Chapter 15 Chapter 13 Replace Sugar with Fruit

No matter how you look at it, it is an irrefutable fact: the cause of the unknown syndrome stems from the abnormal digestion and processing of carbohydrates in the body.This has made researchers all over the world very curious to test whether this situation can be improved through dietary modification.If we can obtain relatively beneficial effects on the human body through certain specific carbohydrates, not only can we prevent unknown symptoms, but we may also alleviate or even eliminate the existing insulin resistance and related sugar metabolism disorders.Considering the catastrophe that the trap of affluence has brought us, there is no doubt that this is a matter of national health.

In order to understand the deeper background clearly, we must first clarify several basic relationships: the basic components of all carbohydrates in food are simple sugars, and there are three kinds of glucose, fructose and galactose.Monosaccharides can be linked together into long or short chains to form different disaccharides or polysaccharides.The sugar we usually add to coffee is such a disaccharide crystal.This kind of table sugar that we are very familiar with every day, its scientific name is sucrose, consists of one part glucose and one part fructose.Another important disaccharide is lactose, which consists of one part glucose and one part galactose.

Polysaccharides are made up of hundreds or thousands of monosaccharides joined together.Therefore, people also call it complex carbohydrates.The best known polysaccharide is starch, which consists of a large number of glucose units.The carbohydrate glycogen stored in the muscle and liver of animals and humans is also composed entirely of glucose units.Many kinds of fruits and vegetables also contain a range of other polysaccharides, even one consisting solely of a large number of fructose units called inulin. After eating, complex carbohydrates are digested and broken down until simple sugars remain.In this way, it can be understood that since pure glucose itself is a monosaccharide, it is exactly the structure required by cells, so it can be absorbed into the blood as quickly as possible.Therefore, glucose causes a rapid and large increase in blood sugar concentration, and causes a rapid and strong insulin secretion response.In contrast, fructose and galactose cannot be directly utilized by muscle and nerve cells, they must enter the liver from the blood, and then slowly converted into glucose by the liver.

Just imagine, if you eat 100 grams of pure glucose and 100 grams of table sugar, which sugar will increase the concentration of blood sugar and insulin less?Sugar, of course, because half of what sugar is made of is fructose, which must first be processed by the liver.The same is true for lactose. What about the starch content in cereals and potatoes?We know that starch is composed entirely of glucose molecules and begins to break down in the mouth.This is why bread has a sweet taste after being chewed in the mouth for a long time.The remaining starch reaches the small intestine and is quickly broken down into glucose, which also rapidly increases blood sugar concentration and insulin secretion.In other words, the intensity of blood sugar response caused by starch (complex carbohydrate) is almost the same as that of pure glucose.By the same token, sugar has a much milder blood sugar response than starch due to its fructose content.The blood sugar response caused by sweet fruit is also weaker than that of starchy or starchy foods such as white bread and potatoes, because the sugar in fruit is a mixture of glucose, fructose and sucrose.

The relative average glycemic response to major foods has now been accurately determined.There is already a set of systems for consumers to understand this at a glance, which is the so-called food glycemic index (GI, glycemic index).This system is defined by the magnitude and duration of the blood sugar rise induced by seventy-five grams of pure glucose.With this standard, we can compare the blood sugar response caused by other foods, provided that each meal contains 75 grams of carbohydrates. The greater the increase in blood sugar and the longer the time, the higher the glycemic index.We set the index of pure glucose as 100 as a reference standard.Glycemic responses to other foods are always compared with those of glucose.A glycemic index above 70 is high, between 55 and 70 is medium, and below 55 is low.People with glucose antibodies should naturally try to eat foods with a lower glycemic index.

