meoman said:
In a food type....With high carbs (simple or complex) but lowish sugar DOES spike my blood sugars bad (after testing 90 mins later)
In a food type....With lowish (but not low) sugar but low carbs DOESNT spike my blood sugars (after testing 90 mins later)
the science?
The more useful terms are monosaccharide (one sugar); disaccharide (two sugars) and polysaccharide (many sugars).
The sugars in disaccharides and polysaccharides are joined by what are called "glycosidic bond". Making each of these bonds produces a molecule of water. Breaking them requires a molecule of water.
This means that 100g of any disaccharide is actually made up of 105.3g of sugars. With 100g of a polysaccharide being made up of about 111.1g of sugars.
In the language of the food industry "sugars" are monosaccharides and disaccharides.
These are galactose, fructose, glucose, maltose, lactose and sucrose.
Maltose comprises two glucose molecules, thus is 105.3% glucose.
Lactose comprises one glucose and one galactose molecule, thus is 52.7% glucose.
Sucrose comprises one glucose and one fructose molecule. thus is (also) 52.7% glucose.
The food industry calls polysaccharides either "carbohydrates" or "complex carbohydrates".
Those which humans can digest are galactan, amylose and amylopectin.
Galactan is made up of lots of galactose molecules.
Both amylose and amylopectin are made up of lots of glucose molecules, thus are 111.1g glucose. A mixture of amylose and amylopectin is known as "starch". (Amylopectin is both more "complex" and more rapidly digested than amylose.)
Finally there is "fibre" which comprises any carbohydrates which humans cannot digest.
Adding "sugar" (even maltose) to "high carb" foods often tends to reduce the total sugar content (and the GI). This being most easily demonstrated with breakfast cereals. Whoever came up with the "eatwell plate" really appears to have misunderstood the chemistry of dietary carbohydrates. Not only is there more sugar in carbohydrates which aren't called "sugar" on the label it's most likely to be the sugar (glucose) diabetics can't handle well.
If you were to eat 19g of sucrose/lactose; 10g of glucose; 9.5g of maltose or 9g of amylopectin/amylose you'd be putting exactly the same amount of glucose (10g) into your body...
Care to say what the two foods actually are...