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Apple's.....

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K

Kitty W

Active Member
Hi,

I have a question about apple's! I'll try to explain my question as best I can!

My other half is a month into his T2 journey. We started out changing our diet and eating much healthier and reducing our carbs - or so I thought!

I bought lots of fruit - including apple's and said as it's low GI apple's should be fine to snack on.

Anyway after much more learning and research I found out that apple's do have a fair amount of carbs compared to berries etc. This coincided with my OH snacking on a couple of apple's a day and his baseline BG increased.

So my roundabout question is. Even though he might not have gotten a spike, could eating too many carbs through fruit cause a general increase in BG. I've got a feeling the answer is yes, but I'd love confirmation from more experienced people.

Many thanks.
 
Yes it would. Fruit counts towards your daily carb intake. I have always counted them since diagnosis many decades ago. In my view WW and Slimming World are to blame encouraging people to eat loads of fruit. For diabetics wanting to lose weight they are "not to go to" organisations!
 
Even though the carbs in Apple's are (natural sugars ) that doesn't make them good for diabetics though lots of people may think so !
Carol
 
There are many misconceptions, as what might be considered as 'healthy' food for non diabetics, are very much no go or go slow things for Type 2 who are needing to be careful about total carbohydrate intake. And all those healthy foods are now thought to contribute to the increase in diabetes, so too much carbohydrate even though it may be brown versions of bread, rice, pasta and lots of fruit.
So 2 apples as snacks would contribute quite a lot of carbs to the daily total as it is going to be in addition to the carbs as part of your meals.
 
Just to clarify, in the context above, "diabetics" mean people with type 2 diabetes.
If you have Type 1, apples are no problem provide you carb count for them and take insulin.
 
It is all complicated, at least I think, by the fact that there are lots of different varieties of apple, you get them in various states of ripeness and they are different sizes. Says to me that any table listing the carb content of an apple has got to be a pretty crude estimate of the carb content of the thing in your hand.

What I found is that a shop bought apple (can't remember what variety) gave me a decent spike although I could eat the cox's from my garden with no discernable effect. Probably because the shop bough apple was much higher in carb content having been sold as ripe as possible to make it more palatable to more people whereas I eat my garden fruit a bit under ripe if anything.

My take is that it is best to use the tables and apps as a guide when it comes to fresh stuff. There is no substitute for eating and testing to see what really suits you.
 
Thank you everyone for your replies and confirming my suspicions.

Our initial plan of action to control his type 2 was just to reduce carbs from bread, rice, pasta etc and eat more fruit and veg. It's quite quickly come apparent that if we want to get proper control of this we need to be far more mindful of total carb intake regardless of the GI. It's mind blowing but we're up for the challenge!
 
Buy the book "Carbs & Cals" it's just pictures of foods with portion sizes it's a eye opener and very helpful.

shop.diabetes.org.uk

Carbs & Cals

Carbs and Cals is an easy-to-understand visual guide to carbohydrate and calorie counting for people with diabetes. Available on Diabetes UK Online Shop.
shop.diabetes.org.uk shop.diabetes.org.uk
 
Kitty W said:
Fab thank you. I've just ordered it
Click to expand...
It's very good really helped me out and surprised me that some foods I thought were good for T2 were not so good.
 
I tend to allow 15-20g of carb for a medium-sized apple. lots of vitamins, fibre, and taste lovely, but certainly need to be considered for overall carb content and not a ‘free food’. 🙂
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
I tend to allow 15-20g of carb for a medium-sized apple. lots of vitamins, fibre, and taste lovely, but certainly need to be considered for overall carb content and not a ‘free food’. 🙂
Click to expand...
Thank you for the reply.

It's such a steep learning curve isn't it! I can understand why so many people get frustrated and confused. It must be easy to end up with quite an unhealthy relationship with food when even when you think your doing ok things can still seem illogical! We are getting there though and yesterday my OH had the best day so far with his BG levels so we must be doing something right! 🙂
 
My DSN told me to only have two 80gm portions of fruit a day - preferably ending in "berries". I found apples give me a terrible spike.
 
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