Best Fruits for Diabetes!

GUEST COLUMN: Dr N Prabhudev

Bengaluru, Dec. 7:

Whether you have diabetes or not, fruit is your friend. Branch out from apples and bananas, and eat a variety of fruits, especially blue, red and purple fruits like berries, which are high in antioxidants and raise blood sugar the least. Try not to eat fruit alone. Pair it with healthy fat, like nuts or nut butter, to slow digestion and blood sugar rise. Aviod dried fruits and fruit juice consumption. And if you have diabetes, remember to count the total grams of carbohydrates, not just the grams of sugar! Fruit has the same benefits for people living with diabetes as it does for those who do not have diabetes!
Fruits are powerhouses of nutrients, packed with vitamins, minerals, fibre, and a variety of disease-fighters called phytochemicals. Most adults should eat about two cups of fruit daily, – it lowers your risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and other health threats. Dried fruit contains more sugar than fresh or frozen fruit.
Fruits get their sweet taste from a natural form of sugar called fructose. Your body quickly converts this carbohydrate to glucose, which can cause your blood sugar levels to rise — just what you’re trying to avoid while managing diabetes. That doesn’t mean you need to stay away from fruits! In fact, these delicious foods should be a routine part of your diet. But what’s the best fruit for diabetes? Fortunately, with a little planning and careful choosing, you can enjoy a variety of fruits.
When you eat fruits, your body absorbs their fructose. However, your cells can’t use fructose as a source of energy, as they prefer the form of blood sugar called glucose. To fix this problem, enzymes in your liver convert much of the fructose in fruit to glucose, which is then released into your bloodstream, causing your blood sugar to rise.
However, fruits also contain fibre, which helps to slow down this converted glucose as it enters your blood. That’s just one reason why fruits make for a healthier snack or dessert than other carb-rich foods and beverages which lack fibre. Still, if you have diabetes, you need to manage your carb intake as part of your overall plan for keeping your blood sugar in check.
Apple a day keeps the doctor away! The fruit with highest calories is The Date! The fruit with lowest calories is the strawberry! The fruit with highest fat and potassium is Avocados and one with lowest fat protein is Watermelon! The fruit with the highest sugar content id Figs! The fruit with the lowest sugar content is Lemon! Raspberries contain the highest fibre! Oranges contain a lot of calcium! Kiwi fruit contains a lot of vitamin K!
Benefits of Fruits for People with Diabetes
Reduced risk for cardiovascular disease. If you have diabetes, your risk for a heart attack or stroke is twice that of the average person. You also have an increased risk of developing these conditions at a younger age than someone who doesn’t have diabetes. The nutrients in fruits help guard against heart attacks, strokes, and other forms of cardiovascular disease by protecting blood vessels, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, and making blood less likely to clot, among other benefits.
The fibre in fruits not only helps prevent blood sugar spikes by slowing digestion but also makes you feel fuller, which can help you keep a healthy weight! One study that included more than 200,000 people found that eating at least five servings of fruits rich in a chemical called anthocyanin – such as blueberries, apples, and pears), each week reduced the risk for type 2 diabetes by 23%.
The fibre in fruits aids digestion in another way, by helping ensure that you have regular bowel movements. And since water makes up much of the content of fruit, it helps you stay hydrated, too. The glycaemic index – GI measures how a food affects your blood sugar. Foods that are low on the scale raise it slowly. Those high on the scale raise it quickly. Eating low-GI foods can help you keep control of your blood sugar.
While the GI is a useful number to know, it doesn’t always give an accurate picture of how much a food will raise your blood sugar. That’s because the GI doesn’t tell you how many carbohydrates you’re actually getting when you eat a specific food. So, nutrition experts developed a metric called the glycaemic load – GL, which combines portion size and GI to give you a better idea of how much a food actually raises your blood sugar. For example, an orange has a GI of 52 but a glycaemic load of 4.4, which is low. A candy bar with a GI of 55 may have a GL of 22.1, which is high.
Watch your portion sizes, especially with dried fruit. For example, two tablespoons of raisins have the same amount of carbs as a small apple. Choose fresh or frozen fruit when you can. Go easy on the fruit juice. It’s high in carbs -8 ounces of apple juice has 29 grams of carbs). And it doesn’t have fiber to slow digestion and prevent blood sugar spikes such as whole fruit does. Combine fruit with other foods that contain fat and protein. Like fibre, these macronutrients help keep blood sugar from spiking when you eat carbs. Try spreading peanut butter on apple slices or eat berries with yogurt. The protein and fat will also help you feel full sooner, so you’ll eat less.

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