Absorption of carbs from pulses

beating_my_betes said:
I would guess the undigested proportion they were talking about is fibre.
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If that is the case, why does it affect different people different ways?
Some people can literally see whole undigested chickpeas out “the other end”. And, no, this is not about whether they are chewed or not.

In the UK, fibre is not included in total carbs but , yet, many of us ( enough for dieticians working with people with Type 1 diabetes to take notice and warn us) still find the impact of the carbs in pulses is less than the total carbs (excluding fibre) would suggest.

The effect of pulses on some people’s blood glucose is different to the effect of the carbs in other “plant food”.

As per the title of this thread (and my comment which kicked this discussion off), the carbs in pulses behave differently to carbs in other foods, including other vegetables.
 
It's clearly stated on this forum that the members are not medical experts hence any posts they make on it shouldn't be taken as medical advice, but merely as third party comments allbeit from their own experience of the subject either generally and/or whilst they also have diabetes. Therefore if someone decides 'I'll try that!' and it doesn't work like it reportedly did for whoever, no blame can be attached to them for that.
 
I would not expect to see undigested or whole anything as I chew what I eat.
Perhaps that is the difference, as the digestion of carbs starts in the mouth.
There is also my stock pot. I would cook - or rather seethe - dried peas and beans in that and sieve them out when done. My cooking is very 'couple of centuries ago' - I used to do English Civil War re-enacting and used to smile at the lack of knowledge some of the women revealed when using a cauldron for cooking.
 
trophywench said:
It's clearly stated on this forum that the members are not medical experts hence any posts they make on it shouldn't be taken as medical advice, but merely as third party comments allbeit from their own experience of the subject either generally and/or whilst they also have diabetes. Therefore if someone decides 'I'll try that!' and it doesn't work like it reportedly did for whoever, no blame can be attached to them for that.
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Could you perhaps point to where anypne is expecting others to be medical experts and/or where any blame is being apportioned?
 
Drummer said:
Perhaps that is the difference, as the digestion of carbs starts in the mouth.
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How do you explain the low BG rise some experience with hummus or dal where the pulses are broken down?

Drummer said:
There is also my stock pot. I would cook - or rather seethe - dried peas and beans in that and sieve them out when done.
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Why do you sieve them out? Have you previously found you are one of the people who consume carbs from pulses? Or is that the recipe?
My “coven” :D gave up with cauldron cooking so I am not familiar with seethe.
 
helli said:
If that is the case, why does it affect different people different ways?
Some people can literally see whole undigested chickpeas out “the other end”. And, no, this is not about whether they are chewed or not.

In the UK, fibre is not included in total carbs but , yet, many of us ( enough for dieticians working with people with Type 1 diabetes to take notice and warn us) still find the impact of the carbs in pulses is less than the total carbs (excluding fibre) would suggest.

The effect of pulses on some people’s blood glucose is different to the effect of the carbs in other “plant food”.

As per the title of this thread (and my comment which kicked this discussion off), the carbs in pulses behave differently to carbs in other foods, including other vegetables.
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There are many reasons why the amount of carbs in a food would cause less of an effect than expected, but barely any that would be associates with the opposite.

Also, are you suggesting that when chickpeas have been properly chewed and digested to chyme, that they will reform into solid chickpeas, observed in faeces?
 
helli said:
How do you explain the low BG rise some experience with hummus or dal where the pulses are broken down?


Why do you sieve them out? Have you previously found you are one of the people who consume carbs from pulses? Or is that the recipe?
My “coven” :D gave up with cauldron cooking so I am not familiar with seethe.
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Yes, I get around 18 gm of carbs when the listed amount should be 10gm.
I wondered if my sieving out the cooked items and consuming them without extra liquid might have some bearing - not diluting the digestive enzymes or acid.
I have not eaten hummus or dhal so have no data on how they affect me - but other people have reported they also get extra carbs from legumes - perhaps they have tried those foods.
Apparently to seethe is a fuel saving ploy, as it takes a lot more energy to get a liquid to a full rolling boil than to seethe at almost the same temperature.
 
beating_my_betes said:
Also, are you suggesting that when chickpeas have been properly chewed and digested to chyme, that they will reform into solid chickpeas, observed in faeces?
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I read @helli ‘s comment to mean that it wasn’t the chewing (or not) that was a factor. Hence the ‘less rise than expected from hummus’ comment.

That it was the nature of the make-up of starches in pulses and they body’s (usual) inefficiency in breaking them down. Some members on the forum hardly have to count the carbs in pulses. others report seeing consistent, reproducible, and significant BG rises where pulses are involved.

I am more than happy to accept their experiences as being valid.

I read an article / paper (can’t remember which) several years ago which explained the difference in carbohydrate storage between pulses and wheat, and how they were digested. If I get a minute I’ll check back through some old bookmarks and see if I can find it.

I think it may add some light to this conversation.
 
