"How to Prevent Blood Sugar and Triglyceride Spikes after Meals"
Standard American meals rich in processed junk
and meat and dairy lead to exaggerated spikes
in sugar and fat in the blood.
This generates free radicals, and the oxidative stress
triggers a biochemical cascade throughout our circulation,
damaging proteins in our body, inducing inflammation,
crippling our artery function, thickening our blood,
and causing a fight-or-flight nerve response.
This all happens within just 1, 2, 3, 4 hours
after eating a meal.
Worried about inflammation within your body?
One lousy breakfast could double your C-reactive protein levels
before it’s even lunchtime.
Repeat that 3 times a day, and you can set yourself up for heart disease,
though you may not even be aware how bad off you are,
because your doctor is measuring your blood sugar and fat levels
in a fasting state, typically drawing your blood before you’ve eaten.
But, what happens after a meal may be a stronger predictor
of heart attacks and strokes,
which makes sense, since this is where most of us live our lives,
in a fed state.
And, not just in diabetics.
If you follow non-diabetic women with heart disease
but normal fasting blood sugar,
how high their blood sugar spikes after chugging some sugar water
appears to determine how fast their arteries continue to clog up.
Perhaps, because the higher the blood sugars spike,
the more free radicals are produced.
So, what are some dietary strategies to improve the situation?
Thankfully, improvements in diet exert profound
and immediate favorable changes.
What kind of improvements?
Specifically, a diet high in antioxidant, anti-inflammatory whole plant foods.
Minimally processed, high-fiber, plant-based foods,
such as vegetables and fruits, whole grains, beans, and nuts,
will markedly blunt the after-meal increases
in sugar, fat, and inflammation.
What if you really wanted to eat some Wonder Bread, though?
In less than an hour, you’d get a big spike in blood sugar.
But, if you smeared it with almond butter,
what would happen?
Adding about a third of a cup of almonds to the same amount of Wonder Bread
significantly blunts the blood sugar spike.
But wait, wouldn’t any low-carb food help?
Why add almond butter when you can make a bologna sandwich?
Well, first of all, plant-based foods have the antioxidants
to wipe out any excess free radicals.
So, not only can nuts blunt blood sugar spikes,
but oxidative damage as well— and blunt insulin spikes too.
Adding nuts to a meal not only calms blood sugar levels,
but also calms insulin levels.
Now, you’re thinking,
“Well, duh, less sugar means less insulin”,
but that’s not what happens with low-carb animal foods.
If you add some chicken to white rice– steamed skinless chicken breast–
you get a greater insulin spike than just the white rice alone.
So, adding the low-carb plant food made things better,
but adding the low-carb animal food made things worse.
Same thing with adding chicken breast to mashed potatoes—
a higher insulin spike with the added animal protein.
Same thing with animal fat.
Add some butter to a meal and get a dramatically
higher insulin spike.
If you add butter and cheese to white bread,
white potatoes, white spaghetti or white rice,
you can sometimes even double the insulin.
Whereas, if you add a half an avocado to a meal,
instead of worsening, the insulin response improves,
as it does with the main whole plant food source of fat: nuts.
What if instead of nut butter on your Wonder Bread,
you used an all-fruit strawberry jam?
We’ll find out, next.