For about a week and a half, my blood sugars had been in the 150s when they are usually in the 120s to 1teens. So, I was a bit confused. I thought I'd been doing pretty good, but I had been eating some whole wheat bread, so I cut that out completely. And, it did not help. Hmmmm...
Then, 2 days ago, I got a total surprise. It was my diet drink. I don't know what made me think to read the label (boredom, perhaps) on my Diet Orange Crush, but imagine my surprise at its number one ingredient.... high fructose corn syrup.
WHAT??? That's killer carbs from Hell!!!! How did that get in my diet drink?? It's the only diet drink I have ever seen that has calories, let alone carbs. And, oh, did it have carbs. 4 per serving. And, how many servings? 2 per bottle, that's how many. So, for one bottle, I could have eaten 1/2 a Krispy Kreme doughnut. Or, 1/4 cup of frozen yogurt. Now, considering that I usually drink about 4 bottles a day, and you begin to see where my elevated blood sugars came to be. Siiiigh.
I have to admit thinking that it was such a great drink, because it didn't taste like diet at all. Yeah, well, guess I know why now!!! So, I switched to drinking Diet Sunkist, which is almost as tasty (and carb/calorie free, as a diet drink should be), and suddenly, my blood sugars are much better! So, even if common sense says that I should be safe eating something, I will rely on label reading from here on out!!!
As a side note, I have found a great diabetic magazine in "Diabetic Living". It has some great articles on everything from side effects of common meds, new research, recipes, new meters, etc. I have definitely sent in my check for my subscription and made a couple of recipes from it already!
I also found a lousy magazine called "Diabetes Self Management." It had a 4 page article on whether or not diet drinks are linked to diabetes that basically concluded "we don't know" and an article written by a type 1 diabetic that basically implied everyone with Type 2 was fat, slovenly and brought it on themselves and everyone who had type 1 hates type 2s and wishes no one would help us. Hey, that's the way to handle a disease, folks, turn the 2 types of people that have it against each other. Helpful!!! So, needless to say, my one free issue to that one is the only issue I'll be reading. It was truly just a craptastic useless magazine. Oh, well, at least it was free.
There are a lot of weaselly ways companies use labeling to lull you into a false sense of security. "Calorie free" just means fewer than 5 calories per serving. "Low calorie" means a serving is more than 2 tablespoons and has less than 40 calories. "Sugar Free" is the most insidious for you. That simply means less than 0.5 grams of sucrose per serving. High fructose corn syrup has no sucrose. Neither does molasses, cane juice, or sugar alcohols.
ReplyDeleteThe rules for putting "Diet" on a label are overly broad. The product must be "light or lite, low calorie, low fat, no fat, fat free, no sugar, sugar free, or zero calorie." Each of those has its own definition. Your Diet Orange Crush is fat free and therefore qualifies for the "Diet" label.