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Cheddar Cheese and sugar levels

A

alembic1989

Member
Messages
24
Type of diabetes
Type 2
In my ongoing quest to find foods that I find tasty and do not send my sugar levels up too much...I started using Burgen bread (soya and linseed) as I found that wholemeal bread (and pasta) were giving me high-ish readings. It seemed to be working out ok..having a slice of toast with scrambled eggs was fine. When however I went for some cheese on toast (a very rare treat)...my sugar levels were very noticeably higher after 2 hrs. I tried this again about a week later (just in case it was a 'rogue reading')...the same thing happened..****!! (one more thing I can't eat)...today some cauliflower cheese with boiled mixed veg.....2hrs later another high reading,,,the culprit seems to be cheese..this I cannot explain as cheese is very low in carbs but high in fat and protein (whats going on here???)
Has anyone else had a similar experience with cheddar cheese? I've tried googling to find out about the GI of cheese but can find no information of any help.
 
You don't say much about your testing regime - did you test before you ate? And how often after you ate did you test?

It may be that the testing regime you are using is missing the spikes, I test at 1, 2, 3, and 4 hours afterwards if I want inforamtion about something, as well as before I eat. Expensive, yes, but very informative, and you won't need to test at that level forever.

I'd hesitate to blame the cheese, it has less than 1 carb per 100gms. Have you tested cheese by itself? Totally by itself?

I'd be more suspicious of the things you ate with it. The stuff you have with something can slow down the glucose peaks. Testing is the only way to find out.

Also cooking changes the available carbohydrate, for example, I don't eat cooked carrot these days, but raw is fine. What was the boiled mixed veg you had?
 
Hi alembic989,

It'll not be the cheese that is causing your problem. It's much more likely to be the toast/bread that you are eating with the cheese - even though it is Burgen bread it is still starchy carbohydrate and will raise your blood gucose levels.

Also, I can't imagine why "cauliflower cheese with boiled mixed veg" would have a bad effect on your blood glucose readings either.

As Spiral has already asked, what else are you eating, what were the mixed vegetables (any potatoes?) and what were your readings before eating?

Best wishes - John
 
Just checked your other posts. I'm a vegetarian low carber - you are a vegetarian. There are a few other vegetarian low carbers around here too :)

I cut bread, pasta, rice and potato and anything obviously starchy carbohydrate in May. I'd been doing a low glycaemic index thing for a few weeks before that. Going low carb had a huge impact on my sugar numbers.

Seems to me like you need some ideas of things you can eat. I have acquired several low carb cookbooks - Rose Elliot and Celia Brooks brown are the best. Huge range of recipies in them :mrgreen: you need to stop by Amazon and eBay - shop around, Rose Elliots books are generally cheaper.

I have also got more confident at tweeking my previous staples. I have not missed starchy carbs, the food I'm eating now is delicious. Apart from toast (thick white farmhouse dripping with butter and Marmite :oops: ) Not had it in months, but I have discovered Marmite Cheddar :D

Try cooking with coconut oil and olive oil.

What kind of things do you enjoy? Tell us about a typical days menu. If you are subsisting on chese and eggs, you are not going to manage to cut the carbs. You need more variety in your diet or you will get seriously bored and tempted back to the dark side of high starch and out of control blood sugars.

Since ging low carb I have developed lots of new menus and adapted some existing ones.
Ratatouille - with a poached egg or cheese
Paneer and spinach curry
Cauliflower cheese - sauce made with cream and egg and cheese
ommelettes and frittatas - huge variety of vegetables depending on season
leafy green salads with nice dressings
exciting cheeses

My breakfast is usually Lidl Greek yoghurt with a dash of double cream, flaked almonds and a small handfull of berries (strawberries, blueberries or raspberries)

I have a few protien smoothies that are low carb - from Rose Elliot

Avocado seem to reduce my numbers - anthing I eat with avocade seems to have no impact on my blood sugar at all.

pulses look fairly high carb, but I seem to cope well with kidney beans and chickpeas, I suspect portion control may also be important with this one.

