Hello Health Champions today we're going to  talk about the best fruits to eat if you're a  

diabetic did you know that over 37 million people  in the United States are diabetics today and that  

represents 11 of the population worldwide there's  over half a billion people with diabetes today and  

even though 11 is the highest percentage of any  country the greatest increases are now seen in  

India and China and they're very quickly catching  up with that percentage in addition to that there  

are 290 million people who have some degree of  insulin resistance that's the vast majority or  

88 of the population so even if you don't have  diabetes that's a very good chance that this  

still concerns you very often we hear fruits and  vegetables mentioned in the same sentence as in  

you should eat more fruits and vegetables as if  they were the same thing and we need to understand  

how they are different and the absolute best  fruits to eat would be called Avocado now most  

people think of that as a vegetable because  it doesn't taste sweet but technically it is  

a fruit and it has a very low glycemic index and  we'll talk more about that but that just means  

how quickly something that you eat raises your  blood sugar it also has a very very low amount  

of net carbs so net carbs are the amount of carbs  that you can absorb to become blood sugar the next  

best would be olives and again people don't really  think of that as a fruit but it happens to be same  

glycemic index and three grams of net carbs and  the next fruit is called tomato also 15 and three  

so these three would be the absolute best fruits  to eat but they don't really fit the criteria for  

fruit in most people's mind because when people  think of fruit they're looking for that sweet  

taste they're talking about nature's candy they're  looking for a sweet treat but they don't want to  

eat something artificial or Laden with added sugar  so we're going to talk about some of those sweet  

fruits also but first we need to understand  a few things and dispel a few myths because  

otherwise it doesn't make sense to talk about  them most of the time we hear about something  

called glycemic index in terms of carbohydrates  and fruit and when they measure that they give  

people a certain amount of food enough to contain  50 grams of net carbs so 50 grams of carbohydrates  

that can be absorbed into the bloodstream so  fiber is subtracted because fiber does not get  

into the bloodstream and then they compare that  food to glucose which is given the number 100 as  

a reference or index and then they create a scale  where low glycemic index is anything less than 55  

compared to glucose at 100 medium would be 55  to 70 and high glycemic index would be anything  

over 70. but there's a few problems that we need  to understand the first problem is if we look at  

something like bread it has 50 percent of the  weight being net carbs so if you eat a hundred  

grams of bread which is basically two large slices  of toast you're gonna get 50 grams of carbs that's  

pretty typical someone could do that in a sitting  and bread being basically pure starch has a very  

high glycemic index of 75. but if we compare  that to something like avocado avocado has two  

grams of net carbs so how do you eat 50 grams of  net carbs from avocado you basically have to eat  

2 500 grams or five pounds of avocado to do that  which is way over a dozen avocados so I don't know  

exactly how they come about with the number  15 which often is a sign I don't think that  

they feed people five pounds of avocado so they  probably have some other measurement which means  

that they're not really consistent in measuring  this but what it also means is that virtually all  

the foods that you ever see on a list of glycemic  indices are going to be starch and sweet fruits  

and then they tell you to select foods with a  low glycemic index and now you think that you're  

limited to the foods that are on the list test  of glycemic index but all the good foods don't  

really make it on there but let's talk about  a food that often makes it onto the list and  

that's dates and even though this is pure sugar  medical news today says that according to various  

research the typical glycemic index turns up at  42 which classifies it as low glycemic index food  

and therefore safe and suitable for diabetics so  if you watch some of my videos and you understand  

what sugar is that's totally absurd notion and  that has a lot to do with problem number two  

so when we look at these numbers these ranges of  low under 55 High over 70. that is all relative to  

something what are they comparing it to and it's  all based on the belief that we should eat three  

to four hundred grams of carbohydrate per day  mostly from starches because that's the primary  

way that you can get up to those numbers so the  ranges the numbers of glycemic index are going  

to be based on foods that are basically pure  starch and some of these numbers might work  

for people if you are relatively young if you're  very metabolically healthy or insulin sensitive  

and you're quite active but we just realized that  88 of the population has some degree of metabolic  

impairment some degree of insulin resistance  and then these numbers don't apply at all so  

instead if you have some metabolic impairment  if you have some weight to lose if you have  

some blood sugars that you like to drop I would  suggest the following ranges that low would be  

things under 20. and medium would be 20 to 40  and high would be over 40. so I'm not claiming  

that these are any exact numbers I just want to  get you into the idea that if you're trying to  

