I can eat bread again! *EDIT No I can't!*

Hi rowan if you want to see even lower numbers you could try Burgen bread although I dont particularly like it toasted but I know some do or perhaps try a wholegrain or multiseeded loaf, if you can eat a small Hovis which is wholemeal and not that different from ordinary white bread you should see a big difference with Burgen or wholegrain/multiseeded bread.

My favorite is a Sainsburys Multiseeded loaf which comes uncut although you can have it cut in store.

Which raises the question why dont supermarkets cut fresh bread into THIN slices any more? They only offer thick and medium now and a thinner slice obviously has fewer carbs per slice and a loaf lasts longer too of course, I suspect it has to do with how the machines cut the bread as fresh bread is very soft, but supermarkets used to do it, in fact I remember them having machines that the customer could use to slice their own bread!!! What would health & safety make of that I wonder? You used to select the thickness anywhere from this to thick and anywhere in between.

Yes Sid, I have been wondering why you don't often get the choice of thin sliced bread anymore too. I thought that maybe it was to do with the myth that fats are bad and maybe the thinking was1 thick slice is better than 2 thin ones because people will use less butter on the1 slice?

Sid Bonkers said:

Hi rowan if you want to see even lower numbers you could try Burgen bread although I dont particularly like it toasted but I know some do or perhaps try a wholegrain or multiseeded loaf, if you can eat a small Hovis which is wholemeal and not that different from ordinary white bread you should see a big difference with Burgen or wholegrain/multiseeded bread.

My favorite is a Sainsburys Multiseeded loaf which comes uncut although you can have it cut in store.

Which raises the question why dont supermarkets cut fresh bread into THIN slices any more? They only offer thick and medium now and a thinner slice obviously has fewer carbs per slice and a loaf lasts longer too of course, I suspect it has to do with how the machines cut the bread as fresh bread is very soft, but supermarkets used to do it, in fact I remember them having machines that the customer could use to slice their own bread!!! What would health & safety make of that I wonder? You used to select the thickness anywhere from this to thick and anywhere in between.

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There is a Polish supermarket in the town near me and they only sell Polish bread there but they do have a bread slicing machine in the shop that customers can use to slice a loaf if they want to.

Rowan, keep experimenting. You never know, you may find something that works for you, if not now, perhaps 3 - 6 months from now. I'm very insulin resistant, unlike many here, so am not able to tolerate any grains.

For the carbohydrate intolerant, I'm learning that grains are bad for my cardiovascular health too, so I may never go back. Flour from grains are also illegal on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, that I have to follow for now... http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/legal/listing/F/

Another way to approach this might be to make your own Oopsies - (a bread) - made with eggs and cream cheese, no grains - (scroll down to the recipe section)...

http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf#tips

I haven't tried them yet, but may today. They sound so yummy...

So many variables... Fat eaten with the carbs is usually helpful (i.e. fat delays the spike). My favorite homemade vegetable soup spikes my blood glucose, so I eat no more than 8 ounces, and top it with parmesan and eat an ounce of nuts with it.

Rowan, I also notice differences with the same foods.

I suspect other variables are how much insulin am I producing and how insulin resistant I am that day - (if you're a type 2 like me, you're still producing insulin). I also suspect that what I ate and how much I exercised over the last 24 hours influences my readings. Additionally, I learned 3 days ago that both my glucose meters varied by 16-17 mg/dL when I tested with both meters four times each over a five minute period using blood from fingers from one hand. Oh, and then there's the lunar cycle, hormones...[half joking]...

I think the lesson learned is to look for trends over time, to not get overly concerned with one glucose reading, in your case two.

rowan, paying more attention now. I converted your numbers (so I can relate to them):

2 days ago...

2 slices of Nimble bread (16 g carbs): fasting 5.5 mmol/L (99 mg/dL) to 8.3 mmol/L (149.4 mg/dL) in 3.5 hours

Today...

1 slice of Burgen bread (11 g carbs: fasting 10.1 mmol/L (181.8 mg/dL) to 16.5 (297 mg/dL) in 1.5 hours

First of all, congrats on the 5.5 mmol/L. I've only had two readings that low in two months.

8.3 mmol/L wouldn't be good at 2 hours, but not something to be happy about. Perhaps you were digesting food slower that day.

