Type 2 and Fruit?

Sid Bonkers

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,976
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Customer helplines that use recorded menus that promise to put me through to the right person but never do - and being ill. Oh, and did I mention customer helplines :)
Hi welshrarebit, a tricky one to answer this, fruit contains sugar (fructose) so will increase your bg levels but to what degree larly depends on the type of fruit, the amount of fruit eaten and of course your own individual condition depending on your insulin resistance and pancreatic function.

Fruit smoothies are probably not a good idea as the processing of the fruit makes the sugar hit your blood faster so the increase in bg levels is faster too and probably higher, it is always best to eat food that is as unprocessed as possible that means that your body (intestines) has to do the processing thus slowing down the time it takes to turn the carbs into glucose. Plus It's easy to end up with 3 or 4 pieces of fruit in one smoothie so its like tripling or quadrupling the sugar hit :thumbdown:

Smoothies aside when it comes to fruit the only way to know if you can eat fruit, what fruit and how much fruit is to test your bg before and after eating some and see what it does to your bg levels.

I eat a small green Apple (granny smith) most days with my lunch and a small/medium sized Orange most days after my evening meal as well as the occasional Clementine as a snack and can tolerate these fruits very well but others may find different results.

As an example of amount or portion size I can eat a handful of grapes without a problem, perhaps 6 or 8 grapes but many more will send my bg levels higher than I like to see them rise and I am unfortunately unable to eat grapes in such small quantities, I could eat a whole bunch easily, so I tend to avoid them except on rare occasions where they are perhaps part of a fruit salad where I can just have a small portion that know will be OK for me.

Sorry for the long winded reply.... So to recap fruit smoothies are best avoided by most and all other fruits are best tested to see what effect they have on you as an individual. Oh and generally the less fibre the more sugar so grapes, melon and other watery fruits are generally the worst, for me at least :D
 

hallii

Well-Known Member
Messages
554
I do eat fruit and find that apples are OK, but not pink ones like Royal Gala or Pink Lady, Cox's are OK and so are most green apples.

Bananas are a no-no for me as are grapes, melon is OK if it's just one slice.

One orange is OK, as are Kiwi fruits, plums, pears, strawberries, gooseberries in fact most things ending in "berries".

I suspect that eating them with a meal helps BGs and I usually go for walk after my 1.00 pm meal when I usually eat my fruit.

We are all different, you just have to eat something, wait 2 hours and see if your BGs are above, say 8 mmol. I like my BGs below this though and aim for 7 point somethng.

I believe that fruit is an important food and that if we can we should eat some, if we cannot then maybe a vitamin C supplement may be justified.

H
 

hanadr

Expert
Messages
8,157
Dislikes
soaps on telly and people talking about the characters as if they were real.
Fruits contain differing amounts of different sugars. Fructose, isn't the only one and as it happens, Fructosedoesn't raise blood sugars. It has other nmore complex harmful effects. Glucose, sucrose and maltose all raise blood glucose and need to be consumed with that in mind. Generally whole fruits are better for you than smoothies.Juice isn't really good either. You get all of the sugars and none of the fibre.
Berries seem to be better then tree fruit for blood glucose.
I personally can eat half a standard size apple or pear. I share with husband or grandchildren. I had half a sharon fruit the other day and it didn't do much. I can't handle banana at all. raspberries, strawberries and blueberries are Ok for me, but I eat very little fruit.
I do eat some of my cherryplums when they ripen, but I like to eat them rather underripe [less sugar] I also try to grow Physalis [last season was a wash-out!] those are ok in SMALL amounts.
Hana
Ps do a Google search for amounts and kinds of sugars in fruits.