How do you do Diabetic Exchanges?
How do I do a diabetic exchange for a banana? The protein carbohydrate is 20. The Protein is 1.29 and the Fat is 10. I dont know what to do with those numbers. I dont want you to answer your opinions of what you think, like saying diabetic exchanges is hard and not give me information on how to do it, because I want to know how to do Diabetic Exchanges. Thanks.
Comments
As you can see here, a medium banana has about 27 carbs .
http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-bananas-i90...
Let's say you want an english muffin to eat but do not have enough carb exchanges left.
Thomas' english muffins have 25 carbs per serving :http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-thomas-engl...
As 25 and 27 are essentially the same, you can not eat your banana and eat the muffin instead.
It may not be the best nutritional choice but it is your choice.
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Someone who knows more about the diabetic exchange can help you, but I think an exchange usually around 15 grams of carbohydrate.
The reason I am responding to this despite knowing very little is that I HATE THE EXCHANGE! I find it needlessly complicated and not particularly helpful in controlling blood sugar. Rather than use charts and lists, it's so much easier to just go off the carbohydrate count. For example, in this situation, you know the carbohydrates are 20 grams. That should be enough. Instead, now you have to figure out how many exchanges it is. Why? What new information has this given you that the carbohydrate count itself couldn't have?
And frankly, how many carbohydrates or exchanges it is doesn't really matter if it's spiking your blood sugar. Maybe a dietitian told you to have 3 diabetic exchanges or carbohydrate servings per meal, but does that mean that you should? What if that amount of carbohydrate is raising your blood sugar too high? Just take more medication or insulin and hope for the best? A successful diabetic eating plan is one that helps control blood sugar and provides solid nutrition. That can be done in many ways, even on a very low-carbohydrate diet. Regardless of what anyone tells you to eat, you must check for yourself after eating on your blood sugar meter to determine whether it's safe *for you*. What you can eat isn't necessarily what I can and eat vice versa. Not all carbohydrates are created equal in terms of blood sugar impact and some diabetics have a better tolerance than others.
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