You might
be surprised to learn that "sugar-free" does not necessarily mean
carbohydrate-free or calorie-free. Although some sugar substitutes do not add
calories or carbohydrate, many do. And it is the carbohydrate that has the
greatest effect on blood glucose.
People with diabetes do not manage their condition by cutting
"sugary" foods out of their diet. If you have diabetes, you can eat
sugar-containing foods as part of your overall meal plan, as long as you
account for the carbohydrate and calories in the food as part of your overall
meal plan. Similarly, if you eat lots of so-called "sugar-free"
foods, they may have replaced sucrose (sugar) with sweet tasting substances
like sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, isomalt, and hydrogenated starch hydrolysates.
These are all "sugar alcohols," which are technically not
"sugar" but are high in carbohydrate.
Others may be sweetened with
fructose, polydextrose, and maltodextrin, which also contain calories and
carbohydrate. These foods will affect your blood glucose just as a
sugar-containing food would, in proportion to the grams of carbohydrate in each
serving of the food. In addition, foods containing these sugar alcohols can
cause stomach discomfort and diarrhoea if eaten in large quantities.
Other foods may be sweetened with aspartame or other non-caloric
sweeteners like saccharin, acesulfame potassium, or sucralose. These sweeteners
contain no carbohydrate. But again, you need to check the food label to see how
many grams of carbohydrate are in each serving, because "sugar-free"
does not mean "carbohydrate-free." Some of the foods sweetened with
non-caloric sweeteners (like aspartame-sweetened sodas) may indeed have no
carbohydrate, and will have no effect on your blood glucose.
Others, like an aspartame-sweetened
yogurt, still contain carbohydrate (from the fruit or milk products in the
yogurt) which must be calculated in your meal plan. These foods contain caloric
sweeteners in combination with non-caloric sweeteners.
Work with your dietician to learn how much
of different types of foods you can eat at each meal and snack. Very likely
your dietician will offer you the opportunity to use carbohydrate
counting as a way to use meal planning to manage your blood glucose.
In
carbohydrate counting, you learn how many grams of carbohydrate you should aim
for at each meal and snack. Then you read food labels and use carbohydrate gram
counting food lists to figure out how you can "spend" the grams of
carbohydrate allocated for a particular meal. You devise your meals based on
how many grams of carbohydrate you can eat and how many grams of carbohydrate
are in the various foods that comprise a given meal.
