Keep your blood sugar level under control and get all your needed nutrients from fruit.
Fruits are fabulous food choices. They are bursting with vitamins, antioxidants, minerals, and fibre.
But should you eat fruits if you have diabetes?
Fruits, despite their benefits, tend to be rich in carbohydrates, primarily the simple sugars, glucose and fructose.
Yet, it is certainly not necessary to eliminate fruit from your diet. In fact, you should be eating fruit. The American Diabetes Association reports that any fruit is fine to eat for a person with diabetes.
So, how do you keep your blood sugar levels from rising whilst enjoying fruit? Read on to find out.
Eating fruit and keeping your blood sugar levels under control
Here are three strategies for eating fruit and keeping your blood sugar levels stable:
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Choose fruits with a lower carbohydrate value
Your body, whether you have diabetes or not, needs carbohydrates. The problem is that most of us consume way more carbs than we actually need.
People with diabetes are advised to closely monitor the amount of carbs they eat because if you have too much glucose in your bloodstream your blood sugar levels will soar. Your dietician would be able to help you determine how much carbs you can eat each day.
After you know what your daily carbohydrate budget is, you can start choosing which food items you’d like to spend your budget on. Foods like bread and potatoes are loaded with carbs. Rather than squandering a large portion of your budget on three potatoes, you can opt for foods with fewer carbs. Fruits can be high in carbs too and some fruits have significantly more carbs than others. A cup of mango pieces, for example, has more than twice the carbs of a cup of papaya pieces.
One strategy, to keep your blood sugar levels in check, is to eat more fruit with a lower carb count. Some of these include berries (strawberries, cranberries, blueberries), oranges, grapefruit, cantaloupe, and kiwi.
Watch out for fruits with lots of carbohydrates:
- A medium banana has 27 grams of carbs.
- One cup of cut mango yields 28 grams of carbs.
- A cup of cut pineapple yields 22 grams of carbs.
You don’t necessarily have to stop eating fruit that has lots of carbs. You can just eat a little less.
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Control your portions
When selecting fruit to eat, you should try not to exceed 15 grams of carbohydrates per serving. The size of the serving will depend upon the carbohydrate content of the fruit. A benefit of choosing a low-carbohydrate fruit is that you can have a larger portion. It is important to note, however, that even if you opt for a higher carbohydrate fruit, it won’t have an effect on your blood sugar as long as the serving size does not exceed 15 grams of carbohydrates.
The following fruit servings contain about 15 grams of carbohydrates:
- 1/2 medium apple
- 1/2 medium banana
- 1 cup blackberries
- 3/4 cup blueberries
- 1 cup cubed cantaloupe or honeydew melon
- 1 medium orange or nectarine
- 1 cup raspberries
- 1 1/4 cup whole strawberries
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Eat fruit with other low-carb foods
Since fruit mainly falls into the category of high-carb foods, you’d want to eat them with meals where there are no other major sources of carbs.
You can, for example, add fruit to low-carb breakfasts. Try eggs, sausages, and low-carb muffins with some melon. You might also like raspberries and low-carb pancakes.
Combining fruit with other low-carb food choices will keep your blood sugar more stable.
More tips:
- Watch out for dried fruit. When eating dried fruit, like raisins and prunes, you need to keep your portions small as they contain lots of carbs.
- Take Manna Blood Sugar Support. An excellent way to stabilise your blood sugar is to take Manna Blood Sugar Support with your meals. When taken with food, the supplement gels with the food in the stomach to reduce the slow-down rate at which glucose from the food is released into the bloodstream.
- Drink less fruit juice. Eating an orange is better than drinking orange juice. Juice does not contain fibre and, although natural, contains lots of sugar.
Takeaway
Fruit is delicious and healthy, and you should enjoy them, whether you have diabetes or not. You can avoid soaring blood sugar levels by eating more fruit that are lower in carbohydrates. You can also control your portions and enjoy fruit with other low-carb foods.
