Sugar

I thought I better check out my sugar intake today and added to my diary, guess I didn't have it added cause I thought I didn't do too bad, except the days that I splurged and had a candy bar or piece of cake. But I got to looking, and my limit for a day is 29, and an apple and a banana equals more than that!! I knew fruit had sugar in it, but wow, just an apple and banana a day puts me over what I should have!! How am I suppose to say no to that. Bananas I have at least one a day because it helps with restless leg syndrome.

I wanted to know if sugar from fruit effects the blood sugar level like regular sugar does. I had noticed that even though I thought my breakfasts were healthy, that I sometimes felt like I was having a sugar rush, or something. Is that possible with fruit? So if people who are diabetic have to stay away from sugar, does that mean they stay away from fruit too? I mean, fruit has pretty much been whats made it all tolerable for me.

Don't worry about going over due to fruit reasons. Fruit's fine. It's the refined sugar which is metabolised too quickly and often ends up in fat adipose tissue! It's annoying, but mentally deduct your fruit sugar from the total - my two pennies at least.

I *believe* that fruit sugar, being fructose, is not so damaging (but still possibly problematic) for those with diabetes. My source is a friend I have with early onset diabetes who said eating fruit for her is not so problematic than eating the same amount of glucose.

Okay, I haven't read the other replies to this yet but, here is my 2 cents. After I added the sugar count to my dairy I was absolutely shocked to see how high my sugar counts were. Like you my sugar was coming primarily from fruit. BTW this question has been asked several times.......people are shocked to see the sugar counts. I just had my yearly physical and my blood counts were excellent, there were no issues for my sugars at all. I am often or daily way over the sugar counts. I am ignoring them at this point. I think if it grows on a tree or in the ground and isn't processed that those are the things we should be eating. They are full of valuable nutrients and fibre. I think so much better for you to have a piece of fruit than a 100 snack pack without any nutritional value. The fruit is more filling and satisfying too boot.

My dad is a type 1 diabetic, has been since before I was born. I'm not a doctor, but I'm paraphrasing what his doctor told him. All food breaks down in the digestive process to sugar so that it can be absorbed into the blood stream. Some foods take longer / more work from your digestive system to break down completely. Highly processed sugars or things that are just sugar by themselves break down really fast. Also, some foods have higher levels of sugar than others.

Thus if you eat an apple, you do get sugar, but your body has to burn more calories to digest it AND the sugars enter your blood stream in a slower, steadier dose. This makes it easier for your body to process this sugar as food energy for living (making your heart beat, running your muscles, etc.)

On the other hand, eat a tablespoon of honey or white sugar or a twinkie and your body gets an immediate sugar rush. This means you have a sudden spike in sugar with very little energy expended processing the food to get at the sugar. Your body will use some of the sugar now in your blood stream for living (heart beat, etc) and whatever is leftover as extra sugar energy will be stored in fatty tissue for later. Do this enough and you gain weight.

So...unless you are experiencing a sudden, dangerous drop in blood sugar levels (as diabetics sometimes do) you should generally choose foods that give you energy in slow, steady doses rather than in a rush. Thus an apple is healthier for you than a spoonful of sugar, even if they both have the exact same amount of sugar.

This is the same reason doctors recommend whole grains over refined flour, whole fruit over processed fruit, brown rice over white/instant rice. For example, if we have two people on a 1400 calorie diet and one eats fruit, meat, grains, and the occasional cookie that person will be much healthier than the person who is eating nothing but cake frosting even though they are technically eating the same number of calories. Your over all calorie count still matters, but the amount coming from "sugars" is only really important if you have a tendency to get too much of your daily calories from refined sugars.

Does that help?