Bulgar Wheat

[MrsMatt]

Being very new to being pre-diabetic I bought a meter to see what is what with my blood levels.
I was told by the dietician and read on the Diabetes website that Bulgar wheat is a good sub for rice.
Last night I made myself stuffed peppers. 1 medium pepper cut in half, Onion, garlic, courgette, a few green beans, little carrot and about 1/2 cup of cooked Bulgar wheat which was cooked with some spices and curry powder.
Pre evening meal reading was 6.9, 2 hours later the reading was 11.8 !! My fasting reading this morning was 5.7.
Could the Bulgar Wheat have caused the huge spike in my levels? Is it something I need to avoid in the future.
Getting very confused with everything at the moment.

 

[Rachox]

I suspect the Bulgar wheat is too high carb for you. At 38.5g carb per 50g dried weight it’s virtually identical to the carb count for brown rice! I would disagree with whoever told you bulgar wheat was good for prediabetics/diabetics, and your blood results confirm that for you. Some of your other contents of your stuffing may not be helping either, beans could be a problem or even the carrot. Maybe try the recipe without the bulgar wheat and see if that improves your results.

 

[MrsMatt]

I suspect the Bulgar wheat is too high carb for you. At 38.5g carb per 50g dried weight it’s virtually identical to the carb count for brown rice! I would disagree with whoever told you bulgar wheat was good for prediabetics/diabetics, and your blood results confirm that for you. Some of your other contents of your stuffing may not be helping either, beans could be a problem or even the carrot. Maybe try the recipe without the bulgar wheat and see if that improves your results.

Will try again without the Bulgar wheat. There was very little green beans and carrot. I've only been doing this for about 3 weeks now and finding it so difficult to make a meal that I will actually enjoy eating. It says on the Diabetes Uk website that Bulgar wheat is a good sub for rice. Oh well, live and learn. Thanks for your help

 

[Antje77]

Will try again without the Bulgar wheat. There was very little green beans and carrot. I've only been doing this for about 3 weeks now and finding it so difficult to make a meal that I will actually enjoy eating. It says on the Diabetes Uk website that Bulgar wheat is a good sub for rice. Oh well, live and learn. Thanks for your help

You might like this thread where we share what we eat, it often gives me inspiration to try something new: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/what-have-you-eaten-today-low-carb-forum.75781/page-3246

What kind of meals are your favourites?
We may be able to give you some ideas on simple changes to adapt your favourite meals!

 

[Deleted member 596235]

I eat bulgur wheat as a part of my tabbouleh recipe.

It seems to get the okay on this site which says in part
due to its low GI, bulgur wheat won’t increase blood
sugar. and its high-fibre, slow digestion rate improves
blood glucose regulation.

 

[JenniferW]

Being very new to being pre-diabetic I bought a meter to see what is what with my blood levels.
I was told by the dietician and read on the Diabetes website that Bulgar wheat is a good sub for rice.
Last night I made myself stuffed peppers. 1 medium pepper cut in half, Onion, garlic, courgette, a few green beans, little carrot and about 1/2 cup of cooked Bulgar wheat which was cooked with some spices and curry powder.
Pre evening meal reading was 6.9, 2 hours later the reading was 11.8 !! My fasting reading this morning was 5.7.
Could the Bulgar Wheat have caused the huge spike in my levels? Is it something I need to avoid in the future.
Getting very confused with everything at the moment.

Off the top of my head, I'd think bulgar wheat is the same as rice as regards carbs. Did she mean it would be better than white rice, though? The refined carbs are a bigger problem than things like brown rice, which may have the same carbs but take a lot longer to process, so you don't hit the blood sugar levels so hard and fast. But the bottom line is that carbs are carbs, and it takes some learning about what carbs you're eating. With a recipe, you can put it into an app like MyFitnessPal and see what the carbs of the raw ingredients add up to.

 

[Antje77]

I eat bulgur wheat as a part of my tabbouleh recipe.

