I performed this experiment about two weeks ago, but for some reason, I never got around to posting the results. I’m not sure how to interpret the results, but here they are, for what they’re worth.
I tested a chocolate and almond covered ice cream bar made by Breyers. If I’m going to have a “fake” low-carb food, these bars are my choice because they actually taste like real food. Perhaps it’s because there’s actually a decent dose of fat. I’m not sure. But here’s the nutritional composition.
- 180 calories
- 15 grams of fat
- 11 grams of total carbohydrate
- 2 grams of dietary fiber
- 3 grams of protein
Like with all the other blood sugar experiments, I checked my blood sugar before consuming the bar (at 12:00 PM.) Using my ReliOn Prime meter, I got a reading of 97 mg/dL. After eating the bar, my readings were as follows:
- 12:35 PM — 91 mg/dL
- 1:05 PM — 101 mg/dL
- 1:35 PM — 90 mg/dL
- 2:05 PM — 98 mg/dL
And just to be clear, yes, I was actually fasting before I ate the ice cream bar. I hadn’t gotten around to food, so I figured it’d be a good day to conduct the experiment (since I had a sore throat and was thinking about ice cream.)
Like I said earlier, I’m not sure how to interpret what my blood sugar did here. With all the other “experiments” my blood sugar seemed to have a distinct pattern. I didn’t seem to jump all over the place like it did here. Regardless though, the ice cream bar seems fairly harmless where my blood sugar is concerned, and I’ll likely continue to include it as an occasional treat. My diet is 100% high-fat, low-carb, but it’s probably only 90% whole, real food. I do have stuff like this on occasion, and I’m completely comfortable with that.
I’ve been trying to figure out what I’ll test next, and I think I’ve come up with a solid plan. Some folks claim that coffee and artificial sweeteners have harmful effects on blood sugar, so I think I’ll do a side-by-side comparison to see what happens. One day, I’ll test a measured amount of coffee with a measured amount of cream and a measured amount of EZ-Sweetz. Then the second day, I’ll test with the same amount of coffee and cream, but I won’t use any sweetener. It’ll be interesting to see what happens, definitely.
If any of you have any suggestions of items to test, feel free to make suggestions in the comments section. I’m running out of ideas. :)