Diabetes - Day 4

Today, I took advantage of the “exchange” property of the exchange system and switched up my meals a little. I woke up really wanting French toast, so I had two slices of that instead of a cup of cereal. I still had the banana, and instead of milk I had yogurt. The almonds that would have gone in my cereal were switched out for Smart Balance on the toast. I used about a tablespoon on lite syrup…I don’t like much, anyway. Normally, I would have put powdered sugar on top, but I didn’t really miss it.

I like the idea of the exchange list, because it really teaches people about the carbohydrate content of foods and the fact that carbohydrate can have the same affect on blood sugar regardless of its source. Working at the hospital, I find that many patients are surprised that fruit and milk have carbohydrates. They usually think carbs are only found in bread and sweets. “Sugar free” foods are also very misleading. We have “sugar free” cake on our menu, and it still counts as two carbohydrate exchanges…the same as the “non sugar free” cake. What’s the point?

The only problem I have with the exchange system is that it is merely an estimate. This is helpful, but I found that some of the foods I consumed were actually quite off from the carbohydrate content supposed by the exchange system. For example, two slices of the bread I buy has only 22 grams of carbohydrate, rather than 30. It’s true, it is a little under an ounce per slice, and I seek out bread that does not have large amounts of added sugar in the ingredients-but the point is that most people would not scour the label for this information.

On that note, I’m really looking forward to the next 3 days when I will be using advanced carbohydrate counting for my meal planning. That means I’ll be using the actual food labels to determine the carbohydrate content of the foods I’m eating.