Let's look at a few examples: Baked potatoes have a glycemic index of 93, while French fries have a glycemic index of 75.Kelog's cornflakes have a glycemic index of 84, granulated sugar is only 65, white bread is 70, rye bread is 52, dried apricots are 31, but candied dates are 103. Glucose is even higher.Forty for plums, thirty to forty for apples and pears, twenty to twenty-five for cherries.Most vegetables, with the exception of root vegetables, contain so little carbohydrate that it's not worth calculating their glycemic index.On the contrary, all kinds of noodles, although made from starch-rich grains, have a rather low glycemic index, especially durum wheat flour products, mostly between 30 and 50!

At first glance, it may seem incomprehensible that such a huge difference in the glycemic index of very similar foods.In fact, the glycemic index is not only related to the sugar and carbohydrate content of food, but also includes the influence of many other factors, such as the source of starch supply, the physical structure of starch, the content of crude fiber in food, and sugar, fat and acid content.For example, bread baked with finely ground whole-wheat flour has a much higher GI than bread baked with coarsely ground, especially semolina with whole grains.Bread made from very coarse whole wheat flour fermented by natural acid bacteria has the best glycemic index.This is exactly what the bakers in our hometown are good at, and I am very proud to be a native of Munich.

There are two types of starch in plants: amylose and amylopectin.The latter form branched glucose chains that are easily broken at the junction and are therefore easily broken down by the digestive system. A typical example is wheat flour.On the contrary, the structure of amylose is a straight and stable chain, which breaks down slowly, so it has a low glycemic index.Certain types of rice are high in amylose, such as American long-grain rice and basmati, and pod plants also contain amylose. In addition to the glycemic index, we should also be concerned about the insulin secretion response caused by different foods.First, persistently high insulin levels are very detrimental to people with unknown syndromes, as this can lead to adverse changes in blood fat and accelerate hardening of the arteries.I want to emphasize that the statement about insulin here does not apply to those insulin-dependent diabetics. They need to supplement a certain amount of insulin in order to maintain their lives!In many people, especially obese people with insulin resistance, the ability of the pancreas to secrete insulin gradually fails over time.So, at least for these people, foods that trigger a surge in insulin secretion should be considered a risk factor for diabetes.Foods that are rich in starch and have a high glycemic index, such as bread and potatoes, do cause longer and larger amounts of insulin secretion than foods with a lower glycemic index such as apples, pears or apricots, and the consequences cannot be ignored.

Fruits and vegetables contain a certain amount of special polysaccharides, which can only be partially digested, and some cannot even be digested.This is the so-called indigestible starch, which cannot be broken down in the small intestine and can go directly to the large intestine.We now know that it plays an important role in the intestinal flora in the large intestine, so this starch also belongs to the so-called crude fiber. In every 100 grams of fruits and vegetables, there is an average of two to four grams of crude fiber.In terms of quantity, the most important ones are cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin and lignin.Lignin is soluble in water and gives food slurries a viscous texture in the stomach and intestines.Therefore, the time for food to pass through the stomach is delayed, and the sugar and starch contained in the food cannot be broken down quickly, so the blood sugar response is delayed.Fruits are the most important source of pectin.

