Banana is probably the worst food to eat as a Diabetic.
While it’s good for leveling sugars during/after a hypo, it can have serious consequences when taken as a meal subside or when eaten as a meal itself.
over the past month (at least), I have quit eating the tropical fruit and have noticed the difference - no more hyperactivity, no more dehydration and no more high blood sugars.
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Yes, bananas can make the blood sugar rise, but I wouldn’t say it’s the worst food, at least not for me. I find that a syrup and pancake sandwich on fried wonder bread is far worse and less nutritious 
Personally, I eat fruits only preworkout or to treat hypos…seldom as a meal or meal subside. If you are getting better numbers keeping away from fruits, I say stick with it. Insulin can do a lot, but sometimes certain foods just beat the insulin to the punch.
My black listed carbs:
If I’m even in the same room as mashed potatoes, my blood sugar goes up. OK maybe not, but you know what I mean.
I have to say I’m very opposed to the idea of any food being “bad”. All foods are OK in moderation. You might find there are foods that have an especially significant impact on your BG or don’t agree with you for whatever other reason, but that doesn’t make it “bad” or “unsuitable” for diabetics. It just means you can choose to limit it or avoid it altogether.
This whole good and bad thing - good and bad foods, good and bad numbers, good and bad diabetics - is not a helpful way to qualify or characterize anything.
Different strokes for different folk (or your mileage may vary). I would not label bananas or any food bad for diabetics as a group. It might be a difficult food for some individuals. I usually slice a half banana on my cereal for breakfast, and eat a pretty wide variety of fruits throughout the day.
The food that I have difficulty with is Chinese food. It doesn’t matter how much insulin I take, I end up fighting high bgl’s for hours and hours afterwards. I think it’s the high fat content of the stirfried rice and noodles in restaurant food.
I don’t have any problems with bananas. It’s pineapples I have to avoid.
i had delicious jasmin rice with indian food last night… so good and yet it produced my highest measurement for the past 3 months… 245 
Ok, I’ll allow myself that once in a while.
If I ate cereal, milk and any amount of banana, my #'s would be sky high, no matter how accurately I bolused for the carbs. How can we all be so different?
I don’t have a problem with fruits, usually eaten as a mid-day snack, and actually since i try to get the 3 to 4 fruits and veggies a day my sugar is alot better than when I didn’t do that and than when I eat things like potatoe, breads, or those types of carbs. My besetting sin is a love of brads, rolls, ect…so if i stay away from them I tend to not crave them so much. Eating more fruits and veggies I get full faster and stay full longer than I do with breads. My sugar stays leveler than if i indulge in starches like bread and pasta, must be just then way my body processes stuff. Like it was said “different strokes for different folks”. I think my problem is the craving of those breads and stuff, makes me eat more than I should of them too. Who knows. Take care all.
I am really with you about the breads. I have to stay out of the grocery store in the mornings when they are baking their breads and cookies. Just the smell of them baking makes me drool. I usually try to walk a different direction than right by the bakery section. I don’t have this problem when i walk through the bread aisle. After all, that is all wrapped up and doesn’t smell as good as the fresh baked stuff. Once in a while I have a slice of 12 grain bread and it tastes good. But i purposely don’t eat the white bread or fresh baked bread. I would just want too much of it. It isn’t hard for me to skip the potatoes and pasta. I fill up mostly on vegetables, cheeses, eggs, fats and some meat, not much meat. I also eat some fruits I just don’t feel as well when I have high bounces in blood sugar.
I wish that restaurants would adopt the habit of indicating which sauces, marinades, seasonings, etc. have sugar in them. It seems to be the secret ingredient in a lot of recipes. I find that the worst foods for me are the ones that have hidden sugar.
I agree…I’d guess there’s a bunch of sugar stirred into restaurant salad dressings. I wonder, though. Dr Bernstein talks about large portions of even low carb foods causing BS to rise. That could be a factor in post restaurant meal high #'s. They tend to be huge servings.
I have no problem with bananas. Because of their high potassium levels, they are actually one of the best fruits for me. OTOH, I am finding that having more than one exchange worth of grains or potatoes at a sitting willl make my postprandials higher than I’d like, for longer than I’d like. (BTW, this includes whole-grains with all of the bran and the germ.)
Potatoes are bad for me, particularly baked potatoes or chips/french fries. I don’t have the same problem with new/baby potatoes, so I just use those instead though.
There’s a ton of sugar in the sauces. If there’s a connection between msg and BG, I’ve never heard of it.
Depends on the sauces. My big issues with Chinese food are (1) the high sodium levels (unless I order from the steamed menu, sauce on the side), (2) the large amounts of (usually white) rice served with it, and (3) if I’m in a restaurant, I tend to gorge on the fried noodles (which are really bad for everyone due to the high levels of trans fats).
That would really be helpful. Of course if you ask they are all supposed to have nutrition charts available for their food, which does help a lot.
Calorie King publishes a book annually that lists the nutrition information on MOST foods in MOST chain restaurants. Pretty handy little book. Didn’t get this years update, will probably get next years. Small size, able to carry it in a purse or even a coat pocket, maybe even a jeans pocket if they aren’t too tight. Very handy.
Yep, I too am a type 2 that has to really watch my potato and pasta intake. Most foods I have pretty well adjusted to how much I can eat, but sometimes I do overindulge in certain things. My dietician said that no food was off limits, just had to limit my portion sizes.
I subscribe to TheDailyPlate (another social network, though I ignore the social networking side of it). Users post brand-name information; some are able to get info not available by writing to the restaurant (Seattle’s Best Coffee, for example, sends you to your local cafe to get the nutritional information) so that there is a much wider variety of information available. I’m also able to track my consumption – and at the paid-subscriber level, I can even update over the Web interface of my cellphone.
I’m T2 and have found that pretty much any kind of grain or grain product will give me a huge spike – especially rice. Brown or white, it makes no difference. So I just don’t eat rice anymore, ever. Also on my “never” list: pancakes, hash browns, any kind of cereal that comes in a box. And that’s just breakfast!
Toast is my big temptation – I love it. Alvarado St. Bakery makes a decent organic flax seed bread with only 6 grams of carb per slice; most grocery stores carry it in my area (north Bay Area, CA). Here’s the info: http://tinyurl.com/3budqj The slices are kind of small but it toasts up nice and I can have two slices with breakfast with no spike (I ride my bike 3 miles after breakfast most days, which probably helps).
(Interestingly, the same company makes a “diabetic lifestyles low-glycemic” bread that has FIFTEEN grams of carb per slice! Personally I haven’t found claims of “low glycemic index food” to make much difference to my BG levels; I pay more attention to the total carb count and serving size.)
With fruit, it depends on the fruit. I seem to have the best luck with fresh raw berries, which are relatively low-carb and surprisingly satisfying. Strawberries, blueberries … love em. Hard fruits like apples and pears are OK too. Tropical fruits (including citrus) have never been my favorite so I haven’t tested much with those.
I know you asked about foods that are “bad” for us, but I guess for me it’s more fun to think of things that are OK – so I’ll also mention that I love chocolate. My favorite is the Lindt dark chocolate truffles, the little square ones in the blue flat box … only about 2.5 grams of carb per square, and they’re so good I can be happy with only one or two.
Bananas with peanut butter - my favorite - eating them this way stabalizes my BG without a spike (with a bolus of course).
