Dr. Sarah Berry

What we also know is if you are eating every day all of your meals to cause that kind of peak, that over a sustained period of time, we know that that's linked to some unfavorable long-term health effects.

like an increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

So I would not recommend, based on that, you having instant porridge on its own with water for every meal of the day, absolutely.

No, because you're likely as well to just not feel great for the rest of the day because it sets you up on that kind of roller coaster where you're having the big peak, you're having this dip.

It's driving you then to go and have a quick fix to get your blood sugar back up.

You're then eating more at your next meal and you'll probably feel less energetic, less alert.

So yeah, I wouldn't advise that.

So I added nuts, seeds, dried berries, and some nut butter, and they contain extra fiber, extra protein, and extra fat.

And we know that fiber, fat, and protein impact the rate at which our stomach empties and

they impact also the rate at which blood glucose is then absorbed from the bloodstream and also some hormones like insulin, which obviously also impact how we metabolize the blood sugar.

So by adding and layering on this extra fat protein and fiber,

it modulates how quickly we absorb the glucose, so it modulates this rise in blood sugar.

Yeah, mine is a little bit better than yours, yes.

And it's surprising, actually, even though I paired it with the fiber, the fat, and the protein, that it's still gone up that high.

Yeah, and it's all to do with the magic of the food matrix that we often talk about here at ZOE, which basically is the structure of the food.

So for example, there was a clinical trial where they asked people to eat one day these steel cut oats, another day the rolled oats, another day instant oats, and another day really heavily processed oats.

oats that are used often in breakfast cereals like Cheerios.

And what they found, similar to what we've observed today, is that they're less processed, they lower the blood sugar response.

So the steel cut oats cause the lowest increase in blood sugar after eating.

The rolled oats that we had yesterday called only a moderate increase