change something about your metabolic Health then  you want to adopt a completely different range  

than the ones they usually tell you so in that  note we need to realize that metabolic health  

and insulin resistance is a Continuum it's not  black or white it's not like you have diabetes  

or you don't on the red end that's the 10 percent  that have type 2 diabetes on the green end of the  

spectrum that's another 10 percent roughly that  are very metabolically healthy and then in between  

we have about 80 percent of the population who  are relatively insulin resistant so if you're  

very insulin sensitive then you can be less strict  with these ranges and with the amount of carbs but  

if you are closer to the type 2 diabetes then  you need to be much more strict and if you want  

to figure out more about where you are on the  Spectrum I've developed a the blood work course  

where you learn everything that you need to know  about understanding your metabolic health and then  

some so I'll put some information down below if  you're interested but a lot of people realize that  

the glycemic index method has some limitations so  a lot of people now are talking about a glycemic  

load which is just another way of looking at it  because now they take into account how much you  

eat of that food so they take the glycemic  index of the food times the amount of carbs  

in grams and they divide by a hundred so now for  each meal for each snack they recommend that low  

should be less than 10 units of glycemic load  medium should be 10 to 20 and high is over 20.  

and based on that idea now medical news today  says that therefore two dry dates which weigh  

48 grams contain 36 grams of carbs which again  is virtually pure sugar and then you multiply  

that by the glycemic index and you end up with  17 so that would put it in the medium range but  

remember these are supposed to be meals and two  dates hardly constitutes a meal and yet you're  

kind of in the high end of medium and still they  call that a good idea for diabetics but remember  

these ranges are based on the idea that we should  eat three to four hundred grams of carbs per day  

and also that people typically can't reverse  insulin resistance they're not talking about  

reversing a condition they're just talking about  maintaining it with medication and not having it  

get worse so we need to put that in perspective  and compare it to a few things so if we take rice  

for example we eat a hundred grams of rice that's  31 grams of carbohydrates of net carbs that has a  

glycemic index of 98 so we multiply that divide  by 100 so we get a glycemic load of a hundred so  

that would be a meal that puts us in the high  range but then if we compare that now to dates  

we eat 48 grams which I think is very questionable  if that would be a meal and we have certain amount  

of carbs and glycemic index we end up with 17. so  now people say oh dates are great because they're  

better than rice but why would we compare it to  the worst food just because something is a little  

bit better doesn't make it good so let's compare  it to a good food which would be avocado so now  

we eat a hundred grams of avocado we get two grams  of net carbs multiplied by 15 divide by a hundred  

and now we have a glycemic load of 0.3 so now we  see that even though dates are slightly better in  

the rice it's not really a good food compared to  avocado the glycemic load is astronomical but when  

it comes to fruit there is a third problem that we  really need to address and that's the question of  

what is a carbohydrate because they're not all the  same even though a lot of people treat them the  

same way so virtually all the carbohydrates we eat  are going to come from glucose and fructose and if  

we eat something like bread that's going to be 100  percent glucose and no fructose and these glucose  

molecules they're strung together like pearls on  a string and there's hundreds or thousands of them  

and that's called starch but as soon as we start  chewing we have something called salivary amylase  

that starts chopping these off the glucose gets in  the bloodstream very quickly and that's why bread  

has a high glycemic index of 75 but bread has  no fructose but almost everyone today recognizes  

that sugar sugar is different than bread even if  they don't understand exactly why and the reason  

is that sugar is different it's 50 percent glucose  and 50 fructose so when we eat table sugar we have  

these two molecules linked together side by side  in a disaccharide meaning two different molecules  

and now we're getting the glucose that can raise  blood sugar but we're also getting fructose that  

can only be processed by the liver so it's kind  of like alcohol in that if we have a significant  

amount then it can only be processed by the liver  and it very quickly overwhelms the liver it turns  

into fat and it starts infiltrating the liver so  it used to be only alcoholics got a fatty liver  

but now the vast majority of fatty liver is due  to fructose but here's the next huge disconnect  

that all these people who say that sugar is  bad and bread is good there's still going to  

promote fruit because they say it's natural it's  completely different than the added sugar and yet  

fruit has 50 glucose and 50 fructose just like the  table sugar does and in many cases it's going to  

fluctuate a little bit and it's usually going to  be in the direction of having more fructose it'll  

be even more devastating for the liver so here's  what really matters the first thing to understand  

is that the total amount of carb relates to  the total amount of insulin and this is why  

virtually all type 1 diabetes doctors will tell  you that you just count the carbs and you take a  

corresponding amount of insulin to handle those  carbs I don't agree with that statement because  

