My sweet tooth

You need to get a blood glucose meter and then test before and two hours after eating to see what spikes your blood sugars. Ideally you should be 4-7 before and not more than 8.5 two hours after. If something spikes your blood sugars then stop eating it.

It is best to cut down on high carbohydrate food such as breakfast cereals, bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. Also, avoid fruit juice and fruit such as bananas and grapes. See https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb for ideas of what you can eat.

I used to snack on yoghurt covered raisins, I've given them up, they didn't do my blood sugars any good. I snack on nuts now instead, much lower carb count!

Raisins are pure sugar. Then coasted in sugar. Diabetes is a disease of sugar so I'd say harmful. There are better options.

Get a meter. Most of us get a wake up call for our beloved foods.

lynbrown said:

I am T2 on Met and insulin. I have a really sweet tooth and after lunch and dinner, I eat about 10 - 12 chocolate raisins. I don't eat sweets or chocolate bars but cannot resist my choc raisins. How harmful is this bad habit? I am overweight and have poor control over my readings.

Click to expand...

Hi. Good advice from others above. I would really suggest avoiding raisins. If you don't have meter - buy one...you won't regret it. We don't know what your blood sugar levels are..and although there are some things that most of us would be better avoiding (eg. bread, spuds, pasta, rice, pizza), some get away with more than others. With my blood sugar, which is pretty well under control most of the time through diet alone, I wouldn't eat raisins (and I really did like the chocolate covered ones) or grapes. One important thing to take in is that carbohydrates effectively turn to sugar in the system and raise the blood sugar just like sugar would. I don't know if you have reduced your carbs already but you should think about it seriously. For all I know, your levels might let you munch a wee handful of chocolate raisins and not cause to big a spike. Get a meter, start looking at products that have less about 10g or less carbohydrate per 100g... Meantime, 90% cocoa chocolate is okay with me in moderation. Good luck. Let us know how you get on.

Hi @lynbrown ..
I agree with the other folk above about your raisins .. also it is a top priority that you get yourself a test meter and, for this, the following websites might help:
https://homehealth-uk.com/product-category/blood-glucose/
for the SD Codefree meter, which costs £12.98 (you don't pay VAT) or:
http://spirit-healthcare.co.uk/product/tee2-blood-glucose-meter/
who distribute the TEE 2 meter, which is free.
I have both for comparative purposes and I have never found any significant difference between them. Unless you are prescribed test strips by your doctor (unlikely), the costs of testing comes down to the ongoing charges for test strips and lancets. I'm testing 3-5 times a day which works out at around £10 to £12 per month for either of the two packages above but, more importantly, I now know what my BG levels are .. and I can now manage them
Hope this helps

Before I lost my sweet tooth hen I had sugar cravings I'd have a bite of a pickle or something with mustard on it.

KILLED IT. haha

I had a terrible sweet tooth. Found this technique from paul mckenna very useful. Sit down pick up the raisn smell it then put it in your mouth. Bite into it. Then you realise unfortunately it wasn't a raisin it was mouse droppings. Worked for me with biscuits. Appologies if anyone found that gross!

I had a sweet tooth then the dentist extracted it.

Control your sweet tooth, then you maybe able to reduce your insulin usage. Remember in a T2 it is the high level of insulin that gives us strokes and hart problems. (High BG gives us wight sicks and missing feet.)

lynbrown said:

I am T2 on Met and insulin. I have a really sweet tooth and after lunch and dinner, I eat about 10 - 12 chocolate raisins. I don't eat sweets or chocolate bars but cannot resist my choc raisins. How harmful is this bad habit? I am overweight and have poor control over my readings.

Click to expand...

Hi @lynbrown. Be careful as any dried fruit has a concentrated sugar content. Raisins, sultanas and like dried fruits will raise your bgl's considerably.

leslie10152 said:

Hi @lynbrown. Be careful as any dried fruit has a concentrated sugar content. Raisins, sultanas and like dried fruits will raise your bgl's considerably.

Click to expand...

Thank you Leslie completely forgot about that. Been eating quite a bit of dried fruit recently. Will cut that out from today!

I think you also need to start educating your "tooth " Avoid drinking or eating foods with artificialsweeteners in as the body tasted sweet but does not get the sugar hit so you become more hungary for sugar. For drinks try the old fashioned lemon juice in water or cider vinigar in water or of course tea no sugar or just water for chocolate its that bitter 85% nothing else