6 ways to control blood glucose levels

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What was done to your food before it was dished up? I'm still talking about GI values.

I mentioned that particle size has impact on the GI value of a food. Any sort of processing -grinding, milling, mashing, beating, liquidizing, refining - reduces particle size and raises the GI value. Heat and cooking increases the ease of digestion, and so also raises the GI value.

Here are six ways to reduce the resultant rise in blood-glucose levels.

1. Eat more slowly. Research shows that eating more slowly raises blood-glucose levels more gently.

2. Add lots of low GI vegetables to your plate - especially salads. Salads are usually raw, or if not raw, at least chilled. Adding low GI veg will slow down the rate of digestion. Slower digestion equals a slower release of glucose into the blood stream, and a slower release of glucose leads to a more gradual insulin reaction.

3. Eat regularly. What you eat at breakfast, strangely enough, impacts on what you eat at lunch time, and lunch impacts on dinner; so a low GI, low fat breakfast - for example fresh fruit and oat porridge - will keep you going until lunchtime without a problem. You will not then be tempted to cram high GI foods into your mouth in an attempt to assuage your hunger. Hunger as a result of eating high GI foods, or of not eating at all, will make you overeat at the earliest opportunity.

4. Add low GI foods to your meal. Whole-grains, beans, lentils. These all fill you up, and keep you satisfied for longer.

5. Eat in-between meal snacks - fruit is the healthiest and easiest snack, or crudites.

6. Eat fibre. Most of us don't eat anywhere near the recommended 30 - 40gm a day. Fibre is filling and satisfying. Get it from oats, beans, wholegrain pasta and leafy vegetables like cabbage and spinach. Fibre helps protect against high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes.
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Easter and Pesach greetings

Happy Easter, everyone, and well over the fast.

If you don't want the kids bouncing off the walls and feeling sick, limit their chocolate/sweet intake - rather encourage them to eat fruit instead.

A portable lunch and home in time for dinner

Remember on Monday I said that hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and hypotension (low blood pressure) have very similar presenting symptoms? So it makes sense to treat those symptoms in the same way - at least as far as eating goes. The suggestions I made on Tuesday are applicable treatments for both conditions. But then, those suggestions are good for anyone interested in healthy eating (apart from increasing salt and protein, of course. Most of us eat way too much of those.)

Yesterday I looked at on-the-run breakfasts, and today I'm going to dream up some no-fuss take-to-the-office lunches. A healthy, balanced dinner at home shouldn't ever present a problem - there are new recipes on this blog every week day, and past and current recipes are collected and categorised on my other blogs, listed on the right of this page.

I am a great fan of the soup-salad-sandwich lunch, whether I am at home or at the office. I'll start with soup.

You can make a rich, creamy tasting soup out of butternut or carrots (or both), which is delicious hot or cold.
Start with: 1 onion, peeled and quartered.
Add to this 1 medium butternut, peeled, deseeded and cut in chunks (or 5-6 large carrots, scrubbed and sliced).
Put the prepared veg in a saucepan and pour in about 750ml of chicken or veg stock .
Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 30 mins.
Once the veg are soft, blitz the whole lot with a hand-blender, or in a liquidizer, until it is smooth.
Now you can add more water if you want a thinner soup.
Then add in whatever you like in the way of flavouring - 2 Tblsp curry paste, 2 Tblsp chopped coriander (cilantro) or 2 Tblsp of grated ginger root - and blitz again to disperse the herbs.
Pack into plastic containers (this freezes well, though you may want to blitz it again on thawing).
Serve with a dollop of fat free yoghurt, creme- or fromage fraiche.
I usually get 4-5 servings of about 350ml each out of one pot of soup.

Salads are a fabulous way of packing in all those vitamins and minerals. And 'salad' is very versatile - you can put in pretty much whatever you have. To most people a salad is rabbit food, but it doesn't have to be. I always start off with mixed lettuce leaves because I like lettuce, but you can add rocket; baby spinach; chopped fresh mint; chopped fresh basil; watercress; mustard cress; asparagus and alfalfa sprouts; and I'm still only on the green stuff. For colour and crunch there are: red, yellow and green bell peppers, red onion, radishes, olives, beetroot. For substance add: chickpeas, cannellini beans, broad beans. For extra protein add; hardboiled egg, feta cheese, nuts, pine nuts, seeds, smoked trout. For a sweet surprise add chopped apple, mango, pineapple, pear, grapes, cherry tomatoes, orange segments. No dressing required.
Or you could start with cooked rice or pasta and add any or all the above.
Lucky rabbits!

Sandwiches are versatile, too. You could pack the salad above between two slices of whole wheat bread, or in a bagel, or in a hollowed out whole wheat seed roll. Then there are the usual sandwich fillings; egg- chicken- or tuna mayonaise (use a low oil light mayo, and you don't need to butter the bread). Or choose a filling of cold meat, chicken or cheese.

Full yet? Don't get bogged down with eating the same lunch every day. Ring the changes with left-overs (which don't sound very appetizing after the soup-salad-sandwich combo above!) or look back at the breakfasts I suggested yesterday - many of those make a suitable lunch.

If you suffer with hypoglycemia or hypotension remember to split your meal between lunch and a snack.
And please, watch your portion sizes.

