maybe someone said you’re free to eat fruit, just not extra-sweet ones likegrapesorwatermelon.
Neither of these statements is entirely true.
But, there are also potential risks to eating fruit, particularly in your blood sugar is not controlled.
Helen Yin / Stocksy United
Pros
There are many “pros” to eating fruit if you have diabetes.
Some are nutritionally dense and others contain compounds that help reduceinflammationand damage caused byfree radicals.
But it is also important to consider the health benefits as well.
Cons
On the flip side, there are potential risks to eating fruit if you have diabetes.
The glycemic index is used as a reference to measure how much a carbohydrate-containing food raises your blood glucose.
A high GI food will raise blood glucose more than a medium or low GI food.
Even so, some nutritious foods have a higher GI than foods with little nutritional value.
A healthy diet should always be balanced to meet your daily nutritional needs.
This includes fresh, frozen, or canned whole fruit (as long as no sugars are added).
Dried fruits may be a problem because they are higher in carbohydrates per serving than natural whole fruit.
Fruit juices pose similar riskseven when there is no added sugar.
That’s because the flesh of the fruit, which contains fiber, is discarded during the juicing process.
Moreover, with juices, you may be drinking more fruit than you would eat.
Pasteurized juice or juices made from concentrates often have very high fructose levels.
take a stab at stick with one fruit serving per meal or snack.
Limit your fruit servings to no more than about two to three per day.
Keep in mind that one fruit serving is about 15 grams of carbohydrates.
Here are some examples
Summary
If you have diabetes, eating fruit can sometimes be of concern.
That’s because the carbohydrates in fruit can cause blood sugar to rise.
If you have diabetes, focus on eating whole fruit rather than dried fruit or juices.
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