Is Juicing Safe & Healthy If You Have Diabetes?

Juicing has become a trend for all of those who consume fewer fruits and vegetables. Juicing is an art of extracting the nutrient-rich liquid from the fruits and vegetables by removing the fiber present in it. Fruits and vegetables are high in vitamins, minerals that are very beneficial to the body and are said to reduce inflammation, increase immunity, and water levels.

Diabetic patients have to monitor their sugar levels for every food they consume. Juices are high in good carbohydrates and feed healthy bacteria in the gut and help to improve the digestive system that further even contributes to weight loss.

 Juice and Blood Sugar level

i) Juices have the potential of spiking blood sugar levels in diabetic patients because of its concentrated carbs in the form of sugar. Carb intake has a significant impact on blood sugar, and juices exactly provide the body with focused carbs that are sugar ultimately.

ii) Juices extract nutrients but exclude the fibers, whereas fibers help in slowing down the rate of sugar absorption. When the juice is consumed, the process of sugar absorption is more quickly, leading to sugar spike due to removed fiber.

iii) High chances of more calories consumed than required as juices are easy to drink than eating a fruit or vegetable manually with hands, leads to ease of consumption and high chances of consuming calories more from the juice than the whole foods.

All these can trigger the sugar levels and elevate the blood sugar levels in a diabetic person.

 How to make juicing safe and healthy

i) Low in glycemic index, low in carbs: Glycemic index of foods helps to determine how much impact they will make on the blood sugar. It’s necessary to keep a check over GI and consume low carb, low sugar fruit juices to reduce the blood sugar elevation

ii) Portion control: the primary key to maintaining sugar levels is managing the portion of every food a diabetic patient eats. Accidently consuming more calories can lead to sudden spikes in sugars and can even cause long term complications. Drinking juices inadequate amount can help to balance sugar levels

 iii) Consume juice, along with a meal: Juices, when consumed alone, can make you forget about its consumption level. They are highly nutritious but liquid and serve high chances of drinking more juice than required. So drinking them with a meal can help to balance the levels of consumption along with balancing nutrients, fibers, and other minerals altogether.

iv) Choose non-starchy vegetables: A lot of people consider drinking juice of vegetables that cant is included in daily meals or hard to eat raw; in such cases, without feeling the cons of vegetables, the juice is consumed and gets directly releases into the sugar. Starchy vegetables can cause fats, bad carbs production has a high GI, and can complicate the diabetic patient’s health. Leafy vegetables like lettuce, cucumber, etc. should be consumed in the form of juice

(v) Consider the fiber: Juices tend to exclude the fiber while focusing on the extraction of nutrients. It’s better to blend the produce of such fruits and vegetables rather than consuming its liquid directly. The blended produce can help to consume the fiber, which otherwise gets lost in process juice extraction