Shredded Wheat - Dangerous or safe?

Different strokes for different folks!

Hi PickledPepper,
Shredded wheat may or may not be alright for you and you will only find out by testing.

Lots of products are recommended for diabetics on different sites but we all have an individual response. I personally find that all meals have to be balanced and so would try adding low G.I. fruit, nuts and seeds to any cereal before I tested it.

Hope this helps,

Catherine.

I an a type 2 and have two shredded wheat every day for breakfast, I then found out they are supposed to be bad for me, so I did a test, and found they had no detrimental effect on my BS after two hours, so I shall continue eating them. My suggestion to you is to try the same test yourself and put your faith in your own results rather than what you may read :wink:

hi talos may i make a suggestion that after you have had your weetabix do a 1hour bs test. i was eating shredded wheat and weetabix regularly for months until i did a 1 hour test. 2 hour test were giving me good readings but the 1 hour test had me up to the 10s mmol. same with porridge aswell . since that day i will always do a 1 hr 2hr and 3hr test to see exactly what food does to me. 1hour tests show up the nasty spikes that 2 hour tests tell you its ok. the same as bread for me aswell. 2 slices of nimble with cheese will put me up to the nines after 1 hour and 5.8 after 2 hours. if i hadnt of done the 1 hour test i would be eating sarnies as normal every day.

Shredded Wheat around 68% digestible carbs
I couldn't deal with that
Hana

hanadr said:

Shredded Wheat around 68% digestible carbs
I couldn't deal with that
Hana

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Nor can I! :shock:

Just goes to show we are all different.

bedshaped2000 said:

hi talos may i make a suggestion that after you have had your weetabix do a 1hour bs test. i was eating shredded wheat and weetabix regularly for months until i did a 1 hour test. 2 hour test were giving me good readings but the 1 hour test had me up to the 10s mmol. same with porridge aswell . since that day i will always do a 1 hr 2hr and 3hr test to see exactly what food does to me. 1hour tests show up the nasty spikes that 2 hour tests tell you its ok. the same as bread for me aswell. 2 slices of nimble with cheese will put me up to the nines after 1 hour and 5.8 after 2 hours. if i hadnt of done the 1 hour test i would be eating sarnies as normal every day.

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I will try what you suggest, but I shall be using an awful lot of strips and OH! my poor sore fingers . You mention "spikes" as do many on here, and seem to attach much importance to them, has there been any research done as to what is their duration and what damage they can do? I thought damage was only caused by prolonged exposure to high BG levels, but I am here to be educated

not so sure about dangerous someonelese will have to answer that one i just like to stay low all the time. if i get a major spike my left eye twitches and i get like a dull migrane if my sugar rises. if im to low i feel tired and irratable. most of spikes i have now are from either milk in coffee or fruit but they naver take me over 6.5 in the first hour but this is my personal preference as im very strict every one is different.

Hi Talos,

When you have an HBA1c done it is an average of your blood sugars over the last 120 days.
Average is just that and so it does not chart when you have highs and lows. Some foods give you what is called the pizza effect. This means that they could spike later than the 2hrs. you are testing. In your case, the shredded wheat MAY be spiking you later than the 2hrs. We all need to keep our blood sugars steady and try to get them as near as possible to the reading taken before we had a meal. If, for example, every time you eat the shredded wheat you are peaking 3 - 4 hours later then your high blood sugars are not seen by you and long term can cause damage.
(5.6 before meal, 5.9 when measured 2hrs later but MAYBE 8.9. or even 10 later. If this was the case then you are having a 10 every time from the shredded wheat. Imagine how that would look on a graph.) That is why it is essential to do later tests when getting to grips with foods that are suitable for you in the beginning.
I found this problem with potatoes early on.
The main issue with all of us when new to this is the provision of test strips. Your HBA1c may be acceptable but nobody is aware of what is actually happening on a daily basis if they cannot test.
Ideally your blood sugars should even out after eating within 2 hours.
Hope this helps,

Catherine.

Thanks Catherine
Yes that does make sense, I think what we really need is a constant BS monitor, simler to the abulatory blood pressure type, I dont know if such a thing exists, if not I think we need an inventor to work on it . One more question, do none diabetics have these same spikes after a meal ?

Hi Talos,
Some non diabetics do spike at times, especially after a high carb meal, but their body is able to compensate and lower their levels much quicker than for us. I also know that non diabetics sometimes show a higher reading when trauma or shock occurs but this is only short lived.
Catherine.

Once again, thanks

Since being diagnosed I've become very curious about the subject maybe its one of the symptoms :lol:

hi talos. did you do a 1 hour test after your shredded wheat or havent you got off the floor yet with shock :lol:

It's the same with Shredded Wheat as it is for all food. Test your reaction to it, and then eat it or don't eat it again based on the results of the test.

It's very difficult to determine the level of your diabetes (How resistant to insulin are you? How much insulin are you actually producing?) which is why we all have to test to determine which foods are suitable for us and which aren't.

One thing IS certain. No two diabetics are exactly the same. What is tolerable for one is not necessarily tolerable to another... I'm very unlucky - Type 2, and can't tolerate any carbs very well at all.

Woe is me.

Done the test for 1 hour and 2 hour and the results were favourable, not done the 4 hour yet, i find it difficult to go without a snack or drink for that long. :wink:

try the same with strawberrys the carbs in bluberrys are i think off the top of my head double the strawberrys per 100g

also did you weigh the shredded wheat. ican only handle about about 20g of shredded wheat which i think is about 4 to 5 minis :lol: . if you had full fat milk it would of slowed the absorbtion of the carb inot your blood stream. next time you have a portion weigh it . i bet a nice big bowl of mins that you had when weighed was 120g which of the top of my head is about 60g of carb nearly my entire days amount