So, we recently bought a juicer and are having a blast juicing different things. We were just looking for a fun way to get more fruits and veggies into our diet. The only issue I'm having is figuring out the carb counts (and therefore insulin requirements) for my various juice recipes.
Has anyone on here come up with homemade juice recipes and figured out the carb counts? Right now, I'm just SWAGing and while it's sorta working, I ended up high this morning after a carrot-beet-orange concoction and would like to be a little more accurate :-/ But it was delicious!!
Only way to calculate this correctly is using a scale like EatSmart because fruits & veggies aren't uniform in weight. Also, the degree of ripeness of fruits determines how much frustose there is. Difficult to bolus for juice because it's concentrated sugar that hits fast without fiber to slow down digestion. Lots of carbs in juice. Carrot-beet-orange would be quite high carb. I use dehydrated green drinks that have high nutrition with very few carbs.
I might be able to provide a little insight with fruit juices. I use mainly OJ for corrections at home (6 oz OJ = 20 g carbs) and buy quite a few for my youngest. Most fruit juices have 32-40 g carbs per 8 fluid ounces (as per nutritional labels).
I would guesstimate approximately 35 g carbs per 8 oz of fruit juice. I would up it if the juice is known to be full of sugar (grape, OJ, etc.) to 38 to 40 g. If the juice is less carby (like strawberry) I may lower the count to 32 grams-ish. I am not sure how to treat veggie juices.
Juice hits me fast. I would consider using the juice for hypo corrections. I have a 6 oz cup that I can easily measure out a dose of OJ when needed
I have to tell you, juicing can alter the carb counts and glycemic index of foods. Some foods like carrots will partially pass through undigested, but with juicing, it become all boiavailable. Great if you are non-diabetic, but not so good for those of us who are pancreatically challenged. The other thing is that juicing also can make a normally low glycemic index food into a high glycemic index for the same reasons.
I am a little cautious about the whole juicing thing.
Thanks for the tips! I have noticed that when I "juice" mostly veggies, I can generally do a 1.5 unit per cup bolus and be ok. Fruits obviously require more insulin. However, for me, fruits usually cause very predictable highs that I don't have trouble bolusing for, and so far the juices I'm making with fruit are following the same pattern (quick high that comes down fairly effortlessly and a fairly consistent I:C pattern). Other carbs like pasta, rice, and bread (those white flour carbs) are an absolute disaster for me so I try to avoid them as much as possible.
I figured the removal of fiber would make things progress faster, so I am trying to pre-bolus. Also, I didn't know about the ripeness factor, so thanks for sharing. Learn something new every day....
Yeah, I am experimenting at this stage. It all tastes really good and is just sorta fun. I am usually pretty good about eventually finding the sweet spot with new things like this...also, I'm not doing this as a meal replacement, but just as a tasty supplement. So far, I am finding veggie drinks to be the easiest to bolus for. I am thinking that for more "fruity" drinks, I'll need to bolus earlier because they do hit me kinda fast.
