Why does eating dumplings raise blood sugar so quickly? Six ways to eat dumplings safely

Dumplings seem to contain meat and vegetables, both non-vegetarian and vegetarian, and the amount of staple food is not too large, so they appear very healthy and comprehensive.

However, many diabetic patients have found that compared with eating rice with other dishes on a daily basis, eating dumplings seems to be particularly likely to increase blood sugar!

A friend told me:

The doctor told me that dumplings are a healthy food, with both meat and vegetables, a variety of foods, and a low GI value. As a result, I did as he said, and the effect was just the opposite. My blood sugar level was 6-7 two hours after a normal meal, but it rose to more than 10 after eating dumplings!

Why is that?

This result is not accidental. There may be several reasons for this, and I will explain them slowly.

First of all, dumpling wrappers are made of soft white flour, which is very easy to digest when eaten hot.

Dumplings are made with refined white flour, not whole grains and beans, and hot, soft noodles are high-glycemic foods. If you eat rice after cooking it, it will be less hot and the digestion rate will be lower. Dumplings are eaten while hot, and no one eats cold dumplings. So in theory, the blood sugar response of hot dumpling skins will be higher than that of warm and cold cakes, cold noodles, etc.

Secondly, the fat energy ratio of dumplings is often relatively high, especially many commercially available frozen dumplings.

Dumplings are stuffed with meat, and the meat is 30% fat and 70% lean, and some oil is added. Fatty meat is not eaten in daily cooking, but the stuffing contains fat. Too much fat will reduce insulin sensitivity and have an adverse effect on blood sugar in the second meal. In particular, many commercially available quick-frozen dumplings are high-fat products. My students did some calculations and found that some quick-frozen dumplings that do not feel greasy actually have a fat energy ratio of nearly 50%!

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the amount of vegetables served with dumplings is far from enough, and the vegetables are chopped and squeezed dry.

Eating lots of vegetables is extremely beneficial for controlling blood sugar. There are several factors that influence this:

1. A large amount of dietary fiber in vegetables. This is based on sufficient quantity. The vegetables contained in a dozen dumplings are obviously too little compared to the stir-fried or boiled vegetables made in large plates and bowls.

2. The chewiness of vegetables. Whole or large pieces of vegetables need to be chewed slowly, which physically hinders the rapid digestion of food. The vegetables in dumplings are chopped very finely, which reduces the chewiness.

Studies have found that after vegetables are crushed into pulp, they are not as effective as chewing them directly in terms of delaying the rise in blood sugar after a meal.

3. Healthy ingredients in vegetables. Many families squeeze the juice from vegetables before making dumplings. Most of the health-promoting ingredients in vegetables are in the juice. Removing them is obviously not conducive to preserving the nutritional value, including the ingredients that may delay the rise of blood sugar after a meal.

4. Eating vegetables before meals is the best way to control blood sugar. Mixing a small amount of vegetables with meat and swallowing them at the same time will not be as effective as eating the vegetables first.

Fourth, dumplings can make you consume a lot of starch without realizing it.

Many people think that dumplings are a snack and do not consider them as a staple food. In fact, dumplings are a real staple food. They contain a lot of flour.

In order to conduct an experiment, I made dumplings with my students and did a detailed data analysis.

Our dumplings are relatively small and the skin is relatively thin. Each dumpling skin is 14 grams, of which the water content is 40%. One dumpling skin is equivalent to 5.6 grams of flour. 10 dumplings is 56 grams of flour.

The standard size dumplings made in northern canteens/homes contain 50 grams of flour for 6 dumplings on average (40 years ago, 6 dumplings required 1 liang of grain coupons). Eating 12 dumplings means 100 grams of flour, which is equivalent to a full bowl of rice.

However, if a diabetic eats a full bowl of rice, he or she will feel that they have eaten too much. But if they eat 12 dumplings, they will not feel that they have eaten too much...

