Another question that my doctor couldn't answer. For example: for a slice of bread there are 30g of carbohydrates of which 1.3g are sugar. As diabetesuk says that a diabetic person can consume up to 30g of sugar per day, does that mean that it would be fine to consume up to 23 slices of this bread per day?
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Nutritional information - what does it mean
- Thread starter magical
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With diabetes, we are susceptible to all carbohydrates, not just sugar as "complex carbs' are broken down to glucose.
Therefore, we tend to ignore the "of which are sugar" bits of the nutritional information.
Regarding how many carbs we should eat, like many things diabetes related, we are all different.
I have Type 1 which is different to type 2 but, as type 2 is more common, it is hard not to have seen the advice for type 2.
Amongst the forums the usual advice is to test your blood sugars before eating a meal and 2 hours later. If you blood sugars have risen more than 2 or 3 mmol/l in those 2 hours, it is a good indication that your body is struggling to handle that many carbs.
For this reason, a low carb (all carbs not just sugar) diet is common amongst people with type 2 diabetes. You will need to test to find out how many carbs your body can handle.
Getting back to your question about eating 23 slices of bread and assuming you ate nothing else with any sugar or carbs in it, the answer is "maybe but probably not". 690g of carbohydrates is a lot to eat in one day - a healthy pancreas would need to release a lot of insulin to manage that and the pancreas of someone with type 2 would need more.
But my key messages to you on this topic are
- you need to watch ALL carbohydrates
- we are all different. There is no one rule for all diabetics.
Therefore, we tend to ignore the "of which are sugar" bits of the nutritional information.
Regarding how many carbs we should eat, like many things diabetes related, we are all different.
I have Type 1 which is different to type 2 but, as type 2 is more common, it is hard not to have seen the advice for type 2.
Amongst the forums the usual advice is to test your blood sugars before eating a meal and 2 hours later. If you blood sugars have risen more than 2 or 3 mmol/l in those 2 hours, it is a good indication that your body is struggling to handle that many carbs.
For this reason, a low carb (all carbs not just sugar) diet is common amongst people with type 2 diabetes. You will need to test to find out how many carbs your body can handle.
Getting back to your question about eating 23 slices of bread and assuming you ate nothing else with any sugar or carbs in it, the answer is "maybe but probably not". 690g of carbohydrates is a lot to eat in one day - a healthy pancreas would need to release a lot of insulin to manage that and the pancreas of someone with type 2 would need more.
But my key messages to you on this topic are
- you need to watch ALL carbohydrates
- we are all different. There is no one rule for all diabetics.
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SB2015
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Reading around on here you will find that people have a wide variety of targets for their carbs per meal or carbs per day. As with so many other things related to diabetes, ‘it all depends’.
Many on here find it useful to test their blood glucose both before and again 2 hours after their meal in order to find out what their body can cope with. The numbers themselves don’t matter so much at the beginning, it is the difference between them - the ‘meal rise‘ which you want to keep as near to 2-3mmol/L as you can. If you happen to identify any carbs that seem to be spiking BG, you can experimenting with reducing amounts or swapping types (sometimes just having things at a different time of day makes a difference). If you are interested in this apporach you may find test-review-adjust by Alan S a helpful framework.
Many on here find it useful to test their blood glucose both before and again 2 hours after their meal in order to find out what their body can cope with. The numbers themselves don’t matter so much at the beginning, it is the difference between them - the ‘meal rise‘ which you want to keep as near to 2-3mmol/L as you can. If you happen to identify any carbs that seem to be spiking BG, you can experimenting with reducing amounts or swapping types (sometimes just having things at a different time of day makes a difference). If you are interested in this apporach you may find test-review-adjust by Alan S a helpful framework.
Drummer
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- Type 2
As a diabetic person I seem to be at odds with diabetesuk. Sugar has nothing to do with it.
The number I focus on is the carbohydrate.
My limit - which I set in order to reduce my Hba1c down into normal numbers - is 40 gm of carbs a day, which comes from low carb veges and fruit as that gives me more options than trying to get by on tiny amounts of high carb foods, and they provide vitamins and minerals too.
Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
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- She/Her
Often people get misled or confused by the terminology used when talking about diabetes. Often people refer to blood sugar when really it is blood glucose differentiating it from sugar as in the granular stuff you might put in your tea. The 30g sugar that diabetes UK refers to seems to be the sugar that is either the granular stuff or sugar that is hidden in prepared foods saying that that should not exceed 30g per day but that would probably be too much for somebody with Type 2 diabetes.
But it is rather more complicated than that as it is the total carbohydrate in a food that is the thing that matters. You can have a food item which is low sugar but still high carbohydrate, mostly things like bread, some cereals, rice, pasta. Things like cakes and biscuits would be both high in sugar and also high carbohydrate because of the flour.
Things like meat, fish, eggs, cheese and veg are both low sugar and low carbohydrate.
Generally people try to minimise the amount of added sugar they have, concentrating on an amount of carbohydrate that their body can tolerate and that might vary from as low as 40 or 50g per day to 130-150g per day but they would only really know by testing the effect of those foods on their blood glucose levels.
So in your bread example 1 medium slice of bread may have 1.3g sugar but 16g carbohydrate so if somebody could only tolerate 100g carb per day they could have 6 slices of bread as long as they had nothing else with any carbs in. The sugar bit is not relevant.
But it is rather more complicated than that as it is the total carbohydrate in a food that is the thing that matters. You can have a food item which is low sugar but still high carbohydrate, mostly things like bread, some cereals, rice, pasta. Things like cakes and biscuits would be both high in sugar and also high carbohydrate because of the flour.
Things like meat, fish, eggs, cheese and veg are both low sugar and low carbohydrate.
Generally people try to minimise the amount of added sugar they have, concentrating on an amount of carbohydrate that their body can tolerate and that might vary from as low as 40 or 50g per day to 130-150g per day but they would only really know by testing the effect of those foods on their blood glucose levels.
So in your bread example 1 medium slice of bread may have 1.3g sugar but 16g carbohydrate so if somebody could only tolerate 100g carb per day they could have 6 slices of bread as long as they had nothing else with any carbs in. The sugar bit is not relevant.
It's not just the grams of carbs but how quickly they get converted to Blood Glucose, that is known as GI (Glycemic Index), so eating white bread has a high GI (fast) while Wholemeal has a lower GI and will take longer to raise your blood glucose, however the amount of carbs will generally raise your blood glucose the same although over different time periods. In conclusion try not to eat 23 slices of bread in one day, whatever their colour 🙂
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