Deciphering food labels for diabetes
Today we share another post from one of our favourite bloggers Nikki Wallis.
Deciphering food labels, counting carbs, counting sugar and regulating insulin to suit my blood sugar levels is a full-time job and one that I thought I was doing alright at, until recently, when I walked into my local health food store.
There I was, browsing the nutritional label of one product from the shelf, when I struck up a conversation with one of the attendants and she made a comment that threw me.
“You have to count the sugar content because you’re diabetic,” she said.
I automatically replied, “No, I count the total carbohydrate, I don’t just focus on the sugar.”
But then I had to stop and think for an minute. Was that right, or have I been doing it wrong all these years? The thought left me puzzled and I went home pondering this some more.
On the hunt for an answer, I contacted one of my former colleague nutritionist and diabetes project officer, Karis Ramsay, to see if she could shed some light on this for me. Low and behold she could and referred me to several sites. I found the information really useful, hence this post.