Advice needed!!

[Roobee]

Hi everyone,

Having recently been diagnosed as pre diabetic I am trying to sort my diet out....i love yoghurt and read that low fat Greek yoghurt is OK. My shopping was just delivered and on the yoghurt the sugar traffic light is Amber?? Have I misunderstood or bought the wrong one??

Also I have been taking biomel for healthy gut but now I'm not sure if they are too high in sugar.... What level is best on the sugar and carbs that sugar??

If anyone can help I would be really grateful!

Ruth x

 

[ColinUK]

Which yogurt have you bought?

Generally the higher fat, the lower the sugar but all dairy will have some sugar in it because it’s lactose and lactose is a sugar.

Were you prescribed just off the back of a random blood test or was it because of something else going on as well?

 

[Kaylz]

Be aware that it isn't only sugar you have to be aware of, its total carbohydrates diabetics have to take into account, it would be so much easier if it were just sugar!

As Colin says, lower fat versions generally have more sugar in them to help them taste better, why don't you want to use full fat versions?
xx

 

[silentsquirrel]

Full fat yogurt will keep you full for longer. Stick to plain Greek or Greek style, add a few berries if you want.

No need to look at traffic lights, useless for Ds, just look at the total carbs figure, usually found in tiny print on the back.

 

[ColinUK]

Calling @rebrascora to the thread as she’s our Greek Yogurt expert!

 

[zuludog]

I assume you have natural Greek yogurt, without anything added
As stated, all yogurt contains sugar in the form of lactose, but try to understand what that means

I've just had a look at the labels on tubs of Greek yogurt that I have in my fridge at the moment -
FAGE is 3% sugar, whether it's 5% fat or 0% fat, and Rachel's is 5%; let's take an average of 4%

A typical small pot of yogurt is 125g, equivalent to 5g lactose, or about a teaspoonful

An amber traffic light for food means medium - you can eat it most of the time

You can play around with the figures and get very confused very quickly

I think you have started a low carb diet so consider Greek yogurt as part of your overall food intake - compared to the huge amount of carbs & sugar you could eat in the form of spuds, pasta, cakes & biscuits etc, the amount of sugar you will get from natural yogurt is insignificant
If you've cut out most other carbs I wouldn't worry about it

Dairy fat is no longer considered the demon it was so you can have low or normal fat yogurt, though if you're trying to ose weight a slight reduction in fat will always help

Have a browse round the dairy shelves of your supermarket, there are various types of yogurty type things, including skyr; try a few: as long as they're not obvious;y intended to be sweets & puddings you should be OK

Incidentally, have you read Roy Taylor's book 'Life Without Diabetes'?
He proposes a low carb/low cal diet to control or even reverse diabetes

In it he mentions EFI = Evidence Free Ideas, when ideas and bandwagons have built up with no evidence to support them

He includes the need to take in additional bacteria to assist the gut, and states -
'When studies have been done to add allegedly 'good' bacteria to the gut, no useful effect on glucose control has been seen'.

Biomel seems expensive - £1-50 for 125ml - my opinion is that although it won't do any harm you would be just as well off spending the money on proper food
Have a look on the label of natural live yogurt - it already contains several types of bacteria

 

[Ralph-YK]

read that low fat Greek yoghurt is OK. My shopping was just delivered and on the yoghurt the sugar traffic light is Amber?? Have I misunderstood

Where did you read it? A suitable for diabetics list? Or a generic healthy eating or weight management list?
Healthy eating/weight management lists go on cariories or fats are bad. Ignoring diabetes. Hence low fat yoghurt being good, even though it's got all the sugars in it.
As diabetics we've to look at the carbohydrates on the back of labels. This includes the "of which is sugars", which affects the traffic lights on the front.
As a quick sorting method, you can start by removing products with the red traffic light for sugars.

 

[ianf0ster]

It's only plain Full Fat dairy and yogurt for me. And its only real traditional food - not shakes or highly refined garbage!
I realise that Prof Roy Taylor is highly thought of by diabetes.co.uk and hence here in the forum.
As somebody who didn't appear to need to lose weight, I followed Dr David Unwin ( lowcarbGP on Twitter) who has a 50% T2D remission rate for his Southport GP practice.
I just followed his ideas, didn't buy any books or programs, though I now interact with many other Low Carb adherents in Forums and on Twitter.