Vegetables contain a lot of soluble polysaccharides, which can even directly affect blood sugar control.Such polysaccharides include so-called plant gums and inulins.When this polysaccharide reaches a sufficient amount, it can not only lower blood sugar after a meal, but also throughout the day, and keep the concentration of insulin relatively low. In short, the insulin secretion response caused by different foods is not only related to the type and quantity of carbohydrates, but also related to other conditions, such as the overall composition of food and the acid-base environment of the digestive system.If foods rich in carbohydrates are rich in fat and protein at the same time, there will be obvious effects: with the increase of fat and protein content, the secretion of insulin will also increase, so some foods rich in sugar, fat and protein will Causes a strong insulin secretion response.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the insulin response was particularly low for the popular whole-grain breakfast cereal, followed by protein-rich foods and fruit.Higher insulin concentrations are found in our basic carbohydrate-rich staples like bread, potatoes, and rice, higher in delicate pastries, and highest in sweet snacks.A popular chocolate bonbon and another popular premium candy elicited the highest insulin responses ever measured.I will not mention these two exquisite and cute snack brands, lest the lawyers of other multinational companies come to trouble me.Readers can find the sources themselves.You'll also find, allow me to add a personal review, that some of the wildly flavorful, sugary, coloring, and flavoring, but still popular fruit yoghurts made for commercial profit can be quite powerful. Those that elicited the lowest blood sugar and insulin responses were nuts, eggs, cheese, meat, and a special unrefined breakfast cereal, Kellogg's whole-bran cereal. (It's undeniable, but I didn't get paid a penny for it!).Nuts, eggs, cheese and meat are all high in fat and judged as heart killers by nutrition authorities. Maybe they can really help millions of patients with unknown syndromes live a healthy and long life?We hear the curse of sugar on the one hand, and the celebration of complex carbohydrates and starch-rich foods like starch on the other. This hyperbolic ritual may soon have a dark end.But my concern is that it will take a long time for people to be convinced that this is a fallacy because of the belief in it. Through the glycemic index of each food, the glycemic index of a whole meal can also be calculated, and the glucose load value can be obtained.This load value can completely tell you how much sugar in your personal diet has a burden on blood formation: a large intake of a food with a high glycemic index will naturally have a high glucose load value.Conversely, a lower glycemic index results in a lower glucose load.You can find the glycemic index of various foods in the appendix at the end of the book. The choice of carbohydrates can be reflected in the daily profile of the relative index.If you choose potatoes, rice, and generally starchy breads and pastries as your main meal and snack during the day, your blood sugar and insulin levels are lower throughout the day than if you eat the same amount of carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains will be high.This is true for both obese and slender people, especially for people with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.A low-glycemic breakfast can even keep blood sugar and insulin levels from rising as high after a high-glycemic lunch.This is the so-called second meal effect. So can we improve the insulin sensitivity of patients through a diet with a lower glycemic index?This is a difficult question to answer.Of the more rigorous studies I've seen so far, only one actually allows one to draw this inference.Does this inference have guiding significance for prevention and treatment?According to this principle, can human beings live healthier and longer?Unfortunately, this question is still unanswerable, because such a causal relationship has not been confirmed in clinical research.However, this is definitely not a random number game, but a factual basis: Two large-scale long-term observational studies with rigorous analysis have confirmed that long-term preference for foods with a higher glycemic index has a significantly higher prevalence of diabetes.The results of a study published in the famous journal "Nurses Study" (Nurses Study) published in early June 2000 showed that there is a direct relationship between the glucose load value and the risk of myocardial infarction, which is especially prominent in obese people. To determine the clinical significance of the glycemic index, the concentration of glycated protein bodies in the blood, that is, glycosylated hemoglobin or fructosamine (fruitosamine), must first be detected.These values ​​can provide a fairly reliable basis for judging whether blood sugar control has been normal over the past few weeks or months.Unfortunately, there are no relatively long-term observational studies on the effects of dietary modification.Most studies last only two to three weeks, and only in people with type 2 diabetes.The statistical data of some experimental studies have clearly stated the problem and achieved the expected results, while other studies can see obvious trends, but are not completely successful, and the rest cannot draw conclusions on this relationship. A lower glycemic index may be effective in the prevention of unknown syndromes and diabetes, but not in treatment.There are still too few studies on this problem, and experts have different opinions on the problems illustrated by the few results, and they