Is jaggery a safe sugar alternative for diabetics?
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Let me simplify, the food we eat is turned into sugar, and the energy released from it is dispersed throughout the body by the insulin hormone to accomplish numerous duties. Diabetes, on the other hand, occurs when the body either does not make enough insulin or is unable to use the insulin that is produced.
As a result, In their situation, blood sugar levels are greater, which can lead to a variety of health difficulties in the long term, including heart disease, kidney problems, nerve damage, and obesity, to mention a few. This is why these poor people are advised to avoid refined carbs and sugar, which are likely to exacerbate their already unbalanced blood sugar levels!
People with diabetes, on the other hand, frequently believe that consuming sugar in its natural form will not cause as much harm. The reality regarding natural sweeteners is as follows.
Sugarcane or date palm is used to make jaggery. To create jaggery, raw sugarcane juice or date palm sap is traditionally cooked in huge and shallow pots. The residue that remains after the process is less refined than the crystallized sugar that you consume. As a result, it has more nutrients than the processed product. Sugarcane jaggery, which is more widely available, is more likely. Despite its nutritious profile, the sweetener is nevertheless relatively high in simple sugars.
A diabetic's ideal diet, on the other hand, comprises of foods with a low glycemic index. Because jaggery has a high glycemic index, it is not recommended for diabetics to consume it. Even in general, diabetes sufferers must avoid sugary foods and desserts because a large part of dealing with fluctuating blood sugar levels is also destroying the sweet taste. This is critical in training diabetics to avoid sugary foods.
To summarize, if you're absolutely healthy and don't have any blood sugar issues, you can substitute jaggery for white sugar. However, if you have diabetes, you should avoid jaggery completely.
References
- "Stop Eating Jaggery for Weight Loss Now - Side-Effects, Benefits". Retrieved 2021-08-28.
- Sugar consumption, metabolic disease and obesity: The state of the controversy Kimber L Stanhope
- The Relationship of Sugar to Population-Level Diabetes Prevalence: An Econometric Analysis of Repeated Cross-Sectional Data Sanjay Basu, 1 , * Paula Yoffe, 2 Nancy Hills, 3 and Robert H. Lustig
- Added sugars and risk factors for obesity, diabetes and heart diseaseJ M Rippe, T J Angelopoulos
