some fruit candidates.
Common Fruits Glucose Production Index
Cherry 22
Grapefruit 25
Fresh peach 28
Apples 36
Pears 36
Citrus 43
Banana 52
Kiwi 52
Mango 55
Pineapple 66
Watermelon 72
We can also compare their results to several very familiar candidates: the
Common foods Glucose production index
Rice 88
Noodles 81.6
Soda crackers 72
Mashed potatoes 79
Hamburger 61
Milk 27
See, most fruits are not even as glycemic as the staple foods we usually eat. We can justifiably tell diabetics that if they can eat, they can eat fruit, and of course, when choosing the type of fruit, it would be safer if they could choose those with low GI.
The “Glycemic Index” is a tool that greatly facilitates the choice of food for diabetics. However, there is still a misconception here: can’t we eat fruits with high GI?
Second, food glycemic load (GL)
We selected two candidates with the same test score: watermelon and soda crackers, 72 points, both are high GI foods.
From the perspective of food “quality”, they have the same ability to rapidly raise blood sugar. But in life, the ‘amount’ we eat is often different. This brings us to another concept, food glycemic load (GL). It refers to the product of the amount of carbohydrate in a food and its GI value.
Let’s use watermelon and soda crackers as examples.
1. Watermelon
Known: The GI of watermelon is 72, and the carbohydrate contained in each 100 grams of watermelon is 5.5 grams.
Then, when we eat 2 taels (100 grams) of watermelon, the food glycemic load.
GL=5.5×72/100=4.
2.Soda crackers
Also known: the GI of soda crackers is 72, and the carbohydrate contained in each 100 grams of soda crackers is 76 grams.
Then, when we eat 100 grams of soda crackers.
GL = 76 x 72/100 = 55.
See, when we eat the same GI, the same 100g of watermelon or soda crackers, the GL of watermelon is 4 and the GL of soda crackers is 55, not even an order of magnitude comparison. In other words, watermelon has a small effect on blood sugar, but soda crackers have a large effect.
Of course, the premise of saying that watermelon has a small effect on blood sugar is: eat only 2 taels of watermelon. However, if you eat not 100g but 1000g or more in one sitting without moderation, the GL goes from 4 to 40 or even higher, which can cause a significant increase in blood sugar in diabetics.
The “food glycemic load” tool gives us the insight that diabetics can eat not only fruit, but even any fruit, as long as they pay attention to the “amount”. Watermelon has a high GI value, but if you eat a small amount, the GL value is also very low, and the effect on blood glucose will not be significant; as for cherries and grapefruit, which have a low GI value, within a certain range, you can eat as much as you like, and the GL value will not be very high.
As long as you know how to use the two tools of GI and GL, diabetic patients, please open your arms to embrace the fruit feast that comes to you.
Third, the right time
There are many more tips for diabetic diet. In addition to learning to choose the type and determine the quantity, it is important to know the right timing. For fruits, it is recommended to eat them between meals (for example, around 10:00 am and 4:00 pm) and before going to bed, while avoiding eating them immediately after meals.