Carb Smart:
Adjusting Carbohydrate Load For
Good Diabetic Health

Becoming carb smart for diabetic health requires a quick education in carbohydrate counting since carbs account for about 90% of the rise in your blood sugar levels within 2 hours of eating. Carbohydrates are a combination of all sugars, fiber, starches and sugar alcohols you consume on a daily basis. Any of these four will affect your blood sugars on different levels.

Carbohydrates though, is our body's main source of fuel. There is 4 main types of carbohydrates, all with their own main purpose.

For many years, diabetics were always warned sugar, thus fresh fruits, was the cause of their disease and its continued ingestion made the condition worse. Many people to this day still believe they may have no sweets.

But becoming carb smart teaches you how carbohydrates, regardless of what food source it comes from, is still carbs. Your body does not care if those carbs came from a piece of cake or pie, from a jumbo plate of spaghetti, from an extra large serving of mashed potatoes or from that jumbo submarine sandwich you just ate for lunch. When your digestive system breaks each of these foods down into glucose, you are still going to notice a quick rise in your blood sugar levels.

Four Main Types Of Carbohydrates We Ingest Daily

• Simple sugars: is any combination of glucose, fructose or galactose which is generally a mother nature given carb. An excellent example of this is the white sugar you buy in a grocery store. Sugar products (all sugar products, honey, molasses etc.) are just naturally higher in carbohydrates than other food lines.

• Complex sugars: or often referred to as starches, is our body's main source of fuel for energy. Think of it as a car runs on gas, we run on complex sugars. Most of this type of sugar we receive from rice, corn, potatoes, beans, peas, pasta plus many others

• Complex sugars known as soluble and insoluble fibers: Both of these are also necessary for our continued health. In our diet though, the largest percentage of the time we acquire them from thickening agents placed in processed foods. The safer way to acquire them is from eating foods that are naturally high in fiber from nature (many grains, fruits and vegetables)

• Sugar alcohols: is a sweetener commonly used in the manufacturing community for use in food products. Because it has been proven that sugar alcohols do not completely break down and get metabolized in our small intestine, this is commonly used for many foods, especially the diabetic. How the manufacturing community therefore differentiates the carbohydrate load on any of these products, it is often referred to as net carbs. By not being 100% digestible, this equates to a lower blood sugar spike. The downfall of this equation though, partial digestion usually leads to gas, bloating, diarrhea and stomach cramps with over-consumption. With time, your body will adjust to the difference and the symptoms do abate.

Often, most people are advised regular fruit is also high in sugars. Because of this, many diabetics feel they must give up fruits also to be carb smart.

The reality of it is, natural sugars derived by nature while ingested in whole food products do not escalate the blood sugars as dramatically as sugars in processed foods. The primary reason for this, fruit is also high in natural fiber. The fiber content of fresh fruit helps to stabilize and lower your glucose levels.

You also receive the greater advantage though, fruit is high in vitamins, minerals and nutrients which our body needs for a healthy immune system. So although fruit is high in sugars, it is still considered beneficial, but as with over-consumption of anything else, you will lead to a loss of those added benefits if you do not control your portion sizes.

High Carb vs. Carb Smart Selections

How Does Fiber Factor Into Being Carb Smart

The two types of fiber commonly found in our diet are known as soluble fiber or insoluble. These are:

• Soluble fiber: will almost completely dissolve in water such as oats, some beans, barley and some high water concentration fruits

• Insoluble fiber: almost never is completely absorbed into the body because they do not completely dissolve in water (or gastric juices). This includes types such as wheat bran, whole grains, most vegetables and some fruits.

How Do We Get Enough Into Our Daily Diet?

• Try adding oatmeal or a whole grain cereal for breakfast, change white rice to brown rice, whole grain breads should take the place of white bread, and add some cooked beans to your salad, soups or chili.

• add more vegetables to your diet plus raw salad foods

• use the fresh fruits still in the peel (which is where most of the fiber is on many fruits) instead of juice or canned fruits

Controlling Your Blood Sugar Swings

So by following some of the guidelines above, switching your food selections back and forth each day, reducing carbohydrates in some of your mealtime choices each meal, you can actually eat anything you desire. You just have to follow the carb smart guideline of portion control, switch to low carb selections and eat with high carb selections in each meal, and rely more on the natural sugars from fruits and vegetables instead of added sweeteners. Just by following these few simple principles you will notice you have your blood sugars under steady consistent control.

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