Eddy Edson
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Recently I've found that upping my fibre intake has a pretty big impact on BG levels. In particular, fibre at 20% of total carbs at each meal seems to keep my BG profile across the day looking much more "non-diabetic" then previously: waking in the range 4.6 - 5.5, post-prandial say 6 - 8.5, daily avg 5.5 - 6.5.
As a little experiment over the last week I've looked at my standard breakfast, with & without the addition of 2 tsp [EDIT: Oops! "2 tablespoons"] of chia seeds (great fibre, also protein, easy on the innards, no particular taste & avail from grocery store 30m from home).
Standard b'fast: 2 thin slices grilled ham, 1 pce wholewheat toast+smear of butter, small fruit/melon bowl, extra large full-fat flat white. (Not ideal but hard to give up! The rest of the day is usually plants/unprocessed, plus maybe some fish or chicken - I'm a sinner in the morning & grow towards the light as the day progresses, waking next day in a state of nutritional grace 🙂
Without chia: Total carbs ~52g, fibre ~2g, net carbs ~50g, fibre 4%. Post-prandial BG: +4 to +5.
With chia: Total carbs ~64g, fibre ~13g, net carbs ~51g, fibre 20%. Post-prandial BG: +2 to +2.5.
Over a day I'm eating ~30g fibre, the generally recommended level, and ~150g total carbs - so 20% fibre.
In many ways this is obviously consistent with the common recommendation for a low GI/GL approach, but for me it's much more useful, practically.
When you look into the published GI scores for various foods, they're very often based on a small number of test subjects without metabolic syndrome & with a wide variation in outcomes. Scores at different times and places for the same food can be very different. And you usually don't eat individual foods; you eat meals, and how things interact and combine is usually not very clear.
Fibre as proportion of total carbs works way better, for me.
As a little experiment over the last week I've looked at my standard breakfast, with & without the addition of 2 tsp [EDIT: Oops! "2 tablespoons"] of chia seeds (great fibre, also protein, easy on the innards, no particular taste & avail from grocery store 30m from home).
Standard b'fast: 2 thin slices grilled ham, 1 pce wholewheat toast+smear of butter, small fruit/melon bowl, extra large full-fat flat white. (Not ideal but hard to give up! The rest of the day is usually plants/unprocessed, plus maybe some fish or chicken - I'm a sinner in the morning & grow towards the light as the day progresses, waking next day in a state of nutritional grace 🙂
Without chia: Total carbs ~52g, fibre ~2g, net carbs ~50g, fibre 4%. Post-prandial BG: +4 to +5.
With chia: Total carbs ~64g, fibre ~13g, net carbs ~51g, fibre 20%. Post-prandial BG: +2 to +2.5.
Over a day I'm eating ~30g fibre, the generally recommended level, and ~150g total carbs - so 20% fibre.
In many ways this is obviously consistent with the common recommendation for a low GI/GL approach, but for me it's much more useful, practically.
When you look into the published GI scores for various foods, they're very often based on a small number of test subjects without metabolic syndrome & with a wide variation in outcomes. Scores at different times and places for the same food can be very different. And you usually don't eat individual foods; you eat meals, and how things interact and combine is usually not very clear.
Fibre as proportion of total carbs works way better, for me.
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