[Sca-cooks] Diabetes and Honey - substitute or not?

[Celia des Archier]

The recommendations that you check with the Crown about precisely what they
mean by "diabetic friendly" is a good one.  Blood sugar levels are impacted
by many things, and individual diabetics, especially Type II diabetics,
metabolisms deal handle carbs differently.  The statements that most
diabetics do not manage their blood sugar and that those who do all take
different strategies to do so is also correct.  

But what causes blood sugar fluctuations is just not as simple as whether or
not something is a "sugar" or a "carb".  Sometimes it can be as complex as
what foods you eat with other foods, which can moderate how quickly an
individual person's system can put glucose into their system.  Some
diabetics would have serious problems with even a small amount of honey,
others would have no problems at all with honey in moderation and some would
have no problems as long as the honey was in a mixed dish with protein, fat
and/or fiber to slow up the glucose uptake.  (Just to illustrate, Arizona
Iced Tea company makes a diet green tea which contains a minute amount of
honey.  That amount of honey is small enough to only add 1 gram of sugars to
an 8 oz. serving, but they still have to put a warning on their label that
the inclusion of honey makes their drink unsuitable for diabetics.  I've
never had any problems with it and I have a bad habit of drinking it in
large quantities, but another diabetic might have problems with it.) 

> Honey is just as sugary as sugar is, and apricots almost as much so. It
> would
> be an acceptable dish, if the apricots and honey are a sauce served
> seperately from the lamb, so THEY can determine how much they add, but I
> think this isn't the case with a tagine.
> 
> Fruits are pretty sugary, and will up any diabetic's sugars, but the
> sugars
> in fruits take a bit longer to be processed that something like honey or
> refined sugar, so the spike is a bit slower. Carbohydrates of any type
> will
> have this effect.

So, for example, while honey and sugar are both simple sugars, which convert
directly into glucose, not all carbs are alike, and not all carbs have the
same effect on a diabetic system.  There's actually a general measurement on
how quickly a food turns into glucose called the glycemic index.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_Index

The glycemic index can be difficult to work with if you're not a real
nutrition geek though.  Taking into consideration a food's "glycemic load"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_load	
(a measure of the glycemic index which takes into consideration actual
portion sizes) can also be helpful, but the bottom line is that carbs are
not equal, not even what appear to be similar carbs.  

So, for example, berries tend to be low GI/GL fruits, and many diabetics
have no trouble with them in moderation, but bananas are very high GI/GL
foods, and can spike a diabetic's blood sugar very quickly.  But it's not
that simple either.  The riper a fruit is, the more concentrated the sugars
become, so a ripe banana will spike blood sugar faster than a green banana,
even in the same diabetic, and dried fruit concentrates sugars even more, so
dried apricots are a very high GI/GL fruit (as are raisins.)  Fiber, fat and
protein in a meal tend to slow glycemic uptake, so something like eating
peanut butter (without sugar added!) with a banana can prevent a blood sugar
spike for some diabetics.  My mother and I are both diabetic... I'm
"borderline" (which simply means that I'm so far managing things well enough
to keep my A1C blood sugar levels down below 7 most of the time) and my
mother is a "senior" diabetic who has just recently been diagnosed and had
no clue that her blood sugar was out of control.  I can eat a bowl of
oatmeal (whole grain 'good' carbs, with plenty of fiber, but it still gives
many diabetics difficulty) with maple syrup (a simple sugar, but plenty of
'sweet'/#of sugar grams) and raisins (high glycemic fruit) as long as I have
a couple of eggs with it (protein and fat) to slow down the uptake of the
glucose, while my Mom has trouble eating oatmeal even sweetened with Splenda
and can't eat fruit with it even if she does include protein in the meal.  

So, all that long story was just to emphasize that all of the other good
advice you've been given, about getting specifics from the person who needs
diabetic accommodation, providing lots of variety, especially with
vegetables and carbs, serving sauces on the side wherever possible, allowing
the individual to moderate their own portions are all very good suggestions.
Just don't be mislead to believe that