Foods and nutrients that avoid or turn off high blood sugar....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 3-4-2014

Most people know to avoid soft drinks and fast food and foods with high fructose corn syrup.

Most people know now to avoid eating packaged desserts and packaged snacks and “TV dinners” because of the ingredients they contain.  And, most people know to avoid consuming a lot of sugar each day.

Many people know to avoid white rice. Some know that brown rice is little better.

Many people know to avoid refined grain breads and some know to avoid diet soft drinks and to cut back or close to eliminate whole grains.

Increasingly people know to avoid wheat due to its hybrid/GMO super inflammatory gluten and other components and that most of it goes into refined grain foods with other harmful ingredients.

Some people know to avoid foods made from soy that are NOT the traditional Japanese soy foods and not made there or from the small amount of soy that is NOT GMO.

Those foods and drinks either fatten, or boost blood sugar high enough to cause emotional effects and can lead to insulin resistance, or they cause high chronic inflammation and heart disease to make the effects of high blood sugar more deadly!

Some do all of the above! 

But if you like food, love to enjoy your food, and have favorite foods you like, what can you do instead?

1.  You can eat from food styles with good tasting foods that include NONE of the ingredients above.

2.  You can eat MORE of the foods that cause zero or nearly zero blood sugar spikes.

3.  You can eat foods you like with recipes that no longer use the bad ingredients listed.

4.  You can take supplements or eat things in foods that help you process the foods you do eat without blood sugar spikes.  This is great to do in general AND right before you eat any sweet treats that you do allow yourself.

5.  You can do the kinds of short but intense exercises that cause your body to send blood sugar to your muscles both during the exercises AND for several hours afterwards.   (Superslow strength training; and shorter, high intensity interval or variable cardio all work.)

This post has ideas for the first four. (Do use the exercises; but we cover those in other posts.)

1.  You can eat from food styles with good tasting foods that include NONE of the ingredients above.

These work:

The Mediterranean diet with red wine in moderation, extra virgin olive oil, and garlic and other spices -- when you eat extra vegetables and remove or cut way back on grains works well.

Your favorite foods that fit the DASH II diet but remove oils from grains such as soy and canola and use extra virgin olive oil instead and allow yourself some red wine.  Also remove or cut way back on grains and add extra vegetables.

Vegan Vegetarian with all the supplements need to compensate for no animal protein, B12, zinc, vitamin K2, iron, and vitamin D3 and some of the retinol form of vitamin A and some DHA from algae and walnuts and flaxseed oil for the plant form of omega 3 without excessive omega 6, relying on beans and lentils and nuts and the vegetables themselves for protein can work.  Also remove oils from grains such as soy and canola and use extra virgin olive oil instead and allow yourself some red wine.  Cut way back on grains and add extra vegetables.

Or you can be a lacto- or ovo- or lacto ovo- or pescatarian- vegetarian eating  some health OK dairy or pastured eggs or both or adding wild caught fish.

In both those cases, avoid all soy foods not the traditional fermented kids made from ONLY NON-GMO soy.

2.  You can eat MORE of the foods that cause zero or nearly zero blood sugar spikes.

Organic, nonstarchy vegetables work well.  You can eat some of them raw.  Some work well steamed with some extra virgin olive oil.  Some work well in salads with extra virgin olive oil.  And some, notably those high in carotenes work well even when cooked longer.  Tomatoes work well each of these ways!

It also works to consume them in blends using a new much quieter VitaMix that is now available.  They give you more nutrition AND all the fiber with a smooth tasting drink that goes down easy.  And, you can add spices like garlic and ginger.  You can add things like basil, Swiss chard, carrots, and even some fruit such as bananas too. These lighten the flavor and even add some sweetness. Just make most of the drink the nonstarchy vegetables. One drink I tasted had mostly kale but it also had kiwifruit and ginger.  Chilled on a hot day it was really good.

Every one of these food styles works best for good health, fat loss, and avoiding blood sugar spikes with more of these vegetables.

Health OK protein foods work well, nuts, beans and lentils, and mushrooms are great.  Pastured eggs, cheese and yogurt from cattle fed only grass and nonfat cottage cheese and Greek Yogurt; and poultry either from pasture fed birds or super-fat-trimmed skinless poultry, wild caught fish, and even beef and lamb from animals only fed grain and organic sprouts all work.

