Carbohydrates

Bruce Buchan said:

Hi I'm type 2 diabetic. Trying to understand carbohydrates and sugar when buying food. Can I eat food that has high carbohydrates but shows low sugar. Example oats carbs 24.2g and Sugar 0.5g

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Hi Bruce and welcome.

Well - you can eat it, but the issue is that carbohydrates - all carbohydrates - are digested to glucose. The "of which sugars" doesn't really provide any useful information for a T2 doing low carb. So (for example) if I was to eat potato, bread, and pastry, none of which contain any sugars but lots of carbs, my blood glucose would rocket and stay elevated for a long time, because my system cannot deal well with that level of glucose. I know this for me because I've tested for it, having eaten the food.

Ultimately any question of "can I eat..." will be answered by testing blood glucose before and +2 hrs after eating, and seeing how well your system deals with the carb in the food. Some of us can deal better with some things, less well with others. I'm ok with legumes, but definitely not with pastry (similar GI if I recall correctly - I don't find the GI at all helpful).

So I'd suggest to you that, if you're aiming for a low carb approach, you work out how many carbs you want to eat in a day, and then use a meter to check what that does in practice. Keep a record, and adjust your approach if needed.

Bruce Buchan said:

I’m new to this I have been checking ingredients but concentrating on sugar from carbs, so really I should be really looking at the carbohydrates?

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Yes. The "of which sugars" is a bit of a misleading addition, when all carbs raise BG.

jaywak said:

At the end of the day all carbs are sugar and depending were they are on the GI chart will raise your bg at different rates , the sugar part will raise your blood sugar the quickest and could cause a spike .

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It's not so easy, for a start GI isn't universal, different carbs have different GI's when digested by different people., so the published GI's of food items are only an average or a guide. Some Type 2 diabetics process certain carbs better (= worse for blood glucose) than others do. So many of us test how different carbs actually affect us personally. Which is down to our genes, our gut biome and our habitual diet.

Pure glucose raises blood sugar (blood glucose) faster than other carbs do, but table sugar is only half glucose and half fructose and as such has a lower Glycaemic Index than many simple carbohydrates do. For example, the GI of sucrose (table sugar) is 65, but the GI of mashed potato (without any added fats like butter) is 83 !!!