8 ways to reduce hypoglycemic symptoms

Yesterday I gave very brief and simple definitions of low blood pressure (hypotension) and low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), and the likely presenting symptoms for each. Please scroll down to read that post if you missed it.

I want to reiterate - if you have prolonged and/or recurrent symptoms, you need to visit your doctor in order to find and treat the underlying cause. Changing to a healthier way of eating may well help ease the symptoms while you undergo tests, and will certainly do no harm. Keeping a food/symptoms journal for a week to ten days will help highlight any recurring pattern of symptoms. Be sure to track stress levels, too.

Hypoglycemia can be caused or exacerbated by; diseases of the pancreas, liver or kidneys; PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome); diabetes; pregnancy; a weakened immune system; chronic mental or physical stress; alcoholism; allergies or prolonged drug use (including antibiotics). Three types of drug having a known blood glucose lowering effect are monoamine oxidase inhibitors (used to treat depression), quinine sulphate (anti-malarials) and aspirin. However, do NOT stop taking drugs that have been prescribed for you without first checking with your doctor. See what I mean about looking for the root cause of the problem?

One thing about the symptoms of hypoglycemia is that they can very simply be eased by eating something. The symptoms will generally dissipate within ten to fifteen minutes once food is ingested (if they don't, then perhaps hypoglycemia is not the problem). So you will find symptoms easier to manage if you have more, smaller-than-usual, meals throughout the day.

If you have chronic, prolonged or recurrent symptoms of hypoglycemia, here are some suggestions:

DO plan on having something to eat every two-and-a-half to three hours, for example: breakfast at 7:00am, a snack at about 10:00am, lunch at 1:00pm, a snack at 3:30 or 4:00pm, dinner at 6:30pm and a last snack at about 9:00pm (I'm using these times as a rough guideline. Your own preferences and needs will dictate when you eat.)

DO include a little fat, a little protein and, of course, carbohydrates at each meal and snack. You cannot afford to skip or even delay a meal or snack. 

DO keep your portions small - you don't want to increase the number of calories/kilojoules you consume in a day.

DO aim at reducing, or (better still) eliminating, simple and refined carbohydrates like white flour, sugar, honey, all syrups - replace these with natural whole foods. Stick with low- and moderate GI foods.

DO increase your protein intake slightly, by using eggs, nuts, seeds, fish, beans and pulses.

DO avoid caffeine, alcohol and anything with high levels of potassium e.g. bananas (potassium lowers chromium and manganese). Avoid the sweetener 'stevia', too, because it has the potential to lower blood sugar and blood pressure.

DO (and I never thought I would say this!) increase your salt intake slightly. Salt slows insulin response so helps to diminish the rapid rise and fall of blood sugar levels. It also helps to raise blood pressure.

DO come back tomorrow for some meal and snack suggestions.

2 lows to bring you down

I am not a doctor. I have a background in anatomy, physiology and nutrition and an abiding interest in all things medical. Any information I give here is based on my own knowledge, experience and some research. I believe that many of today's ills can be ameliorated by healthy eating, but if you have chronic or unexplained symptoms, you need to find the cause and get that treated. Don't just treat the symptoms, your body is trying to tell you something. SEE YOUR DOCTOR.

Bron asks:
I battle terribly with low blood sugar and low blood pressure, despite healthy eating. I eat small meals regularly, but this doesn't seem to help. What can I do to keep my blood sugar and blood pressure up and consistent?

Before I answer this question, I feel I need to give a brief description and the common symptoms of each condition. A lot of people are frighteningly uninformed about the body.

The heart pumps blood around the body in order to supply oxygen and nutrients to every one of the hundreds of thousands of cells in the body. Blood pressure is the measure of the force of blood pushing against the arterial walls as the heart pumps.

Low blood pressure (hypotension) would seem to be something desirable, since high blood pressure (hypertension) is known to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. However, low blood pressure can be very distressing and debillitating. With the body at rest, 'normal' blood pressure is said to be 120/80, but it is variable between individuals and within each individual (your blood pressure will vary throughout the day depending on what you happen to be doing at any given moment). Low blood pressure is 90/60 or lower, and high blood pressure is 140/90 or higher. This is very simplistically stated.

One person in every three with hypertension doesn't even know that they have it (that's why it's sometimes called the 'silent killer'), but if you suffer with hypotension you know about it. Symptoms include:
dizzyness/lightheadedness; palpitations; lack of concentration; blurred vision; nausea; cold, clammy skin; rapid shallow breathing; fatigue; depression and thirst.

As I mentioned, the heart pumps blood around the body to supply nutrients to the cells. These nutrients largely consist of 'sugars' (glucose is the result of digestion, and it's what your body runs on). The amount of glucose in the blood is controlled by courtesy of a hormone called insulin. Insulin is released into the blood stream when you eat, and it whips the glucose out of the blood for storage and later gradual release as energy when required. So you will appreciate that blood glucose levels will fluctuate throughout the day according to when you last ate, what you last ate and your activity levels. Again, this is very simplistic, and I'm talking about an averagely healthy person, not someone who is diabetic.

The symptoms of low blood sugar include:
hunger; headache; dizzyness/fainting; palpitations; confusion; blurred vision; nausea; clammy skin; drowsiness; irritability and nervousness. Sound familiar? Check the symptoms for low blood pressure again, and you will see that the two conditions have very similar presentation.

Tomorrow I'll talk about healthy eating to help ease these conditions.