Smallest Substitute for Glucose

[Marco7757]

I had to eat so much Glucose in the last few years I can't stand them anymore. Carrying liquid sugar in form of orange juice etc. is just too cumbersome and won't solve the problem.

What do you carry around? Is there a smaller option than glucose tabs?

 

[Charles Robin]

I prefer to use hypo remedies that I don't enjoy. The problem with using something nice (e.g. Jelly babies) is that it feels like I am rewarding myself when I eat them. Therefore, it makes a hypo more likely. I used to think to myself 'I fancy some fruit pastilles. I'll just give myself too much insulin, and then sort out the hypo with something tasty.' Now, I carry dextrose tablets, which I don't like the taste of (they remind me of severe hypos as a young child). I don't have the compulsion to eat them, so I'm not tempted to induce a hypo so I can treat myself.

 

[noblehead]

Jelly Babies in an old Glucotab Tube, but also have some Glucotabs as back-up if outside the house for a long time.

 

[RuthW]

I had to eat so much Glucose in the last few years I can't stand them anymore. Carrying liquid sugar in form of orange juice etc. is just too cumbersome and won't solve the problem.

What do you carry around? Is there a smaller option than glucose tabs?

Dates. They actually have a higher glycemic index than glucose, and they have lots of other good stuff in them too. Although I get the point about not eating delicious stuff when you have a hypo - apart from"rewarding" yourself, it may be hard to stop!

 

[Ambersilva]

Mini Jelly Beans.

 

[donnellysdogs]

3 maomi pinballs. 5g a pinball. No tolerance to jelly babies as the coat the inside of my stomach and flatten it...

 

[Picci]

Marks and Spencer fruit gums, 5 carbs per gum!

 

[humaject]

Jaffa Cakes 8.4 grams of carbohydrates per cake

 

[CraigDT]

I thought dates were high in fructose so had a lower gi? The Internet says they have a gi of 42?

 

[RuthW]

I thought dates were high in fructose so had a lower gi? The Internet says they have a gi of 42?

According to Walsh and Roberts in Pumping Insulin, page 32, dates have a glycemic index of 103, where glucose is taken as the baseline at 100. I know a lot of stuff has been written on the internet about fructose not having the same effects on the blood sugar as other sugars, but my meter says otherwise. Fruit juices particularly spike my BS so much that I avoid them like poison.

 

[CraigDT]

That is interesting! Follow the meter for sure. As an aside, fructose does follow a different metabolic pathway to glucose. Cells can't use it directly so it has to go to the liver to be converted to glucose. That is why the gi of pure fructose is 25 I think instead of 100. However everyone seems to be different in the speed they metabolise different things.

 

[CraigDT]

Haha! Just found another list that gives the gi for dates as 103. Gotta love the Internet.