![]() ![]() Again, this is thought to be due to special phytonutrients that may slow sugar uptake into the bloodstream. Drinking blended berries isn’t just neutral-it improves blood sugar control. By adding blended berries to sugar water, you don’t get the hypoglycemic dip and you don’t get that burst of fat in the blood. It may be due to a phytonutrient called mangiferin, which may slow sugar absorption through the intestinal wall.īerries help control blood sugar so well they can counter the effects of sugar water even when they’re pureed in a blender. The same goes for mangoes, as demonstrated with powdered mango, and you can’t get any more fiber-disrupted than that. Bananas in general, though, may actually improve blood sugars over time. There was a study that compared whole bananas to blended bananas and didn’t see any difference, but they only looked for an hour and it was while participants were exercising. The take-away? Eating apples is better than drinking apple smoothies, but who drinks apple smoothies? What about bananas, mangoes, or berries? What if you disrupt that fiber with blending but sip it as slowly as the apple eating? The results were a little better, but not as good as just eating the apple. So, it wasn’t the speed-it was the lack of fiber. They found this had the same results as drinking quickly. If it’s just the speed, we could simply sip the juice over 17 minutes and it should be the same, right? Researchers put it to the test. ![]() So, maybe these dramatic differences have more to do with how fast the fruit entered our system rather than its physical form. Eating four and a half cups of apples took 17 minutes, but drinking four and a half cups of apples in smoothie form only took about 6 minutes, and you can down two cups of juice in about 90 seconds. The rebound fall in blood sugars, which occurred during the second and third hours after drinking juice and puree, “was in striking contrast to the practically steady level after eating apples.” This finding not only indicates how important the presence of fiber is, but also perhaps whether or not the fiber is physically disrupted, like in a blender. What would happen, though, if you put those four and a half cups of sliced apples in a blender with some water and pureed them into an apple smoothie? Despite still having all the fiber, it still caused that hypoglycemic dip. The removal of fiber in the production of fruit juice can enhance the insulin response and result in this “rebound hypoglycemia.” (You can see all of these spikes and drops in my Green Smoothies: What Does the Science Say?video.) What happens if you take in the same amount of sugar in apple juice form-about two cups? Your body overreacts, releasing too much insulin, and you end up dipping below where you started. In the three hours after eating four and a half cups of apple slices, your blood sugar just goes up and comes down normally. The same thing happens even after drinking apple juice. In response, our body dumps fat into our bloodstream as if we’re starving because our blood sugars just dropped so low. ![]() By the second hour, we’re relatively hypoglycemic, dropping our blood sugar below where it was when we started out fasting. Our body freaks out and releases so much insulin that we actually overshoot. If you have people fast and then drink a glass of water with three tablespoons of sugar in it, which is about the amount in a can of soda, you get a big spike in blood sugar within the first hour. Drinking sugar water is bad for you, as I explored in If Fructose Is Bad, What About Fruit?. ![]()
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