I still think that you need to limit the carbs  so that you don't have to take so much insulin  

but that relationship still holds the second most  important factor is the amount of fructose like we  

said fructose act sort of like alcohol it is the  strongest factor in developing fatty liver and  

insulin resistance and then the third factor is  the glycemic index so if you have a high glycemic  

index that creates more blood sugar swing larger  blood sugar swing so that's just kind of adding  

insult to injury it's not the primary thing but  it's worth keeping in mind and a fourth Factor  

that's often mentioned is fiber because fiber  is not absorbed and it will tend to slow down  

the digestion and absorption so let's do a little  example here if we take a normal blood sugar range  

and let's say that that's here and let's call the  middle of that 90. and then we eat something and  

we bring the blood sugar up to about a hundred  and fifty what does that actually mean in terms  

of how much blood sugar we have so 90 milligrams  per deciliter if we multiply that out by how much  

blood is in the average person that means that you  have about three grams about half a teaspoon it's  

like that much blood sugar in your bloodstream  at any given time and if you eat something and  

it gets up to 150 then that represents five grams  of blood sugar so now let's say that you eat 100  

grams you have a meal of 100 grams of carbohydrate  that's equivalent to 400 calories and your blood  

sugar is going to go like this because your  body controls it and it brings it down with  

insulin every time it rises so it always goes  fluctuating between three and five grams and  

yet you just ate 100 grams of carbohydrate it's  in your digestive tract it has to be absorbed  

into the bloodstream in the next hour or two and  then get out of the bloodstream very quickly so  

it doesn't get above 150 so at any given time  we don't have more than five grams of sugar so  

that means most of this 100 grams is going to go  very very quickly through the bloodstream and it  

requires a certain amount of insulin to do that  and this is why the most important factor is the  

total amount of carbs because that's going to  determine the total amount of insulin required  

and as a diabetic your insulin is too high so  you can't keep eating foods that have a hundred  

grams of carbohydrate or significant amounts of  carbohydrate because that's going to trigger large  

amounts of insulin and perpetuate and aggravate  your insulin resistance we need to go way way down  

on the carbohydrates to allow that insulin to drop  so that we can become more insulin sensitive so  

why does glycemic index matter well it matters  a tiny little bit because in the next hour  

you're going to be using approximately we'll just  pick some nice round numbers about 100 calories  

per hour and we never burn pure glucose we burn  some glucose and some fat so let's just keep it  

simple and keep it 50 50. that means you're  going to burn in the next hour you're going  

to burn 50 calories from carbohydrate but you just  ate 400 and that means this insulin has now stored  

350 of those calories so basically the higher the  glycemic index the quicker the blood sugar swings  

the greater the stress the greater the shock on  the system because it has to produce way more  

insulin quicker but in the end of the day it's  not going to matter all that much if you need to  

store 340 maybe or 360. it's a little bit better  if they're slower but it's not a huge difference  

it's the key factor is going to be the total  amount of carbohydrates because that's going to  

affect your insulin levels short term in the next  few hours and the second most important factor  

is the fructose because that's going to determine  your metabolic Health long term based on the liver  

and then the glycemic index and the fiber are the  little nuances that just make it a little worse or  

a little better so what we need to understand  is that carbohydrates are more of a metabolic  

challenge to the body than fat or protein because  with fat and protein the body has several hours it  

doesn't affect blood sugar it's never an emergency  but with carbohydrates we need to get a hundred  

grams through the bloodstream but we can't have  more than five grams at any given time so we need  

to process that that through very very quickly  and that's why it's kind of an emergency that's  

why it's a metabolic challenge now this doesn't  affect everyone the same so if you're an athlete  

if you're metabolically healthy then this is not  going to be a problem not for many many years at  

least but you also want to understand how this  works so that you never move in that direction  

so let's clear up some more very widespread  misinformation and this is an example from a  

video with 5 million views that promoted a bunch  of fruits that no diabetic should eat a bunch of  

and one example was Apples they say apples are  great for diabetics because even though they may  

have 12.4 grams of sugar which incidentally is  mostly fructose as much as 75 percent they say  

that it has a lot of fiber and the fiber will  slow down the release now it turns out honey  

crisp apples which I'm going to show you some  numbers has 1.7 grams of fiber per 100 grams of  

