Never believe the "keto" claims until you've tested yourself

(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” ) #1

So I’ve been wearing a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) for the past couple of weeks, and I’ve learned quite a bit about how a bunch of different foods affect me. For instance, milk doesn’t drive up my blood glucose (BG) as much as I’d thought.

But the main thing I’ve learned is that I can’t trust ANYONE’S claims until I’ve tested myself. So I went for some sashimi, had a beef wagyu appetizer and a couple of other things. It all seemed super low carb, and I wouldn’t have known that it wasn’t if I hadn’t checked my CGM, and saw a BG spike that could only have meant there was sugar in something. There was a sauce on the beef wagyu. That must have been it.

Trust no one.

There’s also a very well-known chocolate “bark” that claims to be keto. It uses monk fruit to sweeten it. The net carb count is very low on the nutrition panel. And yet it drives up my BG just like sugar. Can’t buy that [spoiler]shit[/spoiler] again!

Anyway, hope this helps someone. I’ve been on this LCHF journey for over 2 years and I’m still learning. Fascinating.

#2

So cool! Before I looked into keto, I did some of the carb testing from Robb Wolf’s latest book and it was pretty interesting (very different reactions to blueberries and white rice, for example, even with the same grams of carbohydrate).
Thanks for posting -

(Running from stupidity) #3

Yeah, I’m pretty much at the stage where I’m not eating it unless I’ve made it or I’ve seen it being made and I KNOW what is in it.

Otherwise I’m just on an impromptu fast…

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #4

I’m asking about everything and even then probably can’t trust it. I love thai food and none of the restaurants I go to will remove sugar in the dishes I love. They don’t seem to understand. So we are making thai like dishes at home when we get the hankering.

When eating out I leave the sauces off of everything.

I’m on the hunt for 2 oz glass food safe bottles so I can carry olive oil with me.

We are cooking more simply at home now and the food tastes better.

(Bacon for the Win) #5

@Madeleine
I did Robb Wolf’s testing too. Blueberries jacked me up to 257! And I’m not even diabetic, just playing with different foods.

(Michelle) #6

We are doing the same and saving BANK!! Now I’ll have a few extra dollars to spend on smaller clothes.

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #7

They have probably made the sauces and marinades in large batches, rather than cook to order. They may even buy them premade. It’s more likely that they are unable to accomdate a request like this without making a new sauce or marinade that may take an hour to adrenals or overnight to apply.

Restaurant cooking is very different from home cooking. It’s a lot more like dressing up leftovers for the home cook.

(Mike W.) #8

How about some silicone pouches like you would use for baby food?

(Mike W.) #9

FWIW our local Indian place makes AMAZING food and none of it has added sugar. Obviously if you get a tomato or peanut sauce it’s gonna have sugar in it, but most of the dishes we get are cream based.

(Daisy) #10

We went to the Outback last Sunday. Their veggie options were broccoli or green beans. I hate broccoli, so naturally I ordered the green beans. They were delicious, so I looked up a copycat recipe for them: brown sugar. Why??? Like seriously, I can’t even trust green beans these days!

(Brian) #11

The continuous glucose monitors seem like they’d be a really cool tool to help a person tweak their diet. Probably not practical for just us curious types, though.

How much trouble is it to get set up and keep it accurate? Mostly just curious.

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #12

Did this restaurant make an actual keto claim, or did you make a keto assumption?

Regarding the well known chocolate bark with monk fruit… there is no free lunch, so I’m not surprised that sweetness probably triggers your blood sugar. I forget if you were T2DM or not.

(Bunny) #13

”… Here’s the problem, though. Blood glucose does not drive weight gain and diabetes. Increased insulin does. What happens to that blood sugar? It is not removed from the body? It is merely shuttled to the liver where it is turned into fat. …” - Dr. Jason Fung

Glycemic Index Versus the Insulin Index: VERY INTERESTING?

(Robert C) #14

This is the solution! Cook for yourself (truly trust no one). Restaurants are basically interested in two things:

  1. Making the food taste so good you want to come back
  2. Keeping the cost as low as possible

(Notice that your health and well being are not on that list!)

You can expect canola oil usage, a dash of sugar on anything that needs some flavor kick, higher carb sauces (BBQ, teriyaki etc.) smothering meat (that might not look good or taste good otherwise) and noodles / rice / potatoes under or next to everything.

“Hacking” the dishes (special orders, exchanging carbs for vegetables etc.) helps but the cost stays the same (or goes up!) and who knows what the cook will do if they feel offended or feel like your requirements are a burden?

(Bunny) #15

…or rancid hydrogenated soybean oil :shushing_face:

Footnotes:

  1. “… Soybean oil is often hydrogenated to increase its shelf life or to produce a more solid product. In this process, unhealthy trans fats are produced which may raise blood cholesterol levels and increase the risk of heart disease. …” …More
(Robert C) #16

Yes! Especially restaurants not doing so well. They will stretch “use by” and throw away or turnover times as long as they can.

But, after thinking about what I wrote, I don’t want to sound too negative and throw the whole restaurant industry under the bus.

I guess I would say, if you really want to eat out, go with restaurants that seem to really care about their reputation (i.e. you get the feeling that one food poisoning incident or one bad review is too many) and that put a spotlight on their sourcing.

(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” ) #17
  1. Assumption.
  2. Allulose has no effect on my BG, so it’s not the sweetness per se. It’s the chemical compound itself. Not diabetic.
(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” ) #18

Well lots of people think it’s overkill, but it’s a very useful tool. Even without relying on insurance, a month’s supply runs under $200 in both Australia and the USA. At least for the Freestyle Libre.

My first sensor came broken, and I hit a blood vessel with my second sensor and it was uncomfortable so I had to take it off after 6 days. My 3rd sensor has been mostly fine. The application is pretty simple once you know how, and apart from getting it on you (which is painless because it’s measuring interstitial fluid, not blood) there’s no setup at all.

(Bob M) #19

I wore a FreeStyle Libre for about a year. If you move from one arm to the other, you get higher (or lower) blood sugar readings. I’ve compared it with a pin-prick meter and two “real” blood sugar readings, and both got one right and one wrong. My last several Libre sensors, I compared with pin-prick readings, and the pin-pricks were about 10 points or so higher.

I paid about $160/month for the sensors, which I personally think is expensive. It needs to come down in price to make it a more useful tool.

I find there’s a scale. If I eat meat, particularly beef, pork,lamb, I get ZERO blood sugar rise. I mean it’s as if I’ve not eaten. I can get a small blood sugar rise from shrimp and mussels (have carbs in them). Vinegar seems to cause or limit blood sugar rises. Potatoes cause a ton of blood sugar rise for me,though I will eat small amounts on occasion.

#20

It’s neat, isn’t it? Like a window into your physiology. I stopped it after the carrots, blueberries and rice because even when I wasn’t so careful about carbs, having such a load of them (alone) first thing in the morning… blech, not actually much fun (even the blueberries, which I generally love). I’ve thought about applying this to my now much lower carb meals just out of curiosity.