Best dried fruits for diabetics?

[Purple_Panda]

I've started missing sweet cravings and it's strange I was never into dried fruits as much before. But especially visiting ethnic food shops and seeing the wide and beautiful selections of dried fruits and nuts I'm soooooo tempted. But are there any dried fruits suitable for type 2 diabetics? Or are they the stuff of the devil?

I'm about to venture out to the shop as I've developed a taste for kosher pickles and find they don't spike my BG levels at all. Tempted to get some dates or black raisins but yes let me know. Thanks.

 

[Drummer]

There are none, I'm afraid. Fruit increases in its sugar content as it ripens, and then it is concentrated when dried.
They can be about 3/4 of their weight in carbs, about 75% is not unusual.
When I want something sweet I make up some gelatine and no sugar jelly (so it is quite a strong gel) then add frozen berries. It sets quite quickly.

 

[trophywench]

There is very little if any fruit we can eat vey much of. Possibly gooseberries you pick yourself are about the best choice - cos they have ruddy great thorns are usually sour and have vey thick skins.

Otherwise a few fresh raspberries are useful because although lovely, even luscious, so many seeds and not a huge amount of actual flesh on them.

 

[Docb]

Agree with the above.

In the early days I found that it was the dried fruit in the muesli I was eating that was primarily responsible for the big post breakfast spikes I was getting. Has to be avoided I am afraid.

 

[Inka]

Dates are very sweet. I’ve used them as a hypo treatment for moderate low sugars, so I wouldn’t choose those. Prunes and apricots are better, as long as you remember each dried one is an original fruit. Drying doesn’t take away the carbs.

 

[Purple_Panda]

There is very little if any fruit we can eat vey much of. Possibly gooseberries you pick yourself are about the best choice - cos they have ruddy great thorns are usually sour and have vey thick skins.

Otherwise a few fresh raspberries are useful because although lovely, even luscious, so many seeds and not a huge amount of actual flesh on them.

I have been eating a lot of berries and my BG levels seem to be staying within the normal ranges.

Dried fruits just look so amazing and tempting though.

 

[Pine Marten]

I also agree with the others, @Purple_Panda, I used to love dried fruit. Before D I used to treat myself to boxes of dates, but I haven't touched any for years. At home Mr Marten and I often have rasp/black/blueberries (strawberries in the summer, not the tasteless things in shops at the moment) with cream. And about once a week we share a banana, which I can now tolerate. And sometimes sugarfree jelly with frozen berries and cream....

 

[trophywench]

Well I like rasps and strawbs - but I also like properly ripe fresh fruit in season and being as we've always liked France it could be anything - peaches and nectarines (never seen one of the latter until #1 and I drove to Spain in 1976!) apricots, greengages - whatever, plus the odd apple, pear or orange, errr, scrumped along the way. Whatever should you do when these things literally leap off the tree into your hand? - best hide them somewhere appropriate inside your person before you meet a gendarme .....

One thing that amazed us in October one year in a market we happened to come across - and you have to investigate don't you? was a stall selling nothing but a large selection of different types of Appelation Controllee ..... mushrooms!

 

[Eddy Edson]

Well I like rasps and strawbs - but I also like properly ripe fresh fruit in season and being as we've always liked France it could be anything - peaches and nectarines (never seen one of the latter until #1 and I drove to Spain in 1976!) apricots, greengages - whatever, plus the odd apple, pear or orange, errr, scrumped along the way. Whatever should you do when these things literally leap off the tree into your hand? - best hide them somewhere appropriate inside your person before you meet a gendarme .....

One thing that amazed us in October one year in a market we happened to come across - and you have to investigate don't you? was a stall selling nothing but a large selection of different types of Appelation Controllee ..... mushrooms!

Stone fruit season here, so peaches and nectarines. Yum!

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

There may be some nutritional benefits in dried fruits ofer, say, a toffee (fibre... maybe some trace vitamins and whatnot)... but alas I’m afraid like as not your body will break toffee and dried apricot down with equal enthusiasm, so the BG upheaval is likely to be pretty stark from dried fruits. If anything the drying and ripe ing will have only served to concentrate the carbs.

That’s not to say you can’t have them... but just that you’d be wise to keep them in the ‘one every now and then’ category, rather than the ‘handy for snacks’.

Of course, there are no guarantees, and perhaps your body would be particularly lenient with the BG spike, but in general people with diabetes would be better to use them as hypo treatment would be my guess.