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Juicing

GrantGam

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,603
Location
Scotland
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hey guys.

So, back from work and kick starting my health a bit to try and shake off fatigue that I've been feeling of late - by adding as much nutrition to my diet as possible.

So I've joined my better half on the juicing front. Some interesting results if you want to call them that...

Today I made a juice, my second to cause a significant hypo. Here's what I had:

-4 celery stalks
-4 carrots
-1 apple
-1 pear
-1 lemon

I made the above to be 69g carbs, a reserved estimate because of the hypo caused from the juice the day before. I also used my scales to weigh the ingredients

I was under the impression that juicing would strip all the insoluble fibre from the ingredients and increase the GI? Even with that in mind, I didn't delay my bolus further, but stuck to my usual 20-30 minutes as I do for most meals. Obviously with the exception of fatty or really low GI meals.

I hypoed pretty hard after today's juice, and the fast acting carbs I took on board to correct never landed me high (35g) which goes to show that I've either hugely overestimated the total carbs in the juice, or that juicing has dramatically reduced the carb content.

I had no IOB prior, little exercise in advance and applied my standard 1:12 ICR that works for me throughout the day.

Any insights from those who use a juicer would be greatly appreciated It's not so much of a problem, but an annoying curiosity. There's not a lot of info on juicing for T1's - so I thought I'd probe you excellent bunch for some knowledge!

Thanks in advance guys,

Grant
 
How did you calculate the carbs for the juice?

When we count carbs, they usually include the fibers. Juice is just the sugary water from the vegetable and fruit, so you're not taking in as many carbs as you would if you were to eat the produce whole. If I count the carbs from just the sugar for all of these it breaks down into this:

- Celery - neglible, you're barely hitting 1g for 4 stalks here
- Carrots - less than 3 per carrot, so 12 at best.
- 1 apple - 15 (depends on the variety and size)
- 1 pear - 17
- 1 lemon - 2

Let's make it a nice round number and say that if you extracted every single drop of sugar from each piece of fruit, you'd end up with 45g of carbs. 50 if you have a particular sweet or large apple. This does not account for the liquids leftover in the pulps, and the sugars left in the pulps that didn't make it into the juice.

I'd say you're probably bolusing for triple the amount of sugar you're actually ingesting with this particular combo. Try bolusing for 20g and see what that does for your bs. In this case it's better to bolus low and add as you go along and test than to hypo because you're dosing too much!
 
Hey

I counted the carbs for the whole weight of ingredients, before they were juiced. From what you've said - I think that's where my monumental error came from... Here's my breakdown:

Celery - 0g
Apple - 15g
Pear - 21g
Carrots - 27g
Lemon - 6g

Total - 69g

All my counts were calculated from Google results per 100g. So for example, I had 273g carrots which worked out at 27.3g in total.

So going off the sound advice you've given, in the case of juices - I should only bolus for the "of which sugars" carbs in effect?

I just found this calculator, and it's thrown out an estimate of sugars to be 41g vs the total carb of 69g. The difference is funnily enough nearly what I used to correct the hypo so it would make sense.

http://www.juicingcollection.com/juicing-calculator/

Feel a bit daft now, it's suddenly clicked! Thank you so much
 
Whenever I drink juice we've made from fruits, considering there is a fair amount of guesswork involved anyway, I work on the same basis orange juice from a carton, and count 200ml = approx. 20g carbs. Have you considered comparing the nutritional info on a similar pure fruit juice in carton (innocent juice etc), and ignoring the starting weight, and just measuring the finished number of mls of liquid?
 
Thinkthey may vary - Im type 2 and when I used to juice, I could happily drink 1/2 pint glasses of freshly juiced (by me ) orange juice with only a v modest rise in BS. At the same ime, if I drank less than a quarter of that amount of ' ftreshly squeezed' unsweetened OJ from a carton / bottle from a supermarket, my sugars went ballistic
 
That could be a good idea @paulliljeros!

I do think there is a fair bit of guesswork involved, who's to know how much juice is left behind in the pulp, etc.

