#1435: Small Sips: All Carbs Aren't Created Equal
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Carb counting isn’t just about numbers—it’s about understanding how different carbs affect blood sugar differently.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to the sips series.
These foundational strategies were nominated by listeners. They told me, these are the ideas in the podcast that truly made a difference for them. So I distilled them down into short, actionable insights. There's not going to be any fluff or complex jargon, just practical, real world diabetes management that you can start applying today. And I know your time is valuable, so we're keeping these short. Another small sip will come out once a week for the foreseeable future. If you like what you hear, check out the Pro Tip series or the bold beginning series for more. Those series are available in the menu at Juicebox podcast.com and you can find complete lists of all of the series in the featured tab on the private Facebook group. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. The questions you have, I guarantee you there's answers to them in the Juicebox Podcast, and it's all free. You Jen,
Jenny, broccoli, mashed potatoes, white bread, rice,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:35
lollipop. I like broccoli in there. They're
Scott Benner 1:37
all food, right? They're things people put in their mouth, they
Speaker 1 1:41
are all food. I like the fact that they are technically all food, yeah. Now,
Scott Benner 1:46
if we took 10 carbs of broccoli, 10 carbs of mashed potatoes, 10 carbs of brown rice, 10 carbs of basmati rice, 10 carbs of all giant lollip, how much? How big would a lollipop have to be to be 10 carbs? Probably not that big, right? Well, yeah, no, your
Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:02
typical lollipops, like the little round, circular ones that are like a quarter size, are usually five to eight grams a piece, depending so, you know,
Scott Benner 2:10
I'm old enough to think of that as a doctor's office lollipop. It is. Yeah, I don't think they give this away. Lollipops
Speaker 1 2:16
that had the curved bottom, they had the two sticks that were a curve. Do you remember
Scott Benner 2:21
those so excited? She's so excited. She's like, I love that lollipop. I have to tell you. I went into a place the other day to order something, some food, and it wasn't gonna be ready for a half an hour. And I said, I'm gonna go wait in my car. You know, it's that time of year. I'm like, hey, these people are sick. I know they are. I gotta get out of here. And they had a, like, a bowl of lollipops. And I was like, I'm just gonna take one of those. I just I rolled outside, sat in my car with my lollipop. But I bring these things up because if we took 10 carbs, 30 carbs, and made equal piles, carb wise, of all these different foods, it doesn't mean that those carbs are all going to impact your blood sugar the same way. It doesn't mean that they're going to require, and they think this is the part that throws people off the same amount of insulin. So 10, you know what I mean? I want to talk about that.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:08
Yeah, no, I think it's valuable to bring up, because I think in the world we live in now, with the technology we have, we can actually see more of what you're saying. We can see that 10 grams of broccoli versus 10 grams of mashed potatoes, let's say are all worth they're all worth the same amount of insulin. But because we have the quality of technology in delivering that insulin, we have a better way to push that insulin out, to cover the food. And we also know a lot of people, thankfully now know a lot more about Pre Bolus thing for certain things versus not other things. So that the understanding of how insulin works and then how food digests, they're really they're the two factors that are so very important, and a carb is a carb as a carb is not true when you're trying to deliver insulin to match the effect that that CARB is going to have once it hits your
Scott Benner 4:13
bloodstream, right? I have to tell you that we did a defining diabetes episode called carb absorption and digestion. It's 668, was a long time. It was a very long time ago, and I understood by then, through my experience with Arden, that all carbs weren't created equally. Like, that's how I thought about it, and it's how it comes out in the podcast. It wasn't until one day, I think, in one of the pro tip episodes, where you started talking about the digestion. And I have to admit, like, I don't know if I ever told you this at the time, but I was like, oh, that's why. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I was like, I knew it was happening. I saw it happening. I knew how to combat it, like, the whole thing, I didn't know why it was happening. And I found that's been such a almost set a delightful path, because I think it. Really opened up the podcast a lot, because it's led to so many other things, like, great, like, you know, initially, just the conversation of, like, Look, if you put those potatoes in there, the makeup of those is going to, you know, kind of dictate how it gets digested, how long it stays in your system, how long it's impacting but if you like, go flop a little sour cream, you know, or some butter on top of it. Butter is a great example, because no carbs and butter. So you know, if your mashed potatoes are really just a butter delivery system, and it slows down your digestion, well, then those potatoes, they sit in your stomach longer, they impact longer. And that's what I mean by it like, yes, it's 10 carbs of potatoes, but the impact over the timeline of digestion, the life of the insulin, all the things that are going on at the same time are not going to all be equal. You can't just push the button put in the insulin, wait however long you're going to wait, eat the mashed potatoes, have the experience, and then do that again with broccoli and have the experience. I think that's why people with diabetes so often say things like, I did the same thing today that I did yesterday, and it didn't work out the same, except you didn't do the same thing. You just aren't seeing the variables that make yesterday different from today
Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:19
correct, sometimes Absolutely. And when we talk about there are, you know, working with as many little kids as I have the opportunity to, there are a lot of little kids and even adults, but who have likes, and they stick with those likes for an amount of time before they decide, well, I just don't like that anymore. I'm not going to eat it. But that makes it a little bit easier to determine the impact, and then you have to take into consideration the variables around that. So you may have figured out your grilled chicken with steamed broccoli, and you have it every single day for dinner because that's your favorite thing to eat, but the variable surrounding entry into that meal time, or even after that meal time, can then make a shift in how the insulin gets in in a timely manner versus a more lengthy manner, versus, you know what I mean, like exercise you're doing volleyball for three hours ahead of that meal, versus the next day you've had three tests, and you come into dinner time and you've had no activity, because if you've just been sitting, there are those variables that are going to impact this meal needs two units in a given scenario, but the variables surrounding that are going to change day to day.