cannot argue. A new analysis of British eating habits provides yet another piece of evidence.After taking into account factors such as age, weight and smoking, the study found that compared with people who only occasionally ate lettuce and vegetables, people who ate a lot of lettuce and vegetables throughout the year were 77% less likely to develop diabetes. one%. As for whether fruits and vegetables are important to health, there is no major controversy on this issue.Every child knows that fruits and vegetables contain a lot of vitamins, minerals and trace elements and are therefore healthy.They are the body's most important source of potassium and magnesium, both minerals that lower blood pressure.Incidental diseases of unknown syndromes such as high blood pressure and fat metabolism disorders should also be paid attention to and treated. Low-salt diets are increasingly controversial in the treatment of high blood pressure today because they are useless in most cases and difficult to swallow.Adverse reactions to salt are very common among people with insulin resistance.For them, a low-salt diet is very necessary.Now we have realized the importance of eating more fruits and vegetables and foods rich in potassium and magnesium for the prevention and treatment of high blood pressure.And it has a preventive effect on cerebral hemorrhage and stroke directly caused by high blood pressure, which has been shown in epidemiological studies. Two long-term observational studies in the United States surveyed a total of 100,000 people. According to the latest analysis results, eating an extra serving of vegetables and fruits a day reduces the risk of stroke by 6%.The most obvious effect is cabbage and green leafy vegetables. Eating an extra serving a day can reduce the risk of stroke by 20% to 30%. Potatoes and legumes have no such function. In addition, fruits and vegetables and the crude fiber they contain can significantly lower cholesterol.The first is that low-density lipoprotein cholesterol was lowered, but high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was not, so the ratio of the two improved.A diet with a low glycemic index can even raise HDL cholesterol.Foods that contain a lot of crude fiber and are high in fat (mainly monounsaturated fatty acids) have the best effect on improving blood fat structure.The list of benefits of fruits and vegetables could go on endlessly.We are constantly discovering effective substances and effective mechanisms for maintaining good health and preventing diseases, such as fruits and vegetables that activate the detoxification function in the liver, activate the immune system, prevent the tendency of blood to clot, drive genes to produce various hormones, and finally, also The important point kills bacteria and viruses. Vegetables contain more wonder substances called phytochemicals, literally plant chemicals, than fruits on average.For German consumers, this name may not sound very good, because we Germans always like to believe that plants are free of chemical ingredients.Most consumers believe that if a package says natural, there should be no chemical ingredients in it.But dear readers, have you ever eaten a piece of pure natural mushroom that grows under natural organic conditions, has not been sprayed with pesticides, and is picked by yourself? Many epidemiological studies, and even some clinical studies, have consistently demonstrated that eating more fruits and vegetables can reduce the incidence of heart and circulatory diseases.If you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables every day, the incidence of the above diseases can be reduced by 15% to 20%. In terms of overall cancer mortality, it has not been found that eating more fruits and vegetables has a preventive effect if it is based on convincing research, which is different from the general view.But if you only look at cancers of the digestive system, compared with low intakes, a large intake of fruits and vegetables can significantly reduce the incidence.This is the result of an analysis and study conducted by researchers at the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the University of Gothenburg (Goeteborg) with very strict standards. In June 1999, in Lillehammer, Norway ) held the Eighth European Congress of Nutrition, by Bijan.Professor Bjoern Isaksson announced that he was not popular among the participants.This kind of view, which is contrary to the views of the majority, will inevitably attract boos and attacks. In short, nutrition authorities around the world recommend eating 600 to 800 grams of fruits and vegetables a day.This time they finally got it right, and I agree with it!Since the mid-1980s, one of the slogans of American nutritional principles has been to eat five servings of vegetables and fruits a day (Five a day).In the late 1990s, the German Nutrition Society also took this slogan as a promotional target.We hope that through a nationwide publicity campaign, Germans who do not like vegetables will become vegetable lovers!Great, now we Germans just have to learn how to grow and cook our vegetables and fruits correctly so that they taste as good as those from Greece or Provence. In fact, there is also a nutritionist in Germany who accepted the nutritional principles of the Americans in the 1980s and promoted the slogan of five servings a day in all his articles on nutrition and health.However, because he has never found a conclusive and necessary reason, it seems that this is the correct policy to attack the traditional meat consumption habits. On the contrary, he believes that meat is an important and beneficial part of the diet, so he was accused of meat theory. hat of a lobbyist, not a fruit and vegetable lobbyist.