Nasty experience with pineapple and orange

supertel

Newbie
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2
I eat an orange or apple each lunchtime and have a banana with breakfast a couple of time a week. I am on intensive insulin therapy. This means I count carbs for each meal and calculate the required number of units . I do not have any problems and will continue to eat any fruit as healthy.
 

Sue192

Well-Known Member
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594
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Type 2
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Hi Sue, don't rule out the butternut squash!!!! I find that spikes me all on its own. x (Unless of course, you have tried and tested it already).
Thanks, @KK123 - you're right. I hadn't tested squash beforehand and so had some on its own. Yup. That's the culprit, darn it. Was going to make a butternut squash soup - just right for this weather. Perhaps I'll just use a tiny bit to colour cauli/celeriac mash. Or not!
 

JTJennings

Newbie
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4
Type of diabetes
Type 2
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Other
Yesterday morning my bg was 5.4. I later had a small piece of pineapple and an orange on empty stomach. I later did another test to know if these fruits would spike my sugar level, Incredibly my sugar level had risen to 13. This shows me that these fruits aren’t good for me. Am I alone?
Was told to miss out things like pineapple and orange and go for apples and banana. Was also told to not eat riper fruits as more has turned to sugar
 

KK123

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3,967
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Thanks, @KK123 - you're right. I hadn't tested squash beforehand and so had some on its own. Yup. That's the culprit, darn it. Was going to make a butternut squash soup - just right for this weather. Perhaps I'll just use a tiny bit to colour cauli/celeriac mash. Or not!
Aw sorry Sue! It's not right that a blooming vegetable can spike you!!!!
 

masonap

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Yesterday morning my bg was 5.4. I later had a small piece of pineapple and an orange on empty stomach. I later did another test to know if these fruits would spike my sugar level, Incredibly my sugar level had risen to 13. This shows me that these fruits aren’t good for me. Am I alone?


You need to stick to quite small portions of pineapple, though I also read somewhere that an orange has far too much sugar for us diabetics. I frequently eat fruit; part of my breakfast will include a small portion of fruit made up of raspberries, blackberries, grapes, pineapple, 1/2 banana, blueberries (not all together of course, just a selection, it depends on what is in the fridge!), this is then topped off with half a pot of natural Greek yogurt. This morning and yesterday morning I tested after 2 hours and it was absolutely perfect. Things I've read on here make me think that different bodies react differently so please try it and see, maybe it was just the portion size (I eat satsumas rather than oranges and they seem to be OK).
I will have more fruit this evening as my dessert after dinner (with thick full fat cream)!
Good luck.
 
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paulus1

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843
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read the title and my eyes watered. bananas are high carb oranges are high but like you i like fruit.
 
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TrevA

Member
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14
Type of diabetes
Type 2
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Tablets (oral)
Was told to miss out things like pineapple and orange and go for apples and banana. Was also told to not eat riper fruits as more has turned to sugar

Apples ok, but not banana. I've heard a banana refered to as a sugar stick. My DB nurse told me to stop eating citrus fruits and bananas and to eat fibrous fruits such as apples and pears, as the fibre makes them slower to digest and they therefore don't spike your blood sugar as much. I also eat blueberries and raspberries.
 
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AloeSvea

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Yeah, for quite a while after diagnosis, I just couldn't bear the idea that I would be living in a world without eating tropical fruit. I have come to accept this more, but I do it with caveats. I eat a tiny bit when in season, as my way of continuing to live in my new, ah, culinary environment, ahem without wanting to kill myself. So, I will be eating a few grapes from my vine, and a peach, sliced to maximise the joy, off my tree. Ditto when the feijoas come out soon. And this is an annual thing. (For me that is now.) I have a sliced kiwifruit once a year at Xmas with our trad pavlova with strawberries and kiwi fruit sliced on the top, when I have a couple of days (ahhhh in theory) off of LCHF at Xmas. And that is it. That way I don't feel too deprived.

I portion control pineapple (from a can, I live in the subtropics, not the tropics!). Have a few wee rectangles with veg and meat quite often. Yum.

Tiny tastes, for me, of fruit, is the only kind of "portion control" I practice.

Fermented grapes is another thing though! :happy:.

How I deal with it psychologically is I remember how much I enjoyed fruit off trees as a child, and pre diagnosis, and how many I got to eat! (The same way I deal with chocolate eclairs. I remember, :happy:.) I don't miss the generally tasteless imported unripe versions of that lovely fruit I could get at the supermarket. Or in cans.

