While sugar spikes blood sugar, some is allowed in the diabetic diet as long as you keep your total carbohydrate consumption under control. You also may use fructose, substituting it in recipes that call for sugar. The key is keeping your overall sugar intake under control, which means knowing to look out for sugar and all of its cousins as you plan your diet. These include fructose, glucose, corn syrup, lactose, matodextrin and high fructose corn syrup.
Glycemic Index
If your diabetes is under good control, you can safely use fructose in lieu of sugar. In fact, it has a lower glycemic index than sugar, so fructose will cause a less immediate spike in your blood sugar. It will, however, ultimately lead to a blood-sugar increase because your liver converts it into glucose.
Calories, Use and Availability
Fructose and sugar, also referred to as sucrose, have similar calorie contents. However, you often can get away with using less fructose because it is one and a half times sweeter than regular sugar. Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar that you'll find in vegetables and fruits. The kind you find in the store is most often made from corn starch. This kind of fructose is granular and looks like sugar. It's often found at health food stores. In grocery stores, it's unlikely to be next to the sugar. Though it's not a no-calorie sweetener, you'll often see it grouped among these at the grocer. Sugar is made up of sucrose, which comes from sugar beets or sugar cane. If you are looking at a nutrition label instead of cooking, fructose will appear under the "sugar" heading because the sugar grams will include both added and natural sugars. Brown sugar, molasses, agave nectar, and other sugars that end in "ose" like maltose fall into the same category.
Considerations
Fructose causes diarrhea and flatulence in some people, so you may not like its effects when you substitute it for sugar. Also, the long-term effects from using fructose remain unclear so it's best to consume it in moderate amounts. Avoid using fructose as your exclusive substitute for sugar.
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Fructose that you use in cooking is different from the high fructose corn syrup often found in sodas and processed foods. High fructose corn syrup has one of two formulations: 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose or 42 percent fructose and 53 percent glucose. That makes it similar to sucrose, or table sugar, which contains equal parts fructose and glucose. However, high fructose corn syrup does not work as well as sugar in stimulating your body to produce leptin, a hormone that sends your brain the signal that you've eaten enough, which can affect your satiety. High fructose corn syrup came under fire following a 2004 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article linking sweetened drinks, many of which contain high fructose corn syrup, to the obesity epidemic. However, many argue that calorie over consumption rather than high fructose corn syrup in and of itself is the likely culprit for the rise in obesity. Obesity is a top risk factor for type two diabetes. Syrup often gets an unfair rep because many foods that include it are empty calorie foods in the first place. Such foods are undesirable in a diabetic diet because they're high in overall carbohydrates, calories and trans fat.
References
- "Diabetic Dream Desserts" ; Sandra L. Woodruff; 2004
- "The All-New Diabetic Cookbook"; Kitty Maynard et al.; 1998
- "Diabetes and Exercise"; Judith G. Regensteiner; 2009
- Diabetes Forecast magazine: Sugar Defined
- "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Healthy Weight Loss"; Lucy Beale et al.; 2005
- American Diabetes Association: Carbohydrates
