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I’ve now seen several people who have either caused themselves to be diabetic or to have other phenomena associated with excessive consumption of carbohydrates, all by innocently indulging in a carbohydrate-packed smoothie every morning.
Kay, for instance, has a smoothie of a half-pint blueberries, a banana, a scoop of whey, low-fat yogurt, a cup of milk every morning. The rest of her diet was fairly healthy: salads with oil-based dressing for lunch, salmon and asparagus for dinner, only an occasional carbohydrate indulgence outside of her morning smoothie ritual. Yet she had a HbA1c (a reflection of prior 60 to 90 days average blood sugar) at the near-diabetic range of 5.9%.
The mistake most people make when making smoothies is relying too heavily on carbohydrates like fruit. A smoothie like the one made by Kay can easily top 50, 60, or 70 grams carbohydrates per serving, more than sufficient to send blood sugars up to 150 mg/dl or more.
So what can you put in your smoothie and not send you over the edge to diabetes, small LDL, and all the other undesirable phenomena of excessive carbohydrates? Here’s a list:
–coconut milk, unsweetened almond milk. Less desirable: milk, full-fat soymilk
–ground flaxseed
–oils: flaxseed oil, coconut oil (melted), extra-light olive oil, walnut oil
–dried coconut
–extracts: vanilla, almond, coconut, cherry, hazelnut
–spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
–herbs: mint leaves, cilantro
–cocoa powder (unsweetened)
–nut or seed butters (peanut butter, almond butter, sunflower seed butter)
–tofu
–exotic ingredients (ingredients you wouldn’t expect in a smoothie): spinach, kale, cucumber
How do you sweeten a smoothie? This is what trips up most people. If you resort to fruit like bananas, pineapple, or apple, you will readily send your blood sugar skyward. Honey, agave syrup, and sugar, of course, all increase blood sugar and/or have the adverse effects of fructose. Be careful of yogurt, also, for similar reasons.
Therefore, to sweeten your smoothie, consider:
–Small servings of berries, e.g., 8-10 blueberries, 2 strawberries, a few wedges of apple, half a kiwi
–Non-nutritive sweeteners like stevia, Truvia, sucralose, xylitol, erythritol. Also, sugar-free (sucralose-based) syrups like those from DaVinci and Torani are useful. (Just be aware that non-nutritive sweeteners can increase appetite–use sparingly.)
Also, note that, if you have divorced yourself from wheat, cornstarch, and sugars, your desire for sweet should be much reduced. Foods other people find just right will taste sickeningly sweet to you. You might therefore find that foods like peanut butter or coconut milk have a mild natural sweetness; added sweetness is only minimally necessary.
Coming next: I’ll share a smoothie recipe or two of mine. Anyone want to share a recipe?
Change your life in 60 seconds
1/3 cup frozen blueberries
2 tbs flaxseed
1/3 cup 2% plain yogurt (homemade)
1.5 cups spinach
1/3 avocado
1/3 cup coconut milk
1.5 scoops Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey
enough water to blend
416 calories
35 g protein
24 g carbs (10 g sugar, 5.3 grams fiber)
24 grams fat (2.5 omega-3)
Insulinotropic Properties of Dairy Protein.
Milk consumption modifies the insulinemic and glycemic response to carbohydrate-rich food in both type II diabetic and healthy subjects [42]. A population-based prospective study (CARDIA) revealed that dairy consumption was inversely associated with the incidence of all components of the insulin resistance syndrome (IRS) among overweight individuals (BMI>=25kg/m2). Each daily occasion of dairy consumption was associated with 21% lower odds of IRS. These associations were similar for blacks and whites and for men and women [43]. Of the milk proteins, whey leads to higher pre-meal insulin concentrations than casein [44] and may contain the predominant insulin secretagogue because the insulin area under the curve (AUC) after preloads of 25 g carbohydrate with 18.2 g of whey protein was 50% higher than after milk or cheese [42]. Addition of whey to a meal containing rapidly digested and absorbed carbohydrates, stimulated greater plasma insulin concentrations (+57% after lunch) and reduced postprandial blood glucose (–21% at 120 min AUC) in type II diabetic subjects [45]. Amino acids may be the primary factor accounting for the insulinotropic effect of whey protein. Healthy subjects that ingested mixture of leucine, isoleucine, valine,lysine and threonine resulted in glycemic and insulinemic responses similar to those after whey ingestion [46] suggesting that branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are the major determinants of insulinemia as well as lowered glycemia caused by the whey drink. However the BCAA mixture did not stimulate incretin (GIP and GLP-1) response while the whey drink did suggesting that the action of whey is not simply related to amino acid content and presumably due to the action of peptides. The authors concluded that whey-induced hyperinsulinemia occurs by two or even more separate pathways, one connected to the significant increment in certain amino acids but the other connected through the incretins, which are believed to interact with bioactive peptides derived from proteins [46].
Continuation…
My understanding of the research paper segment I posted above (google for source if curious) is that:
1- yes, milk increases insulin production, confirming the blog starting premise
BUT
2- opposing the blog unproven conclusion that does NOT lead to diabetes, on the contrary:
A population-based prospective study (CARDIA) revealed that dairy consumption was inversely associated with the incidence of all components of the insulin resistance syndrome (IRS) among overweight individuals (BMI>=25kg/m2). Each daily occasion of dairy consumption was associated with 21% lower odds of IRS. These associations were similar for blacks and whites and for men and women [43]. O
Dr Davis
Can it be healthy to eat sunflower seed butter(with a lot Omega 6)
extra light olive oil(that is refined) and Soymilk (we all know that it is unhealthy)
Read opinions from Weston-Price Foundation about Soy.