It seems to get the okay on this site which says in part
due to its low GI, bulgur wheat won’t increase blood
sugar. and its high-fibre, slow digestion rate improves
blood glucose regulation.

This reminds me of an old (and pretty hilarious) thread where the same was said about plums. So I made it into an experiment to find answers. You could do the same for bulgur wheat using a meter. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/plums.198458/

 

[KennyA]

Being very new to being pre-diabetic I bought a meter to see what is what with my blood levels.
I was told by the dietician and read on the Diabetes website that Bulgar wheat is a good sub for rice.
Last night I made myself stuffed peppers. 1 medium pepper cut in half, Onion, garlic, courgette, a few green beans, little carrot and about 1/2 cup of cooked Bulgar wheat which was cooked with some spices and curry powder.
Pre evening meal reading was 6.9, 2 hours later the reading was 11.8 !! My fasting reading this morning was 5.7.
Could the Bulgar Wheat have caused the huge spike in my levels? Is it something I need to avoid in the future.
Getting very confused with everything at the moment.

I'd assume it's the wheat unless you can definitely pin it on one of the other ingredients. if it was me, I know what any kind of wheat or flour will do to my BG and I wouldn't be looking further.

Unfortunately there is a wealth of misinformation on the internet, and the increasing reliance on nonsense stuff written by AIs is making it more difficult. People describe foods as being "low-carb" when they are actually only slightly lower carb than something else that's very high carb. The real guide is what your meter tells you.

 

[KennyA]

I eat bulgur wheat as a part of my tabbouleh recipe.

It seems to get the okay on this site which says in part
due to its low GI, bulgur wheat won’t increase blood
sugar. and its high-fibre, slow digestion rate improves
blood glucose regulation.

I would take anything on that site with a very large pinch of salt.

 

[Deleted member 596235]

I would take anything on that site with a very large pinch of salt.

I'm interested as to why you say this Kenny?

I checked out the sites' team, and they seemed legitimately
qualified—with each of the following practitioners:

Administrator, Consultant Diabetologist, M.B.B.S., M.Sc (UK),
Diabetes Educator, PhD,
Specialist Exercise Science/ Health Coach /Family Physician, M.B.B.S.,
Clinical Psychologist, M.Sc, Applied Psychology,
Clinical Nutritionist, PhD Scholar (Nutrition and Dietetics), PhD Scholar (Nutrition and Dietetics).

Is your concern simply because the site is located in Pakistan?

 

[Resurgam]

I'm interested as to why you say this Kenny?

I checked out the sites' team, and they seemed legitimately
qualified—with each of the following practitioners:

Administrator, Consultant Diabetologist, M.B.B.S., M.Sc (UK),
Diabetes Educator, PhD,
Specialist Exercise Science/ Health Coach /Family Physician, M.B.B.S.,
Clinical Psychologist, M.Sc, Applied Psychology,
Clinical Nutritionist, PhD Scholar (Nutrition and Dietetics), PhD Scholar (Nutrition and Dietetics).

Is your concern simply because the site is located in Pakistan?

It seems to be repeating total nonsense about how good/safe grains are - claims that they do not raise blood glucose.
Total tosh according to my blood glucose meter and over 8 years experience of dealing with type 2.
So much 'expert advice' about diet is just repeating without checking, repeating and repeating and then blaming the person getting it wrong and not showing any improvement.

 

[KennyA]

I'm interested as to why you say this Kenny?

I checked out the sites' team, and they seemed legitimately
qualified—with each of the following practitioners:

Administrator, Consultant Diabetologist, M.B.B.S., M.Sc (UK),
Diabetes Educator, PhD,
Specialist Exercise Science/ Health Coach /Family Physician, M.B.B.S.,
Clinical Psychologist, M.Sc, Applied Psychology,
Clinical Nutritionist, PhD Scholar (Nutrition and Dietetics), PhD Scholar (Nutrition and Dietetics).

Is your concern simply because the site is located in Pakistan?