Scott Benner 7:39
I have probably 1000 times said to people, if you're really struggling to figure out how your insulin works, get boring for a few days and eat the same thing for breakfast, the same thing for lunch, the same thing for dinner. You'll get better at it, like, because right then, at least you can see like, oh, I tried a 10 minute Pre Bolus. This didn't work. You know, like, there's nothing worse than somebody being so bum fuzzle that they start saying things like, I saw someone lying the other day. Said, This is what's making me think of it. She said, I don't understand. I'm up to a one hour Pre Bolus. And I was like, Oh, well, that's not your problem. Then right? Like, your basal is wrong, or you're, you know, the meal before isn't being addressed correctly, or any number of problems. But like, if you're up to, like, trying to Pre Bolus your meal for an hour, you're looking at the wrong problem, you know. And I just think that if you simplify, you can see how like this food works, and then you can see, well, now I can figure out like this food mixed with this food on a plate might work differently again, and that's a little easier for me. I'm a very boring person. You and I are going to get done here. I'm going to go downstairs. I'm going to take two I'm going to take two eggs, I'm going to take a little bit of protein, I'm going to put it in a pan with like, half a tablespoon of butter, I'm going to fry it up on a throat and a wrap, and I'm going to eat it like I do every morning. I don't care. Doesn't bother me. But do that for a few days, you'll start seeing consistencies. Start realizing, hey, my Pre Bolus was a little short. It was a little long. This carb ratio doesn't work for this meal, but it does work for lunch for some reason, like, who cares? Why learn that you know, right? Expect that what's going to happen is going to happen, and do it again the next day. Have some success. And then, like you said, now you've got actionable tools that you know how to use. Start applying them to different scenarios, right? And
Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:22
then you can take that even further. Let's say you love your protein wrap that you're eating, and you decide, well, goodness, you know, I'd really like to get some good antioxidant quality into this meal as well. I'm going to start throwing some blueberries or some raspberries into this right? Well, that's an addition to what you had figured out. So now, if things go sideways and you didn't expect them, it's okay. I added this extra. How do I need to compensate for this? It's an do I add a secondary Bolus at a different time? Do I Bolus a little bit longer Pre Bolus? Do. So what do I do? Right? So you can take your again foundation of things that you do most of the time, and most people have about 80% of the same foods over and over and over again in a week's time. You can figure those out. You can start throwing in the oddities and figure it out in an easier way. Yeah,
Scott Benner 10:21
I mean, listen, I don't have diabetes, but that wrap can sometimes have I'll tell you what I'll do. Sometimes I smoke sausage and I put it in the refrigerator and I put it with my wrap. Sometimes I do chicken, sometimes I do shrimp, sometimes I do beef. Sometimes I'll get crazy and put bacon in there. I'm crazy. Just losing weight for the last two years has been a lot of fun, but the bacon, if I was using insulin, would slow down digestion differently than the chicken, or the chicken would digest 45 minutes later, an hour later, versus maybe the beef would do it a different time. Or the shrimp might not really impact me very much. It's all there. But like you said, you throw, not that you're putting a berry in with shrimp, but all of a sudden you like, throw some berries into it. You could, I guess. But now, all of a sudden, you might get hit with some fast acting carbs, because that wrap, prior to that is eggs. It's a protein in the wrap. I try to use a fairly low carb wrap. That's probably a slow, consistent impact. All of a sudden, I have a little bowl of blueberries on the side. Now I'm gonna get a zing of, you know, fast acting sugar, it changes Pre Bolus time. It changes the amount of insulin. You know, yeah, all of a sudden now, if I was getting a 50 point rise out of the wrap that I was getting rid of in two hours, that fast acting sugar could throw that 50 point rise another 50, 100 points higher if I don't hit it correctly, one way or the other. What I can tell you is that people report back that the phrase not all carbs are created equal really help them understand diabetes episode 668, 739, and 1068, are some places you can hear that discussed. Awesome. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 11:54
Thank you.
Scott Benner 12:02
If you or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective. The bold beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginnings series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player, or you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. Are you starting to see patterns, but you can't quite make sense of them. You're like, Oh, if I Bolus here, this happens, but I don't know what to do. Should I put in a little less, a little more? If you're starting to have those thoughts, if you're starting to think this isn't going the way the doctor said it would, I think I see something here, but I can't be sure. Once you're having those thoughts, you're ready for the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast. It begins at Episode 1000 you can also find it at Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu, and you can find a list in the private Facebook group. Just check right under the featured tab at the top, it'll show you lists of a ton of stuff, including the Pro Tip series, which runs from episode 1000 to 1025 Hey everybody. I know there's so many episodes you might be like, I don't know where anything is, but if you go to Juicebox podcast.com or go to the private Facebook group and look in the feature tab, you'll see a complete list of all the series that exists within the podcast. And I'm talking about after dark ask Scott and Jenny algorithm, pumping bold beginnings, defining diabetes, defining thyroid, diabetes, pro tip, diabetes, variables, mental wellness, type two diabetes, how we eat, and if we add something else, like, say, my weight loss diaries, which we did, you'll find them there as well. And as a matter of fact, we're about to add a new list right now about GLP medications, because we have a seriously nice grouping of episodes on that topic. This is a good way for you to keep up with what's going on on the Juicebox Podcast, and even a better way to find those series that are, you know, compendiums at this point, 1020, episodes that are all on the same topic. So.
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