Misinformation in the Diabetes category

I am a long term diabetic, over 30 years now. I have learned from half a life time of experience what you can and cannot (or should I say should not) do if you are a type 2 diabetic. Not sure why, but I only recently (today) looked at the diabetic category.

The first post I saw said:

Fried potatoes, fried eggs and tomatoes was good for your diabetes.

Of course even diabetics can eat anything they want to eat, however, that does not mean it is good for them. The standard diabetic diet allows for only 15 grams of carbohydrate per meal. 1/2 cup of potatoes has 12 grams of carbohydrate. That is almost all that is allowed in an entire meal.

A single half cup of tomatoes contains 3.5 grams of carbohydrate. The two together would be slightly more than what you could have in the meal. The problem with the post is there were no amounts listed and the image shown appeared half the plate was filled with thick cut steak fries. An amount that would be 3 times (or more) than the 1/2 cup allowable.

What about Glycemic Index?

The glycemic index is a measurement that shows the average affect a particular food item had on a group of peoples blood sugar levels. What most people forget to factor in the fact that it is not based on the affect on diabetics, but the affect on NON-diabetics. A non-diabetic can process foods with a much higher glycemic level with seeing extremely high spikes in their blood sugar.

The glycemic index of boiled potatoes is 55 which is the top number in the low level for healthy people. Diabetics are not considered healthy and for people with moderate to sever diabetes, that 55 glycemic level affects their blood sugar like it was a 100 GI food. (100 is the highest number on the GI)

A person who is barely a diabetic, could get away with the occasional, small portion of potatoes. But a long term, or brittle diabetic could raise their blood sugar levels high enough with a small 1/2 cup portion, to put them into the dangerously high range.

Other instances

I spent less than 10 minutes today looking over posts in the diabetes category. I found 3 posts that were providing erroneous information. It is VERY important for diabetics to know who and where they are getting their information from. This is true even if the information is coming from a doctor.

I once had a doctor tell me I MUST eat a piece of bread at every meal at the same time telling me to limit my carbs to less than 15 per meal. Most breads average between 12 and 15 carbohydrates per slice, which would mean by eating the bread, I would have to do without almost all vegetables since a large number of healthy vegetables actually have carbs also. (green beans have 7 carbohydrates per cup, 1/2 cup cabbage is 4)

Do your own research before accepting what someone else says as true.

I have no reason to believe anyone her on Steemit is intentionally passing out false information. But when people write about topics they know nothing about, the often misinterpret what they read. It doesn't cause them any physical harm if they get it wrong, but it could hurt you if you follow bad information.