Fifth, the dumplings are eaten too quickly.

It takes a short time to eat a dozen dumplings, but it takes a long time to eat whole grain rice and a lot of vegetables and fish. Food enters the stomach and intestines quickly, which will naturally speed up the rise of blood sugar after eating.

So, eating frozen dumplings is indeed a good "convenience food", but it is not a good food for controlling blood sugar.

However, when it comes to the winter solstice, the New Year, and the Spring Festival... we have to eat dumplings. How can we live in peace with dumplings? Here are a few ideas for you:

1 Adjust the ingredients of the dumpling filling. Increase the proportion of vegetables and reduce the proportion of fat.

If there is less fat and more lean meat, the dumplings will be tough. You can add eggs, tofu and vegetable juice (the water from the vegetables when they are stuffed) to keep the texture juicy.

Softened kelp, cooked lotus root or potato can be chopped and added to the filling, which also has a good water-retaining effect.

Many people will ask: What should I do if there are too many vegetables and water comes out? This is not difficult to solve.

When cutting vegetables, make sure the particles are larger and do not chop them into small pieces. This will release less water, make the taste more fragrant, and keep the natural cell structure of the vegetables, which is good for controlling blood sugar. Try not to squeeze the water out of the vegetables, but use meat filling, dried vermicelli, dried shrimp, dried mushrooms, etc. to absorb excess water and retain the nutrients in them.

2 Adjust the dumpling wrapper recipe.

Adding a small amount of eggs, soy flour, whole wheat flour, oatmeal flour, etc. to the dough for making dumpling skins can help lower blood sugar response.

However, it is not recommended to add grain flour other than wheat. Because other grain flours have no gluten strength, and the dumplings made from them are easy to break when boiled. It is also not recommended to use whole wheat flour. Because the bran in whole wheat flour will also reduce the continuous structure of gluten, which will significantly reduce the taste of the dumpling skin and make it easy to break when boiled.

3 Add side dishes. Eat half a bowl of low-fat vegetables first, and then start eating dumplings with the vegetables.

The benefits of eating vegetables first have been mentioned many times before. According to the experimental results reported, eating 100-200 grams of vegetables such as choy sum, rapeseed, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, eggplant, mushrooms, etc. first, and then eating staple foods with dishes, can effectively reduce the blood sugar response after a meal.

4 Eat half of the mixed grain rice + vegetables and meat first, then eat half of the dumplings, and eat slowly.

Dumplings are a festive food, and you don't have to make them a daily staple. First, eat half of the grain rice and half of the meat and vegetable dishes in your daily style, including more green leafy vegetables, and then eat a few dumplings to suit the occasion, and you won't have to worry too much.

5 Add less salt to the dumpling filling and use more vinegar with the dumplings.

There are many research reports that acetic acid and lactic acid are beneficial for reducing postprandial blood sugar response. However, vinegar also contains salt, and eating too much will increase sodium intake. So you can put less salt in the filling to compensate, and then add vinegar after cooking.

If you are making steamed or fried dumplings (including pot stickers), you should be more careful to add less salt to the fillings, because some of the salt will escape when the dumplings are boiled, but steamed and fried dumplings will not, so they can easily taste too salty.

6. Exercise promptly after eating to reduce the post-meal blood sugar peak.

Don’t sit down right after a meal, stand up and do some housework or walk around. Starting from the first bite of food, 30 to 60 minutes later, your blood sugar level will peak (depending on how fast you eat and what you eat). At this time, getting up and walking, such as taking a half-hour walk, will help reduce the post-meal blood sugar peak.

With these tips, eating dumplings will not cause a high blood sugar reaction, and you can happily enjoy holiday dumplings with your family. In short, as long as you follow the suggestions of this public account, improve the scientific nature of your diet, and achieve long-term nutritional balance, you can have both deliciousness and health!

Source: Fan Zhihong_Original Nutrition Information