No bananas due to sugar content?

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Replies

  • gboybama
    gboybama Posts: 53 Member
    I fear this may be a thread where we're all talking to ourselves. That seems to happen sometimes when an OP doesn't get the answer they wanted or expected.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    I do monitor my glucose levels and I stay within the 180 range after meals. As for my carbs, I had been adding lots of fiber to my diet which seemed to make up most of my carb allowance. I don't seem to have spikes, but I think my sugar is more controled by my medicine right now than my diet. So should I lower my carb intake? It is mostly made up of fruits and vegetables and grains. I do not eat pastas or potatoes or white breads or buiscuits, or gravies anymore.

    It sounds like you are well controlled. If you want to lower carbs more you will have to take care that your blood sugar does not go too low. You might need medical assistance to figure out if you want to lower your carb intake further (might include lowering medication as well).
  • Momepro
    Momepro Posts: 1,509 Member
    That reminds me of a time last year when my 3 year old's preschool snack was taken away for having too much sugar. It was 100% organic apple sauce, no sweetner added. She pitched a fit and they ended up firing the dietician and getting a new one
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    lemurcat 12, you said all fruits are carb dense. I also saw where someone wrote that carbs are sugar. Since I am diabetic I have been told to avoid carbs. So what carbs are good for me that I shouldn't avoid? Fruits and vegetables? Being the case should I avoid certain ones in order not to go over my suggested carb allowance?

    Carbs are not sugar, sugar is one type of carb. It's like squares and rectangles. All sugars are carbs but not all carbs are sugar. Carbs also include starches and fiber. Fiber is indigestible and doesn't matter to you as a diabetic. But other non-sugary carbs will also spike your blood glucose so you need to pay attention to those too.

    If you are diabetic you should be testing your blood glucose using a meter after eating new foods until you learn how much of each kind you can tolerate. For example, I can eat about half a banana without problems, but a whole one will spike me.

    Carb tolerance of particular foods is very individual to each diabetic and you really NEED to test, whatever your doctor may have told you. For example, most nutritionists will advise that diabetics can eat legumes because those are "slow" carbs, but legumes spike me. Most nutritionists will advise to avoid potatoes, but I can eat quite a large serving of potatoes with no problems. I can eat lots of fruit without issues, but for some weird reason I have problems with cabbage. Other people are the exact opposite. Test at one hour and two hours after meals until you learn your own body. Your body knows best.

    As a general rule, you should not be going over your carb allowance, whether foods are "good for you" or not, because hyperglycemia is not good for anybody. But your carb allowance is only a starting point until you learn what you can and can't tolerate. Aim for never higher than 180 (the ADA recommendation) after meals, with no higher than 140 (about the highest non-diabetic people reach after eating) after most meals, and preferably even lower than that.

    Can you name a digestible carbohydrate that is not broken down into its constituent sugars upon digestion?
  • Momepro
    Momepro Posts: 1,509 Member
    Momepro wrote: »
    That reminds me of a time last year when my 3 year old's preschool snack was taken away for having too much sugar. It was 100% organic apple sauce, no sweetner added. She pitched a fit and they ended up firing the dietician and getting a new one

    My 3 year old nephew, not my three year old. His mother pitched the fit. And I probably shouldn't type with a headache.
  • DragonHasTheSapphire
    DragonHasTheSapphire Posts: 184 Member
    What's next? People eliminating fruit from their diet entirely?
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  • bbell1985
    bbell1985 Posts: 4,571 Member
    I don't eat bananas. Not because of the sugar, but because the carbs do make it more calorie dense than I'd really like for fruit...as it won't fill me up, so I'd rather get my sugar from a cookie lol.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    Sauleeh wrote: »
    Heya everyone. I'm trying to educate myself a little more so I want to hear about your knowledge on the subject.
    I have two girls I work with both have had personal trainers set up food plans for them. Both have said that their personal trainers don't recommend eating bananas because of the sugar content. But isn't the sugar in a banana different? I don't eat bananas every day but I'd eat them pretty often as a little snack to fill me and I would never be worried of the sugar content. Is there a reason why they'd be advised not to eat a banana over the sugar in them? Is there a reason? I just got pretty annoyed at them for speaking about bananas being so bad because nobody has ever complained about gaining weight from too many bananas...