Besides those foods health OK fats and oils in moderation also work.  Extra virgin olive oil, avocados, tree nuts if you aren’t allergic, some butter or full fat cheese from animals fed only grass and organic sprouts, and macadamia nut oil or good quality coconut oil for cooking all work.

3.  You can eat foods you like with recipes that no longer use the bad ingredients listed.

Here is one resource.  Mrs Kelly Herring does recipes that use health OK and almost OK ingredients. 

In this email, Mike Geary lists the focaccia bread she makes that is both delicious and totally grain free.  He’s taste tasted it personally and loves it.

It also has a link to buy her list of health OK and almost OK desserts.  (Some of those I think better of than others. But you might like several if you are into cooking. Or you may have other people in your family who want desserts and who would like these.)

http://www.truthaboutabs.blogspot.com/2013/09/gluten-free-low-carb-paleo-italian.html

4.  You can take supplements or eat things in foods that help you process the foods you do eat without blood sugar spikes.  This is great to do in general AND right before you eat any sweet treats that you do allow yourself.

Chromium Polynicotinate; alpha lipoic acid; or its active half r-lipoic acid, turmeric or curcumin from turmeric, fenugreek, cinnamon, biotin, and others all can help.

I take chromium polynicotinate and alpha lipoic acid.  And when I eat rolled oats every other day ( the one grain I still eat) for breakfast I take a cinnamon capsule first.

I also take curcumin every night with black pepper. And in some meals I use turmeric and black pepper as spices.  (Adding a chilled water and ginger powder drink as a wake up drink each morning and the curcumin/black pepper also cut my LDL from about 106 to 76.)

Curcumin or turmeric with black pepper also prevent Alzheimer’s disease and many cancers in addition to lowering high blood sugars!

And, that’s about half the list of helpful nutrients and supplements.  There are many more. 

One called IC5 has upgraded versions of cinnamon and fenugreek and berberine and two others that virtually prevents sweets from boosting your blood sugar at all.

Bitter melon also has extra strong effects.

And, a new version of HCA has literally tested to turn off type 2 diabetes in some people.  It’s new and hard to get but will become more available.  Jarrow makes it.

The drug Metformin in low doses several times a day is essentially a very concentrated compound from what once was a supplement that worked.  With the drug, you have to also take the sublingual form of vitamin B12 since the drug tends to deplete it.

Note two things: 

1. Mixing drugs or the most powerful supplements might cause too much blood sugar reduction. 

That can cause serious problems.

So having a blood sugar level tester and a remedy for low blood sugar at hand and working with a good doctor is recommended if you have type 2 diabetes with HBA1C of 7.0 or higher now.

2.  The food upgrades and the exercises are essential.  And, the milder supplements such as chromium polynicotinate, alpha lipoic acid, and turmeric/curcumin that also have other health benefits are all highly recommended.

Personal note:

I was exercising but eating too many grains and sugars.  Despite NOT eating or drinking virtually any of the things on the bad list above, back when I had no clue about what blood sugar numbers indicated high health risk, my doctor from that time flagged my fasting glucose of 115 saying it was NOT a good reading.

I then added the chromium polynicotinate and alpha lipoic acid; switched to non sugar added apple sauce only; and cut my sugar intake in half otherwise – and I kept exercising.

That dropped my fasting blood sugar to the range of 87 to 97 and my HBA1C to 5.7.

Then for fat loss reasons I added superslow strength training; cut my sugar intake in half twice more; eliminated all the wheat germ from my diet and all bread with any kind of wheat flour.  And I went from one grape juice a day to 100% cranberry juice to 100% cranberry juice every other day and chilled water and a cranberry supplement every other day.

My fasting blood sugar readings are a bit better ranging from 81 to 87.  But the big change is that my HBA1C went down to 5.4.  That, recent research has found is finally low enough to protect me from mental decline.

At 115 fasting glucose and even a 5.7 HBA1C level, that was not yet the case.

And, though I have belly fat to lose still, I have lost and kept off 26 pounds of fat.