The Diabetes Food Pyramid: Fruit

Questions about fruit keep coming up. Will fruit juice increase blood glucose levels more quickly than a piece of fruit? Should you avoid fruit in the morning because your blood glucose might be higher than at other times in the day? Is it better to eat fruit with meals rather than snacks?

All carbohydrates, whether rice, potatoes or fruit juice, raise blood glucose about the same. In general, an equal amount of carbohydrate (15 grams) such as 1/2 cup grapefruit juice or 4 slices of Melba toast, should raise blood glucose at about the same speed and about the same amount.

However, that varies based on several factors -- whether you eat a piece of fruit after a high-fat meal or sip fruit juice on an empty stomach, what your blood glucose is when you eat the fruit, whether the fruit is cooked or raw, how much diabetes medication you have in your body, etc.

Also, people have individual differences. So, your challenge is to find out how fruit works in your body. Does eating fruit in the morning make it more difficult to keep your blood glucose controlled through the day? Does one particular kind of fruit send your blood glucose soaring? Or does a piece of fruit as an afternoon snack give you just enough carbohydrate to last until dinner? Use blood glucose monitoring to answer your questions about how fruit works in your body.

Eat some fruit each day for vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Be honest with yourself about your serving sizes. It is easy to drink a few extra ounces of fruit juice or to call a huge piece of fruit 1 serving when it is at least 2. The steps to take to track your response to fruit are: Check the serving size, eat your fruit, and check your blood glucose level about 1&1/2 to 2 hours later.

Easy ways to eat more fruit:

Put slices of banana or peaches on cold cereal.
Add dry fruit (such as raisins, apricots, or apples) when cooking hot cereal.
Keep a plastic container full of cut up fruit -- have some at breakfast or for a snack topped with plain or fruited non-fat, sugar-free yogurt (to get a bit more calcium).
Take one or two pieces of fruit from home each day to eat with lunch and as an afternoon snack or on your way home to knock the edge off your ravenous appetite.
Keep dried fruit, raisins, figs, apricots, peaches, pears, etc., around. Use it for a snack, try it as fuel for long hikes or bike rides, or stash in your desk or locker.
Toss a few raisins, pieces of apple, dried apricot, or pineapple chunks on a salad.
Have canned or jarred fruit in the pantry -- applesauce, peaches, pears and pineapple for starters.
Toss fruit into entrees -- pineapple in stir-fry or on make-your-own-pizza; fresh or dried cranberries or peaches in chicken, or apricots or apples in pork dishes.
Combine fruit with vegetables -- crushed pineapple in coleslaw, raisins in carrot salad, make a Waldorf salad with apples, raisins, walnut and celery.
Serve fruit with the main course -- applesauce with pork chops or roast, pineapple with ham, low-sugar cranberry sauce with chicken.
Grill fruit on skewers and serve as dessert with a few ginger snaps or vanilla wafers or serve as part of the main course.

Adapted from the book Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy. Written by Hope S. Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE, a nationally recognized expert on healthy eating and diabetes.

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