    If their personal trainers do not also have nutrition certification, they shouldn't be telling clients what to eat, and this story is a perfect example of why. Bananas are yummy.
  • Momepro
    Momepro Posts: 1,509 Member
    bbell1985 wrote: »
    I don't eat bananas. Not because of the sugar, but because the carbs do make it more calorie dense than I'd really like for fruit...as it won't fill me up, so I'd rather get my sugar from a cookie lol.

    I don't eat them because they taste totally disgusting to me. :s
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
    There are a lot of fad diets and pop culture diet "advice" that demonize sugar. This isn't really new. People have been trying to sell sugar-free things for weight loss since at least the 1990s. (You may or may not be old enough to remember the sugar free craze back then, but I certainly do!) More recently, folks seem to have extended this idea to also include not eating fruit.

    However, sugar (as was so nicely explained earlier in the thread) has important functions in the body, and unless you're diabetic or have other medical reasons to restrict sugar, there's no reason to see it as the enemy. The fact remains that sugar, just like any other food, does not in itself lead to weight gain. You gain weight by eating more calories than you burn, and you lose weight by burning more calories than you eat. You can eat sugar and still lose weight. Unless you are diabetic or have other medical conditions, you can eat sugar in moderation and still be healthy if it's part of a well-rounded diet.

    Fun fact: in the 1930s, there was a fad diet that consisted of bananas and skim milk. http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-diet-timeline-20150228-story.html If you google it, you can find people who still advocate following this diet. People have always had weird and nutritionally dubious ideas about weight loss.
  • bbell1985
    bbell1985 Posts: 4,571 Member
    Momepro wrote: »
    bbell1985 wrote: »
    I don't eat bananas. Not because of the sugar, but because the carbs do make it more calorie dense than I'd really like for fruit...as it won't fill me up, so I'd rather get my sugar from a cookie lol.

    I don't eat them because they taste totally disgusting to me. :s

    I Think they're good but I'd like 3 with about 4 servings of peanut butter better, so...nah.

  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    edited March 2018


    As a general rule, you should not be going over your carb allowance, whether foods are "good for you" or not, because hyperglycemia is not good for anybody. But your carb allowance is only a starting point until you learn what you can and can't tolerate. Aim for never higher than 180 (the ADA recommendation) after meals, with no higher than 140 (about the highest non-diabetic people reach after eating) after most meals, and preferably even lower than that.

    I do monitor my glucose levels and I stay within the 180 range after meals. As for my carbs, I had been adding lots of fiber to my diet which seemed to make up most of my carb allowance. I don't seem to have spikes, but I think my sugar is more controled by my medicine right now than my diet. So should I lower my carb intake? It is mostly made up of fruits and vegetables and grains. I do not eat pastas or potatoes or white breads or buiscuits, or gravies anymore.

    [/quote]

    @janisseshirley when you want to respond to someone specific, you should hit the quote button under their post. This sounds you're offering generic to everybody (the universal "you"), but I'm thinking may you were responding to someone who said they were diabetic? Sound advice for a diabetic is totally unnecessary guidance for someone who isn't.

    Edited to say: Ignore everything after my first sentence. And maybe the first sentence too. After my comment posted, I saw from the way the quote came out that you maybe didn't write the first paragraph in your post? Looks like maybe you were quoting somebody, but did some editing or something that screwed up the code?
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,281 Member
    nowine4me wrote: »
    I intentionally buy small bananas. Peel the banana, eat the banana and log the banana. Sugar be damned.

    So do I.

    Not for any sugar reasons ( I eat lots of food with more sugar than bananas!)

    But because they fit in my lunchbox. ;)
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,984 Member
    Bananas are fine. Quantity of how much one eats matters.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

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  • koda0071
    koda0071 Posts: 40 Member
    Just don't eat bananas on a fishing boat, lots of old salts will swear it brings bad luck for the whole trip. Maybe that's why they started calling me a banana. :/
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    jervin6 wrote: »
    Just don't eat bananas on a fishing boat, lots of old salts will swear it brings bad luck for the whole trip. Maybe that's why they started calling me a banana. :/

    So true!! I packed a banana once before a boat trip, and my husband threw it into the trash in utter disgust and horror before we set out. I didn't make that mistake again lol

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    What's next? People eliminating fruit from their diet entirely?

    Too late. That suggestion has already come up in threads I've seen, and not just keto threads, either. SMH.