As for today, if I had a fasting glucose of 10.1, I would have eaten a breakfast that I know wouldn't spike me. Perhaps you were digesting your food at a normal or faster rate today.

Or perhaps your body is telling you to knock off the grains, I don't know.

That 16.5 reading would have really upset me. I have not had a reading that high in two months and I don't take any medication. Almost all of my readings at minimum are half that. It's concerning this is happening while you are taking two diabetes medications daily.

All I can tell you is that sometimes I get high or low readings and I have no idea why. I find that my body takes a few days to calm back down after I get unusual highs.

It's frustrating. Hopefully, you'll be back down to your normal numbers in a few days.

rowan said:

If it was just a small difference i wouldn't take any notice, but this is a huge difference

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Is it fair to assume you retested and verified the latter score?

Leaving aside contaminated tests, your pre tests could have been a snapshot of very different pictures; one a snapshot, from a blood makeup with dropping glucose and the other with rising glucose. The falling glucose would continue to fall until the carbs (let's ignore any impact of anything except carbs here) kick in and buoy it up. The rising glucose, say, from a liver dump is a snapshot of a rising blood score due to liver dump, and as such, the carb intake could just accelerate the rise, until such times as the liver dump either finishes or is stopped by the carb.

I don't think I explained that extraordinarily well, but might you get the general drift? Either way, as single, similar, but different tests, they don't actually tell you a great deal. To be sure the data is robust, each test would need to be repeated.

I'm struggling to understand why anyone with multiple autoimmune diseases would even be eating gluten containing foods? Most authorities in autoimmunity say a gluten free diet is a good idea because of the intestinal permeability factor connected with gluten.

Indy51, it's interesting that you bring up non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). I was at a diabetes support group for type 2 diabetics tonight. There were 7 of us there. All well controlled diabetics.

Working my way around the room, one person is being treated by a naturopath and is taking probiotics, digestion enzymes, and receiving weekly B-12 shots.

The next person has peripheral neuropathy, I believe as a consequence of treatment for prostate cancer.

The next has a history of gastrointestinal surgeries, the next non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), the next diverticulitis (an inflammatory bowel disease), the next non-celiac gluten sensitivity, which is what I have as well.

What are the odds of that? Three of the seven of us have diagnosed NCGS, and I'm willing to bet one or more others in this group have undiagnosed NCGS too.

What people don't understand is that the problem begins with NCGS, then develops into leaky gut, also referred to as intestinal permeability, and then our food starts getting into our blood stream causeing additional food sensitivities, and worse yet, our immune system begins to attack our body, causing additional chronic autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes. I guess I'm lucky I just have a vulnerabilty to ulcerative colitis.

In my former job as an information and resource specialist, I hung around with a lot of medical geeks. One acquaintance was a NCGS educator who badgered me for 5 years to get tested for NCGS. And each time I told her I didn't want to get tested because I didn't want to give up gluten. Silly me...

And now I have full blown type 2 diabetes too so I can't have grains anymore anyway. And you know, I miss sourdough and rye bread...scones with berries and whipped cream...oh, and fresh waffle cones with a scoop of ice cream...but it's really not that big of a loss. I'm slowly, inch-by-inch restoring my health, and I can think of nothing more important.

Someone mentioned in a support group for celiac and NCGS a few years back that in the late 70's or early 80's our wheat was re-engineered to make the kernels shorter and fatter. I never researched it, but what if what she said was right?

What I find interesting about the explosion of people being diagnosed now with NCGS is that it can take 30 years before we become aware of the damage done to our bodies by gluten. Well, it's been 35 or so years now. Makes me wonder...

Rowan, on the way home a question popped into my head. Is there any possibility that you have developed and are fighting an infection? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that also can cause blood glucose to rise.

zand said:

Yes Sid, I have been wondering why you don't often get the choice of thin sliced bread anymore too. I thought that maybe it was to do with the myth that fats are bad and maybe the thinking was1 thick slice is better than 2 thin ones because people will use less butter on the1 slice?

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thick bread has a higher carb 'healthy grain' ratio in a sandwich, it's the much 'healthier' high carb low fat diet

rowan said:

I know I'm not good with wheat, Nimble and Burgen both have wheat flour, so why does 16g carb raise me by 3, and just 11g carb raise me by 6?

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you need to test at the same time after a meal, I think you are comparing different times more than carb

why are you eating any carbs when your BG is 10?