Maintaining your blood sugar at a steady level plays an important role in preventing insulin spikes, which can lock fat into your cells and keep it from being turned into energy and used as such. Starch is a substance in our bodies that’s to blame for all these blood sugar surges. For instance, you may decide to have whole grain products for breakfast, as they are high in fibers, however, the starch that can be found in grains rapidly turns to sugar and any benefits you may be getting from fibers are canceled. This doesn’t mean you should avoid any sugar altogether, all fruits and vegetables contain sugar; the key is to choose products that contain proportionately more soluble fiber than sugar. This way you can blunt the blood sugar heightening effects by making use of natural substances in foods, such as fiber in fruits and vegetables that slow down the digestion of carbohydrates.
Fruits
When eating fruits you need to be very careful, because some contain quite a generous amount of sugar and that may counteract their usefulness as sugar blockers. Go for berries, peaches, and apricots, because these have low glycemic loads even when they’re fully ripe. This means they have a great balance of fiber to sugar; the best fruit and vegetable sugar blockers are the ones with glycemic loads lower than 50. Golden Delicious apples are also a good option, but you should stay away from varieties such as Fuji and Honeycrisp.
Vegetables
Generally speaking, the rawer vegetables are, the more effective they become as sugar blockers. Carrots, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, green beans, all give it their best when they’re cooked just enough that you can puncture their surface with some sharp tool. This means you shouldn’t boil them until they become soggy and filled with water. A study compared blood sugar levels in subjects who after having a consistent meal ate either raw carrots or cooked carrots. The results showed lower blood sugar and insulin levels in subjects who had the raw carrots.
Beans
As long as you go for uncooked beans and serve them a little crisp, a 1/2 cup or so can actually reduce the blood sugar-raising effects of other foods eaten during the first and second meals. You don’t have to eat a lot of beans in order to benefit from a good dose of fiber; just a 1/2 cup can provide with as much as 7.8 grams of fiber.