Happy if when giving advice about recipe tell us that some of the ingredients can we
only eat once or twice a week.
I allways read your blog and have liked it very much.
Hi Annonymous,
I am following your comments here and from an earlier posting I believe. Well, am trying to organize some ideas; basicly thinking out loud here. At this point I am not dealing with the diabetic individual's response or diabetic case management.
Some comparative charts I've seen tracking levels of both insulin and blood glucose simultaneously over a few hours come to mind. The initial "spike" in insulin was followed by lesser "flush" of insulin many (not a few, nor several) minutes later, and again a mini "blip" or two farther along in time. While the blood glucose, for it's part, did not follow a linear rise and linear decline either.
If my memory serves the two factors (insulin increases and blood sugar waves)did not coincide in a proportionate overlay pattern . There was an initial relationship seemingly involving insulin and blood sugar showing up to be seen, as we expect in first meal of the day.
Bloggers seem to propose the hormone insulin activates in response to blood sugar, "drives" (or tries to drive) glucose into cells and then both go back to discrete levels (if there is no metabolic syndrome). In other words it's unexplicitly
represented as a one step, two step, bow out until next time eat and go back to some baseline.
Studies charting one and not the other give an incongruous picture; the two (insulin and blood glucose) don't seem to dance just with respect to each other. I think this is what you found with the insulin raising properties of dairy/whey having an inverse (reducing) effect in living humans of insulin resistance.
If you have any insight into the signaling role of the hormone insulin I'd like to hear it. Maybe you'd post it back over on the recent thread where Doc showed the insulin response chart. The topic here is "smoothies".
You are right about the misplacememt of my earlier posts – they are not about smoothies but whether dairy is bad or good, the topic of the previous blog. I've reposted there as well, but here is the summary:
According to research (CARDIA cited above), and regardless of insulin/glucose curves, DAIRY LOWERS YOUR RISK OF DIABETES. The more daily servings, the lower the risk.
If you disagree please present support information. This matters to us all who read this type of blog and care for what we eat.
test – had problems posting
Again Annon.,
My thinking is that the factor in dairy responsible for what your study found is Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF); not insulin.
IGF, a hormone acting protein, has hypo-glycaemin effect; it lowers blood sugar. IGF also improves kidney function, engenders nitrogen balance and decreases cholesterol.
IGF I & II are found in cow's milk, but not in whey. The % of IGF content varies with phase of lactation the cow is experiencing.
IGF I in human milk ranges from 1.5 to 19.0 ng/mL -1; at different post natal stages. IGF II in human milk ranges from 2.7 to 35.0 ng/mL -1; at different post natal stages.
IGF I in cow milk ranges from 2.0to 101.0 ng/mL -1; while IGF II
ranges from 2.0 to107.0 ng/mL -1 at different lactation stages. So my suggestion is to look at dairy's IGF to explain the benefit you allude to.
IGF BP2 (insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2) is an
"anti-diabetic" protein; and when upregulated it modulates any acute hypo-glycemic
action of IGF.
I post this here because your last post on "insulin secretagogue" was brief.
Might-o'chondri-AL–
My apologies in the difficulties you are encountering posting comments.
I found several of your comments in the "spam" device set up by Blogger. Once I recognized your insightful commentary and name, I de-spammed them.
I suspect that the Blogger/Google people have expanded their reach for potential spam. Unfortunately, it can mean that meaningful commentary like yours gets mislabeled.
I’m late to the party, but I want to offer (as others have) that ripe avocados make for an incredible smoothie ingredient. I recently made one comprised of the following simple ingredients: ice, avocado, heavy cream, sugar-free Torani syrup (vanilla). It was spectacular, and I’m sure that it is easy to adapt and vary it according to personal tastes.
Some practical info… if you put melted coconut oil in smoothie, then add a bunch of cold ingredients, you wind up with chunks of frozen coconut oil all over the place.
Instead, add the melted coconut oil to a pastured egg and blend to emulsify. Now when you add the berries or peaches and milk and such, the coconut oil will stay smooth within your smoothie, which is supposed to be a SMOOTHIE, not a CHUNKY.
My favorite ingredients besides eggs and coconut oil (which are the basis of all my smoothies, having given up on all protein powders in favor of pastured eggs) are leftover cold coffee, cocoa, raw milk, cream, frozen blueberries (1/2 cup), frozen other berries (full cup), shredded dried coconut, nut butters, stevia to taste – not all at once. Sometimes, I like a mocha/coffee smoothie, sometimes a fruit smoothie, sometimes a nut butter/chocolate smoothie (can do a “nutella” flavored one or an “almond joy” flavored one).
Sometimes, I change the flavors up with DaVinci sugarfree syrups, but honestly, I don’t consider that “health food”. I’ve never noticed a reaction to sucralose, but feel it is generally safer to use stevia if one has bg issues, and small amounts of maple syrup or molasses if one does not (they taste too strong to overdo like white sugar).