Apple which is not a whole lot actually and then  they go on to say that because of this apples  

actually help diabetics regulate blood glucose  and I saw this in print in many many different  

places but again they're falling into the Trap  apples don't help diabetics regulate apples are  

less dysregulating than jelly beans or white toast  and jam or sugary breakfast cereal with skim milk  

but it doesn't help regulate anything so let's  illustrate with a few examples here honeycrisp  

apples has about 15 grams of total carbs per 100  grams of Apple but almost all of that is sugar  

and most of that is fructose the vast majority  of that is fructose so it tastes very sweet it  

has a slightly lower glycemic index because of the  fructose because fructose is absorbed slowly but  

again it is very stressful for the liver and then  the rest of the carbohydrates are made up of fiber  

which is not absorbed and then other carbohydrates  but now let's compare that to raspberries and if  

we just look at the total carbs it doesn't seem  that different but if we look at the sugar we see  

that there's a huge difference there's like five  times more sugar in apples than in raspberries and  

that's because there is so much fiber most of the  carbs in the raspberry is actually fiber so if you  

compare the small amount of fiber in apples to the  large amount in raspberries then apples don't seem  

so impressive anymore and then to really get some  contrast here let's also look at avocado which on  

the surface seem to have a large amount of carbs  total carbs but the sugar is that tiny little  

sliver down at the bottom there and almost all the  carbs in the avocado is fiber so the net carbs is  

just this little white thing but it's not sugar so  again it's absorbed very very slowly so we can't  

just look at the total carbs because it's the  net carbs that determine the insulin and it's the  

fructose that determines the stress on the liver  so now that we understand all those mechanisms  

let's look at the top sweet fruits and remember  that the sugar in these are 50 fructose fifty  

percent glucose more or less so that's why we  still want to keep the numbers quite low and the  

first example is cherries we're going to look at  Sugar fiber glycemic index and glycemic load like  

we said the sugar the carbs is the most important  factor and cherries have 13 sugar 2 grams of fiber  

a low glycemic index so the glycemic load is  three and again compare that to Rice which was  

30 or dates which were 17. so now we're getting  into low single digits and that's where you want  

to keep it even so as a diabetic you probably  want to limit cherries quite a bit because of  

the sugar content there'll be some better ones  here soon blueberries have a little bit less sugar  

a little bit more fiber a much higher glycemic  index so the glycemic load is a little bit higher  

but again we said that the sugar is more important  it's a heavier Factor next one is apricot and we  

have nine grams of sugar little fiber low glycemic  index so it's about the same in terms of glycemic  

load as cherries but I would recommend apricot  because the total carbs are less the sugar is  

less grapefruit comes in next at seven two grams  of fiber low glycemic index and a quite low  

glycemic load and remember though that this is  per 100 grams so if you'd get a huge grapefruit  

and you eat the whole thing then you probably need  to Triple these numbers and now we're getting into  

the really good stuff that even a diabetic can  eat frequently even if not in unlimited amounts  

but you could have handfuls of these on a regular  basis if you're on a ketogenic diet these are low  

enough that you can have a handful here and there  and stay in ketosis for most people so raspberries  

are going to have 4 grams of sugar seven grams of  fiber again that fiber is more than the sugar so  

it's going to really slow this down which is why  we have a low glycemic index and now we're getting  

in under two on the glycemic load blackberries  very similar numbers even a little bit lower on  

the glycemic index and the glycemic load and just  for comparison so you understand that you can use  

lemon freely even if it's not something that  you use for a sweet treat but you could use it  

in cooking you can use it in water you can use it  very freely and lemon and lime are very similar  

so they're pretty interchangeable you have very  very low numbers and the glycemic load would be  

a 1.2 but that's per 100 grams of edible lemon so  you're obviously not going to eat that much on a  

regular basis you're going to have a fraction  of that and if you're at your ideal weight if  

you're insulin sensitive the then you could have  these pretty freely and you could even have some  

fruits maybe with higher numbers than this but  if you are a diabetic which this video is about  

then you want to stick primarily to the ones in  green here and use the other ones occasionally  

and sparingly if you enjoyed this video you're  going to love that one and if you truly want  

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Top 10 Fruits You Should Be EATING If You Are Diabetic

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Top 10 Fruits You Should Be EATING If You Are Diabetic