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Drummer said:
Yes, I get around 18 gm of carbs when the listed amount should be 10gm.
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Following on from @everydayupsanddowns's comment about the potential for some people to have more efficient digestive enzymes, does including some proportion of the UK-reported "fibre" content "balance the books"?

Does anyone know how the proportion of fibre vs carbs vs "of which sugars" is calculated?
 
Yes, I wondered if perhaps some of us were actually able to break down some of the fibre with pulses but perhaps it is just that the carbs are misreported/calculated on them or perhaps because the carbs are bound up with the fibre it doesn't release straight away and as a result the body also breaks down the protein into glucose which causes the much bigger release than expected, especially for those of us who follow a low carb way of eating.
 
I followed the aged bookmark, but alas the page now redirects to something else entirely, so I’ll have to go hunting and see if any similar information / explanation exists elsewhere.
 
The digestion of pulses (And carbs) is I believe determined by enzymes in the gut (Such as amylase). People have different levels, maybe?
 
harbottle said:
The digestion of pulses (And carbs) is I believe determined by enzymes in the gut (Such as amylase). People have different levels, maybe?
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Yes it’s the amylase to digest amylose and amylopectin that I half remembered from a decade ago.

I believe the starches in wheat are structured differently and are more readily available.
 
Here's an overview (first useful link on Google, so there may well be better options): https://www.nutricalc.co.uk/expert-...ood-labels-what-is-it-and-how-is-it-measured/

And perhaps some pointers here re the two different methods: https://www.ifst.org/resources/information-statements/dietary-fibre

And another potentially interesting linky here: https://www.fao.org/4/y5022e/y5022e04.htm

What's interesting is that the fibre content is still used when tallying total calories (I seem to recall seeing that it contains half the calories of the carbs section), which indicates to me that at least some of this is broken down and absorbed by the body (rather than used by the gut bacteria/passed directly). More questions than answers I fear!
 
beating_my_betes said:
I very much doubt it is your intention to do so, but this does kinda shut down the conversation. It seems to be happening a lot.
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Certainly not my intention. I was hoping to clarify a potential misunderstanding.

Ultimately, what I was trying to convey was that while I need to largely ignore the suggested carb count for pulses, I’ve been playing the diabetes game for over 30 years so I am more than happy to accept YDMV for any member here, and that if multiple people report they seem to absorb more carbs than I do from pulses - then that’s perfectly likely given how fickle diabetes can be.
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
[...]if multiple people report they seem to absorb more carbs than I do from pulses - then that’s perfectly likely given how fickle diabetes can be.
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But this isn't the point in question.

We all seem to agree that absorption and effects will differ from person to person (The same meal will even vary for the same person, on different occasions).

The specific claim being made is that some people can extract from a food more carbs than is listed. It's a very different thing. And while there is a potential reason this might be possible, it wouldn't always be the case. I would suggest that measuring such an effect to the exactitude suggested in this thread is nigh on impossible, but apparently to suggest such a thing is to blame, police etc.
 
beating_my_betes said:
I would suggest that measuring such an effect to the exactitude suggested in this thread is nigh on impossible, but apparently to suggest such a thing is to blame, police etc.
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But why don't you believe that it would be possible to do this?

The ratio of "assumed protein/fibre-related" carbs to listed carbs seems to be fairly large - on the order of 1:1 or 1:2. I think this is large enough to produce a measurable effect on BG over and above general noise factors, and over a suitable time period it should be possible to observe a trend. I'm not suggesting a week is going to provide enough data, but over the course of a year of normal life, or even a shorter period of specific testing, it really doesn't seem to me to be statistically impossible to come up with a correlation.

I've not done the maths though, so am more than happy to stand corrected!
 
I don't know how people can work out how many 'carbs' they are extracting from food without taking into account all the factors that dictate how quickly those carbs end up in the blood stream and then how quickly its cleared by insulin, whether that's created internally (T2s, who may not produce enough, or produce it quickly enough to deal with the rise) or injected. Plus insulin resistance...

You could take two non-diabetics and they might get the different result from the same food.

It does also depends on how accurate those listings are... I've seen at least one source claim they are pretty much approximations.

I can eat pulses without a problem, and one of my go-to winter meals is a daal with low carb noodles and a fried egg on top!
 
I learned that Diabetes Maths was a bit woolly at the best to times a long time ago.

What I end up with is more trial-observation-repeat estimates. I rather suspect others do too.

So if repeatedly, on the printed information I would assume a rise of x given a dose of y, but each time I have *that meal* (I’m looking at you soup-and-a-slice-of-bread) the estimated x carbs and y dose repeatedly fail. So I take an additional z insulin to cover the difference. Which according to the ‘maths’ shouldn’t be needed.

It just feels like others are drawing the same conclusions from their own observations whether diet-managed or whatever. When they eat pulses they get a bigger glucose excursion than the listed info would suggest.

So they use a phrase like “I seem to be able to extract about half as many carbs again from blah than are listed” as a shorthand.

That’s my take on it anyway. 🙂
 
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