Happy Monday! Time for another blog post on one of the best foods to bring in to your day to day eats if you’re wanting to address this month’s focus.
September is for Balancing Blood Sugars, one of the essential pillars of reducing your own personal burden of stress.
One last food to add to your grocery list:
APPLES.
I’ll give you three reasons why adding apples to your day to day will bring you blood sugar balancing benefits:
BECAUSE FIBRE
Apples, especially when consumed with the skin on, are a brilliant source of fibre. Fibre has been shown to help slow down the hit of carbohydrates from the food you’re eating - and metering it out slowly over time. As apples contain carbohydrates (a necessary nutrient, thank you very much!), the fibre found by eating the actual fruit will help release sugars to your bloodstream slowly over time. Slowing down digestion this way is one of the important steps in balancing blood sugar, and metering out the sugars over a longer period of time.
BECAUSE FRUCTOSE
The main sugar found in apples is called fructose. Fructose is a type of carbohydrate (or sugar!) that your body can utilize right away. Good news - fructose, when consumed in whole food form, has been found to not trip blood sugar imbalances as other sugars may.
Apples are also relatively low on both the glycemic index, and the glycemic load charts. This means it has little impact on your blood sugar levels. I’d equate it with eating carbohydrates the way Ma Nature intended, and doing it this way won’t get you on a roller coaster over the course of the day.
BECAUSE POLYPHENOLS
Apples (and all foods from Ma Nature’s world) come rich with compounds called polyphenols - think of them as vitamins. These compounds do some serious work in reducing what’s contributing to your own personal burden of stress - that chronic inflammation.
I love me a good analogy. Sure, we’re talking blood sugar balancing this month. It’s one of the corner stones of reducing your own personal burden of stress. Now think of inflammation / a high burden of stress as if it is a fire going on in your body. Polyphenols help to put out those fires, and help do the rebuild to make sure fires can’t set up shop in your cells and tissues!
There’s a brilliant study that shows that type II diabetes was lower in a population that consumed a lot of apples (1). There are quite a few other studies that would support the inclusion of polyphenols (of which apples have loads!) as brilliant allies in supporting the body to better regulate blood sugars and keep type II diabetes at bay, along with supporting all the pieces of the puzzle here. (2, 3)
Oh the humble apple.
Let me be clear: we’re talking the whole fruit here, chickens. This does not apply to apple juice.
It will always be best to consume the apple with the peel, as much as possible as this also has a positive sway on your microbiome at the gut level. This is also a part of what goes in to helping reduce your body’s burden of stress, but a topic for another month.
And in the spirit of full disclosure, apples are among the highest on that list of Dirty Dozen. This means they’re one of the highest pesticide-laden foods out there. If you’re looking to maintain good health, this is one of those foods that I would strongly recommend you reach for organically. Check out your local shops, grocery stores, farmers markets and health food stores!
Aiming to Keep Well? Looking to start working on your blood sugar balancing prowess? Need some help in feeling real good?
Get in touch by clicking here. Let’s meet up to start drawing up your road map to support you in both quantity and quality of life.
*This is not medical advice.