Meals That Push Blood Sugar Up

Carbs usually have the biggest effect on blood sugar after a meal. Carbs, short for carbohydrates, are bread, rice, pasta, potatoes and sweets.

Carbs break down into sugar faster than protein or fat. So a carb-heavy meal usually lifts blood sugar the most. Protein and fat matter too, but they act more slowly.

A slice of bread, a bowl of rice and an apple sit on a tray beside a tally board for the meal. Bread is marked first and adds two carb tokens to the tally. Rice adds three more, then the apple adds two more, until the tally shows how the carbs add up across the whole meal.

Two carbs can act very differently. A big difference is fiber. Fiber is the tough part of plants that your body cannot break down.

Refined carbs, like white bread and white rice, have lost their fiber. Their sugar reaches the blood quickly.

Whole versions, like barley and steel-cut oats, keep their fiber. That fiber slows how fast their sugar enters the blood.

Two lanes race to a blood vessel. White bread on the refined lane sprints to the finish in one dash and drops three sugar pieces into the blood at once. A bowl of lentils on the whole lane only jogs halfway at first and arrives later with one piece.

The order you eat foods in may change the blood sugar rise.

One 2015 study compared the same foods in two orders. Eating vegetables and protein before carbs lowered the after-meal rise.

Starting with vegetables or protein is a change you can offer at meals.

Key takeaways

• Carbs usually have the biggest effect on blood sugar after a meal.
• Refined carbs have lost their fiber, so their sugar reaches the blood faster.
• Eating vegetables and protein before carbs was linked to a lower rise in one 2015 study.

Try it

This week, jot down which bread, rice or pasta your loved one eats most. Bring the list to their next visit with the doctor or dietitian.