Thinking about your post above - what were the ingredients of the cheese sauce? Did it contain flour or cornstarch by any chance? If it did, that is your culprit.

look in the recipe sections here and at lowcarbdiabetes.com you will find loads of veggie options
 
It is possible for cheese to retain some lacose.
How about ttrying a different brand? A mature premium quality cheese should be good.
Hana
 
I have taken to reading the carb counts of almost everything these days.

What kind of cheese was it, nannybarbara? Could it have been an added ingredient? Some forms of processed cheese may be a bit suspect - I know I'd be desperate to eat the cheese my mum buys :shock: :roll: she likes a very basic kind of cheese, and she buys coloured cheddar :shock: whereas I'm a bit of a cheese snob :wink: I had to replace the chocolate with something :wink:

I think this goes to show why testing is so important, we are all different in our response to foods.
 
Hi Spiral,

It was Morrison's mature cheddar - lovely bite to it!

I read that a home test for lactose intolerance is to test BG, then eat the product, and then test again afterwards. If it goes up, then you're not lactose intolerant - thank goodness for that -- I like cream in my coffee. It is odd though, I wouldn't have expected it to go up with cheese. BG was down to 7 after 2 hours, and 5.3 after 4 hrs.

That's put me on another tack regarding my permanent tummy upset - I think I'll try an elimination on yeasts and fungus now. I've stopped eating bread because that bloats me and raises BG to astronomical levels, so maybe it has something to do with fermentation. Oh no ... that will include red wine! Good excuse to drink cognac instead.

Now I'm on a mission!

Thanks,
Barb
 
Thank you all so much for your thoughts. A couple of points...I am not able to digest milk...so I use lactose free milk...so perhaps the elevated levels are to do with lactose intolerance.
A typical days diet would be

breakfast...wholegrain porridge with added cinnamon powder,almonds,walnuts and 2 tsp canderel.
BS is usually about 6-6.5 2 hrs later

lunch....(I usually wait for my levels to drop to 4.5-5)...a nut mixture comprising..pistachios,pecans,peanuts...and some gram (chick peas)..with a couple of dried prunes.
BS again is usually 6-6.5 2hrs later

evening meal
vegetable pilau dish comprising brown basmati rice,mixed veg..and 'paneer'(cubes of cheese made from curdled milk...this is an Indian cheese)...with a popadom . I usually have a few pieces of 90% chocolate with this if I am going to the gym the following morning.

BS 6-7 2 hrs later.

The evening meal does change...but breakfast and luch are nearly always theb same.

2 slices of cheese/toast/...BS 8 !! 2hrs later.

In an attempt to see if it was the bread causing this..today I had

2 slices of toast with peanut butter (sugar free), a bowl of nuts, a poppadom..and 2 prunes.
BS 2 hrs later 6.3

so it doesn't appear to be the bread.
I will definately try and get hold of the cook book as I feel I need a bit more variety in my diet.
The one thing a haven't mentioned is that I exercise every day. 3 weightv traing session in the gym per week...and a 45min walk every day.

I have no idea if my BS levels are ok..so any advise is most welcome.
 
Hi alembic1989,

I too changed my bread to Bergen - 2 slices have little affect on my BS and if I have a cheese sandwich with half fat cheddar it doesn't make any noticeable difference- I use lowlow - it's a nice strong cheese and the low fat ones are much improved in taste to what they used to be.

BUT - if I melt that cheese and have cheese on toast my BS goes quite a bit higher - I have no idea why it does this but it does - maybe something changes in the grilling process or its the combination of grilled cheese and the Burgen together - it's strange because I can still eat cheese omelette or cheese melted on veggies etc.

One of the many mysteries of life I suppose :roll:

Lovinglife
 
Alembic
You're coping wih far more carbs than I can manage.
I avoid, all baked goods, porridge, pasta, potatoes, rice.
I find my numbers creaping up if I have any of those, even low GI like Burgen bread
Hana
 
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