Order Your Eating for Better Blood Sugar Control
Every now and then my husband, Peter, will forward me an article he’s read on a health topic he thinks might be of interest to me (and my faithful Monday Morning Health Tip readers). I’m always grateful for another set of eyes keeping a lookout for healthy nuggets to be digested!
Recently he sent me one in which a researcher had looked at how the food on your plate, when eaten in a particular order, might affect your body’s insulin release, and therefore, circulating blood sugar levels.
Now some folks I’ve observed proceed to eat what’s on their plates in a very particular order while others don’t pay much mind to the order of their consumption. They simply graze about the piles until the plate is cleared, or until their hunger has been satisfied.
When my daughter was growing up, I noticed that she regularly ate her least favorite food items first, always saving the best tasting pile (in her opinion) for last. Me, on the other hand, I am a woman of balance. I will eat each item at the same rate so a morsel of each food can be represented in my final bite. Yes, I know I need counseling!
Given my food-order psychosis, the method of eating for better blood sugar regulation I am about to describe would take ALL the joy out of eating for me. That said, if you have elevated blood sugar (pre-diabetic or full-blown diabetes), you might consider this simple mealtime modification.
Digging deeper into the aforementioned article, it turns out that back in 2015 Dr. Louis Aronne, professor of Metabolic Research and Clinical Medicine at Cornell’s Weill Medical College, published a study in Diabetes Care in which he found the best blood sugar control was gained when vegetables were eaten first, followed by proteins, followed, lastly, by carbohydrates.
This seems like a simple enough change to make, as small modifications can often help towards combatting runaway blood sugar. So, if this method of ordered eating doesn’t throw you off your eating game, try putting some “research muscle” behind your pursuit of better blood sugar control!