Will report back with findings
 
GrantGam said:
I just found this calculator, and it's thrown out an estimate of sugars to be 41g vs the total carb of 69g. The difference is funnily enough nearly what I used to correct the hypo so it would make sense.
Click to expand...

Repeat tomorrow and see how you get on with the 41g value GrantGam

Excuse my ignorance but what is the benefits of juicing over just eating those foods whole, say chopped up in a bowl?

Maybe try adding a banana to your diet each day, they are a little powerhouse of nutrition and a good source of potassium.
 
I agree that that's way over for carb value. It depends on the size of the carrots, but I don't generally count the carbs in carrots. If your four carrots were large and the amount looked like it was going to impact on BS, I'd just have added a few grams on. An apple I'd count as 15g and a pear is usually around the same, unless it's massive or hugely overripe.

So I'd have counted somewhere between 30-40g carbs for that juice
 
Thanks for the reply

In terms of benefits, I really don't know... Juicing strips all the fibre from the product which is a negative as far as I can see. Where juicing does seem to triumph though is in the fact that you can take on board a serious amount of nutrients without being stuffed. At least that's what the man on the telly told me
 
The carrots (according to the back of the packaging) are 7.9g CHO/100g so Google was a little high in it's estimate - but not by much really.

I think the biggest problem was stripping all the fibre from the fruit/veg and then bolusing for something I'm not going to ingest. It sounds really stupid when you think about it, what a dafty
 

That's about right! I'm happy to see I was close with my 45g on that one lol. Let us know how things go tomorrow?
 

My friend juices purely for the fact she has stomach problems and the fibers slow digestion of the juice so much that it gives her incredible heart burn and other problems. The juice gets absorbed super fast and delivers a bunch of vitamins and nutrients without upsetting her stomach. (She also haaaaaaaaaaaates the taste and texture of vegetables and this is a good way to get natural nutrients in without having to rely on supplements. It's not ideal, but it's preferred over 24/7 stomach problems.)
 

Lol - that's why I'm suspicious of juices : D

I have made them before but I tend to underestimate carbs then top up with another bolus if needed. With green juices, I often don't bolus at all.
 
GrantGam said:
In terms of benefits, I really don't know... Juicing strips all the fibre from the product which is a negative as far as I can see.
Click to expand...

Yes I quite agree.

GrantGam said:
Where juicing does seem to triumph though is in the fact that you can take on board a serious amount of nutrients without being stuffed. At least that's what the man on the telly told me
Click to expand...

Suppose that is true that you can cram more in by juicing as well as eating healthy fruit & veg, but how much is too much I wonder, you may end up visiting the toilet more often than you'd wish to

Interesting nonetheless so thanks for the reply, there's so many diets nowadays it hard to keep track of them all @GrantGam
 

Makes perfect sense @DaftThoughts , much more preferable than taking a handful of supplements. Thanks for the reply.
 
azure said:
Lol - that's why I'm suspicious of juices : D

I have made them before but I tend to underestimate carbs then top up with another bolus if needed. With green juices, I often don't bolus at all.
Click to expand...
Underestimating is always better, it saves falling flat on your face like I did yesterday. Metaphorically that is, my balance was sound the whole time
 
Haha, that paints a beautiful picture Nigel

This juicing thing is a novelty for me right now, which is good as none of it feels forced. As long as it fits in, it's getting juiced! I've just had another there (apple, courgette and cucumber). I blitzed the juice in the Nutribullet with frozen blueberries, so it was a smoothie in the end.

It's good crack if nothing more. Although my electricity bill will be through the roof for next quarter, I'm slowly turning into a chiseled temple...
 
Hi @GrantGam . How's the juicing going? Never even considered it myself and after reading your exploits I'm not planning on starting soon.
So the guy on the telly ? Was it the guy on at 4 a.m on telescoping channel? The one with the strange hair cut? An attractive blond helps him and swoons at every concoction he Nutribullets?
Good luck with the Nutribullet. Sincerely hope not to see it in a charity shop in the foreseeable future.
 
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