So there are certain things I prefer to consume with genuine sugar instead of a sugar substitute. I count the carbs as I would for any other thing I’d consume. And sometimes, it seems like it has less impact on my blood sugar than I’d expect for the same number of grams of carbs contained in something else I might consume.
Has there been any research on the subject? Opinions are nice but they aren’t reliable enough compared to genuine research. Thanks.
Gary Taubes has a good book on sugar called of all things “The Case Against Sugar.” I find that in low quantities sugar is fine. But as T2 on insulin if I have any for of carb in quantity, sugar or starch it can cause me real problems. I have a highly variable response to the “kind” of carbs, some cause me huge problems, some I do ok with. There are some meals that amazingly I can handle, for instance a good lasagna I can handle, but pasta is a nightmare. I have no idea why. Maybe the fat, but that doesn’t really explain it. We are all somewhat different in terms of how our bodies respond to different foods.
Over time, I’ve just concluded that if I follow a low carb diet and consumer a minimal amount of sugar I can achieve my blood sugar goals. If I don’t, then all h*ll can break lose.
If you’re talking about ordinary table sugar, it’s about 50% glucose and 50% fructose. HFCS, by contrast, is about 55/45. Not as extreme a difference as popularly believed, but still a 10% swing which is more than enough to make a big difference.
The point is that the less fructose you consume, the better. Unlike glucose, which is immediately usable for energy, fructose is converted to fat by the liver. Too much of it and you can end up with fatty liver disease. So yes, the type of sugar does matter.
I agree with you about preferring real sugar instead of a substitute, up to a point. One teaspoon of sugar contains 4 grams of carbs, an amount I can deal with blood-sugar wise. Amounts greater than start to give me more trouble. A teaspoon a sugar on a serving of tart berries is a treat for me that I can handle.
Did you know that table sugar, sucrose, is actually half glucose and half fructose? Did you also know that fructose takes an entirely separate metabolic pathway in the body than glucose? Fructose is handled by the liver.
The problem with sugar as a carb is that it doesn’t carry any nutritional payload. People who consume a large percentage of their daily calories as highly processed carbohydrates loaded with sugar are displacing dietary items that provide a much wider nutritional benefit.
Sorry I can’t cite any studies off the top of my head so I’ll stop here before I move on to more opinions.
As do I but there are just a few things that I really want the regular sugar version. For example, I keep a 2 liter bottle of Strawberry Crush in the refrigerator. Maybe once a day, I’ll take a couple swallows right out of the bottle. I also keep a jar of dark chocolate Milky Way minis on the counter. I may grab one of those once a day as well. However, both the Crush and the Milky Ways are there in case I hit a low. I have the glucose tablets for that as well but really don’t like them.
About once every couple weeks I’ll have one scoop of vanilla ice cream. I do like sucralose artificial sweetener but really dislike saccharine or aspartame. Stevia’s okay but seldom available in restaurants to put into iced tea.
It totally depends on you as an individual. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/cp-fd111215.php
When I was first diagnosed in 1966, we were all put on a special diabetic diet, and everything even slightly sweet was strictly excluded, as though insulin hadn’t been developed yet. We were not even allowed to eat grapes! Of course, all patients would experiment with increasing the insulin dose and proving they could eat anything they wanted and still maintain the same control as without doing that, but the official medical theory did not accept that this could be true. I had to smile when the modern free diet was introduced.
So the ideal would be to develop a personalized glycemic index for all the foods each of us would consume if left to our own choices and then managing our insulin dosages with much better information.
Take everything with a grain of salt, experiment, keep records of how different foods impact your BG (that behavior may change over time). Some people are trying to use machine learning to build predictive algorithms for type 2. Those tend to be different for different people and are a lot to work to create (that’s why they want to write computer programs to do it on their own). You can make your own predictions if you build familiarity, over time, with different foods.