Diabetes Question?

[mamabird1953]

Hi, I'm on the raw food challenge and my SO has been trying but after having a smoothie his blood sugar went way up.It was up last night from a fruit salad. We're wondering if he's getting too much fruit. He's been eating 2 veggie salads a day and he adds some tuna. He's also had two low blood sugar reactions which woke him up shakey and in a sweat and very confused, having to down some sugar as a result. Seems like being too low on calories causes his low blood sugar and too high on calories raises his sugars. Any ideas? Thanks. He also needs to lose about 50 lbs.

[RawVegan4Health]

Look for lower GI fruit when using fruit. Look into green smoothies. My Dad has Type-2 diabetes and says for every gram of fiber he takes in it cancels out a gram of sugar. So look for added fiber by adding greens to the smoothies. For what it's worth, he tried a green smoothie once and his blood sugar went up, but he used something like 3 bananas and some spinach. Banana's are one of the worst fruits you can eat as a diabetic because of its high GI.

[Liserpiece]

I've been looking into this as well. My Mom is diabetic (insulin dependant, type 2) and I have been trying to help her transition over to being raw, I really believe it will help. What I've found is when eating fruits you can add nuts to slow down the sugar absorbtion. With smoothies, the fruit is already "predigested" with all the blending, making the digesting of those sugars even quicker. So you might try adding the nuts to the whole fruit (instead of the smoothie). My Mom has begun doing this and her numbers have been GREAT, remaining low and having no "crashes" later in the days and evenings. She just started, so I can't provide a lot of help, but it is encouraging.
Good luck!

[juliebove]

Some fruit is better than others for diabetics. Many of us find we can eat berries but not bananas. Also, keep in mind the portion size of fruits for a diabetic. They're much smaller than you might think. 1/2 a small banana, 10 grapes, 1 small apple or orange. And some of us can't even eat that! Those are just the suggested amounts if you are carb counting, which those who use insulin have to do.

If he is waking to hypos then there are a couple of things that might be going on. He might be having reactive hypoglycemia. That can happen when a diabetic eats a meal or snack that is mainly carbs with little to no protein. This can cause a spike in blood sugar, followed by a rapid drop. Not good. The other thing is he might not be eating a snack before bed. He should be eating something that has some carbs and some protein and/or fat. Perhaps a flax cracker, small amount of fruit and some nuts. Or some corn salad. Something like that.

Diabetics generally can't just go around eating what they want because their bodies don't process carbs in a normal fashion. And it's probably best for him to base the bulk of his eating around vegetables and non sweet fruits.

[mamabird1953]

Thankyou for the advice, today when we into our health food store to get salad bar he started getting a lo sugar reaction. He was dizzy and sweaty. We went around a got him all the free samples till he felt better. Had to bring it up quik. There really does have to be a balance. I think maybe he cant go totally raw. He doesnt want to anyway but he wants to be at least 80% raw. Today was scary as well as last night.