That's what they say. And those individuals who will charge you for a telemedicine consultation might be OK at their jobs. But that doesn't mean they wrote the stuff on the website. It's clearly a selling site - they want you to sign up and pay for something online.

Some (most?) of the information is inaccurate - bulgur wheat (for example) is ~70% carb and of course it will elevate blood glucose - that's what carb does. It keeps on about things being "good for diabetics", without saying whether it means Type 1 or Type 2. That is kind of important. For example, I read this on the site blog- it is complete nonsense:

Flour prevents blood sugar increases. This helps to curb sudden cravings. Your energy levels remain balanced. Weight management gets easy.

No, it doesn't.

The site doesn't seem to understand what Type 2 diabetes actually is - at one point it describes Type 2 as "....people who don't have enough insulin" - I can't find the actual quote again.

It's nothing about the location. It's a lot to do with the wholesale pushing of carb on the website as being "good for diabetics".

 

[JenniferW]

I suspect the Bulgar wheat is too high carb for you. At 38.5g carb per 50g dried weight it’s virtually identical to the carb count for brown rice! I would disagree with whoever told you bulgar wheat was good for prediabetics/diabetics, and your blood results confirm that for you. Some of your other contents of your stuffing may not be helping either, beans could be a problem or even the carrot. Maybe try the recipe without the bulgar wheat and see if that improves your results.

It took me ages to realise how high the carbs in all the beans was and I rarely eat them now. I decided some root vegetables were more important! It takes us time to learn all this, doesn't it?

 

[JenniferW]

You might like this thread where we share what we eat, it often gives me inspiration to try something new: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/what-have-you-eaten-today-low-carb-forum.75781/page-3246

What kind of meals are your favourites?
We may be able to give you some ideas on simple changes to adapt your favourite meals!

Will try again without the Bulgar wheat. There was very little green beans and carrot. I've only been doing this for about 3 weeks now and finding it so difficult to make a meal that I will actually enjoy eating. It says on the Diabetes Uk website that Bulgar wheat is a good sub for rice. Oh well, live and learn. Thanks for your help

I'm slowly learning how much I've eaten for pleasure, and got pleasure from eating, in the past. For me, this has meant facing up to big mental changes as regards food and meals. It's taken me a long time, but I have made changes and I've got used to being very selective about what I eat - and planning ahead!

 

[Antje77]

So... this is commentary forom another US-based medical site
(which I deliberately won't name).

Your quote says: "The relation between bulgur and diabetes is that bulgur contains complex
carbohydrates that help manage blood sugar more than refined grains."
I would mildly agree with that, I'm pretty sure my blood glucose (and insulin dosing) can handle bulgur better than refined grains.
At risk of starting to sound like a broken record, a glucose meter is unbiased, it simply shows how well your body deals with different foods, automatically taking into account any medication we're on.

 

[NoMoreBeerAnymore]

Being very new to being pre-diabetic I bought a meter to see what is what with my blood levels.
I was told by the dietician and read on the Diabetes website that Bulgar wheat is a good sub for rice.
Last night I made myself stuffed peppers. 1 medium pepper cut in half, Onion, garlic, courgette, a few green beans, little carrot and about 1/2 cup of cooked Bulgar wheat which was cooked with some spices and curry powder.
Pre evening meal reading was 6.9, 2 hours later the reading was 11.8 !! My fasting reading this morning was 5.7.
Could the Bulgar Wheat have caused the huge spike in my levels? Is it something I need to avoid in the future.
Getting very confused with everything at the moment.

Hi 2 hours is quite a short time after eating a big load of carbs. 11.8 is high-ish, just dont do that too much.

You know now to eat half the amount of that and you probably will test out just nice.

Also can get rice that still has the husks on, and a little bit of that is OK too. There is also low carb noodles, and they are fab.

The BG monitor is a god-send because you can see how you react to stuff, and know good from bad. J


Fasting of 5.7 sounds pretty good to me. I am normally 9.0 which is pretty rubbish.