 

[ColinUK]

It's only plain Full Fat dairy and yogurt for me. And its only real traditional food - not shakes or highly refined garbage!
I realise that Prof Roy Taylor is highly thought of by diabetes.co.uk and hence here in the forum.
As somebody who didn't appear to need to lose weight, I followed Dr David Unwin ( lowcarbGP on Twitter) who has a 50% T2D remission rate for his Southport GP practice.
I just followed his ideas, didn't buy any books or programs, though I now interact with many other Low Carb adherents in Forums and on Twitter.

I think RT has the following because of the scientific papers and the connection between Michael Moseley and him featuring his work on Horizon. Nothing wrong with David Unwin or Jason Fung either!

 

[Roobee]

Which yogurt have you bought?

Generally the higher fat, the lower the sugar but all dairy will have some sugar in it because it’s lactose and lactose is a sugar.

Were you prescribed just off the back of a random blood test or was it because of something else going on as well?

It's fat free Greek ate yoghurt from sainsburys... Trying to lose weight too!

 

[Roobee]

I have been checking the carbohydrate... Of which sugars. How much is a good amount? I understand the lower the better but....

 

[silentsquirrel]

I have been checking the carbohydrate... Of which sugars. How much is a good amount? I understand the lower the better but....

Just the carbohydrate figure, NOT the 'of which sugars', I hope.

Afraid the how much carb is a very individual thing, some manage on a higher total than others. As you are only pre-D, you might want to start at a relatively high total of 130g carbs a day, and then lower that later if needed.

Are you testing your blood glucose levels so you have some idea what is working for you?

Although it is counterintuitive, i lost more weight (and kept it off) when I abandoned all low fat food. The higher fat fills you up so you are much less likely to head for the carbs when hungry.

 

[zuludog]

I have been checking the carbohydrate... Of which sugars. How much is a good amount? I understand the lower the better but....

Colin has stated something on another Thread, which is an idea that I've been trying to get across and put into words as well

All plain natural yogurt, Greek or otherwise, has low sugar, so whether it's 3, 4, or 5% it won't make much difference to your overall intake
Don't get hung up (as we used to say when I was a young man) about the numbers. Look at this as part of your overall diet

 

[rebrascora]

I totally agree with @silentsquirrel
Only look at the total carbs. Ignore anything else and use your BG meter to show you which carbs and in what portion size suit your personal diabetes.
If you have a lot of weight to lose then keeping your fat intake low-ish initially,as well as eating low carb,will help to drop the weight quicker,but fat helps to keep you feeling full for longer because it takes longer to digest and provides slow release energy so choosing whole milk natural yoghurt would be a better choice,in my opinion,than low fat or fat free.

Personally I like the Milbona Creamy Greek natural yoghurt from Lidl. Sadly they seem to have stopped selling it in the big 1 litre buckets and just have 500ml tubs now (if you are lucky) sometimes just the 4x125ml pots. You have to pay particular attention to the labelling though as the Low Fat and Creamy versions both have very similar packaging and it is easy to pick up the low fat variety by mistake.

 

[trophywench]

I used to adore FAGE sheep's milk yoghurt, in fact in Greece sheep's milk was practically all you could get in smaller places where we liked going. Since the turn of this century you do get cow's milk ones too. (Though I've never yet seen a cow in Greece ...)

 

[Roobee]

Thank you everyone! Things are a bit clearer now.... I may have more questions!!

 

[Nishikoi]

Hi everyone,

Having recently been diagnosed as pre diabetic I am trying to sort my diet out....i love yoghurt and read that low fat Greek yoghurt is OK. My shopping was just delivered and on the yoghurt the sugar traffic light is Amber?? Have I misunderstood or bought the wrong one??

Also I have been taking biomel for healthy gut but now I'm not sure if they are too high in sugar.... What level is best on the sugar and carbs that sugar??

If anyone can help I would be really grateful!

Ruth x

I've had muller light they do a one with no added sugar and I'm OK with this. You could look at alpro pudding pots they are non dairy and come in flavours they are in the free from aisle in supermarket and are similar to yoghurt

 

[Drummer]

Watch the carb count when it says no added sugar - just because carbohydrate is not added in the form of sugar crystals doesn't mean it is low carb.

 

[Nishikoi]

Watch the carb count when it says no added sugar - just because carbohydrate is not added in the form of sugar crystals doesn't mean it is low carb.

Thanks for that I check my sugars after and I seem OK with it but I do excersise a lot so maybe why