I want to keep living as long as I can now, so with my very stubborn insulin resistance, that means not taxing poor ol liver and pancreas with high glucose forming fruit. Sigh.
 
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Olufisayo

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116
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Going out. After closing from work, I relax at home.
Even the ripe pawpaw is a ‘ bg spiker’
 

Olufisayo

Well-Known Member
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116
Type of diabetes
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Going out. After closing from work, I relax at home.
No, you're not alone @Olufisayo. Recently I had a meal of roast pork with lashings of crackling, a very small spoonful of home-made apple sauce, sweetheart cabbage and butternut squash and cauli mash, followed by three fresh lychees. Bg reading before 5.5, after 9.6.... A big shock and I can only think it was the lychees :( All my fave fruits (mostly tropical) are off the list, sadly. But as @MikeTurin shows, people differ in the fruits they can tolerate so you may be able to find other fruits that are ok for you.

Lol! Fruits are not for me. My system doesn’t tolerate sugar
 

Bluetit1802

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25,216
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Whether fruits spikes our glucose or not isn't the main reason for avoiding them. The main reason for non-insulin users to avoid them is because they spike our natural insulin, which in turn worsens our insulin resistance. Also the fructose is a major contributor to fatty liver. The vast majority of fruits are never good choices for us, whether they affect our glucose levels or not.
 

tsouza

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79
Type of diabetes
Type 2
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Insulin
How does your bg react to plantain?
What about grapefruit juice which is rich in potassium? Would it be easier to dose fruit intake by taking juice, rather than eating the fruit directly? Anyone has tried this strategy?
 

Bluetit1802

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What about grapefruit juice which is rich in potassium? Would it be easier to dose fruit intake by taking juice, rather than eating the fruit directly? Anyone has tried this strategy?

Juicing fruit removes the fibre and releases more sugars. So to answer your question, no it is not a good strategy. You can get as much potassium as you need from other foods.
 

tsouza

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79
Type of diabetes
Type 2
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Juicing fruit removes the fibre and releases more sugars. So to answer your question, no it is not a good strategy. You can get as much potassium as you need from other foods.
Very surprised and alarmed by your reply! What about the Detox craze? What potassium substitutes do you suggest?
 

Bluetit1802

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Foods with high potassium include avocado, spinach, wild caught salmon, tuna, white meaty fish, broccoli, sprouts, beef, chicken, nuts, seeds, shellfish, turkey. According to my blood tests, my potassium levels are ideal, but I don't eat fruit, fruit juices, or take supplements. Have you got copies of your blood tests to see what your levels are like?
 

Alexandra100

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3,738
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Prediabetes
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I'm on insulin, but still, a whole orange is more difficult to dose for than a big piece of cake, so I gave up on eating a whole fruit at one time.
That's very interesting. Are you able to explain why?
 

Antje77

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That's very interesting. Are you able to explain why?
A whole orange spikes so fast that my insulin can't keep up. If I take enough insulin to not go very high with this spike, my bg will come crashing down as fast as it went up, because the insulin will keep on working long after those quick fruit sugars are gone.
If I take less insulin, I will spike very high for a short time. I don't like those high spikes, so I avoid very sugary foods.
With a piece of cake, there is fats and slower carbs as well, which slows the spike and it takes longer to digest so I'm not left with too much insulin for hours after eating. That said, injecting for a big piece of cake is not that easy either, so I tend to have just a couple of bites. The guinea-pigs don't eat cake, so I usually steal a bite from a friend when there is cake :)

When having a hypo, they advise to take some fast acting carbs (sugar, dextro, jelly babies, an orange) to get rid of the hypo and follow it with some slower acting carbs to avoid going low again after the fast-acting carbs are gone. Same principle.
 

Bluetit1802

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A whole orange spikes so fast that my insulin can't keep up. If I take enough insulin to not go very high with this spike, my bg will come crashing down as fast as it went up, because the insulin will keep on working long after those quick fruit sugars are gone.

This is what happened to me when I did a home OGTT. Obviously I spiked high after the glucose drink (no fats or protein to get in the way) and then when my levels returned to where I started I just kept on dropping! This was my own insulin carrying on working. I had a cup of tea with milk and it leveled off. Weirdly, my base levels fasting and before meals stayed a lot lower than normal for 3 or more weeks. It seemed to wake my pancreas up.