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TL;DR
- I ate 3 boiled eggs and a pack of soy milk for a healthy lunch. I thought my blood sugar wouldn’t rise at all, but it went up higher than expected, hitting 156.
- An hour later, I tested out how much my favorite vanilla latte would raise my blood sugar. It shot up to 179, higher than my actual lunch.
- Liquid fructose bypasses digestion and goes straight into your bloodstream. The simple effort of eating a healthy boiled egg lunch was instantly undone by a single sweet coffee.
Day 7 of Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM). After experiencing the rollercoaster of fruit and swimming yesterday (Korean), I returned to my usual simple diet today.
The lunch menu was my go-to: 3 boiled eggs and soy milk.
11:50 AM: The Betrayal of 3 Eggs (Peak 156)
Every time the dry yolk clogged my throat, I barely washed it down with soy milk. I expected a flat graph, thinking, ‘Since I’m only eating this block of protein, my blood sugar shouldn’t rise much, right?’
The result: From a pre-meal 119 to a peak of 156.
Despite being a protein-heavy meal, blood sugar rose by 37 after 75 minutes.
It was an unexpected number. Since it was a low-carb meal, I thought I could defend it around 130, but 156? Was it the slight amount of sugar in the soy milk, or does protein also raise blood sugar to some extent during metabolism?
Anyway, considering I endured the dryness, it was a somewhat unfair report card. But the real tragedy wasn’t lunch.
1:32 PM: Curiosity Killed the Pancreas (Peak 179)
Maybe it was because lunch was lacking. As the afternoon approached, I felt my sugar levels dropping rapidly. I actually had a lingering curiosity: “Just how much does my go-to vanilla latte raise my blood sugar?”
Rationalizing that ‘I didn’t eat any carbs for lunch, so now is the perfect time for an experiment,’ I went and bought a cup.
I gulped down the coffee. While the sweetness was waking up my brain, my pancreas was screaming.
Blood sugar rose by 41 in just 55 minutes after drinking the vanilla latte, peaking at 179.
From a pre-snack 138, it skyrocketed to a peak of 179. A single cup of coffee drank as a snack pulled my blood sugar up much faster and higher than the 3 eggs I had for a meal. The graph climbed so steeply that it felt like I had an IV drip of vanilla syrup plugged directly into my arm.
Liquid Fructose: The Fate of Those Who Don’t Chew
Thinking about it calmly, it’s an obvious outcome.
Food requires ‘physical time’ to be broken down and digested in the stomach and intestines. However, the vanilla syrup (liquid fructose) poured generously into the latte doesn’t need any of that. It takes the express lane through the stomach and dives straight into the bloodstream. In terms of absorption speed, solid food is no match for liquid fructose.
My simple effort to stay healthy with a usual boiled egg lunchbox was vainly overshadowed by a sweet vanilla latte in the afternoon.
“Ah, if this was going to happen, I should have just eaten a delicious spicy pork stir-fry for lunch.”
That was the only regret I had while looking at the screen displaying a blood sugar of 179.
[!TIP] Liquid fructose in beverage form (syrup, soda, etc.) is absorbed instantly without digestion, causing an explosive rise in blood sugar. Even if you restricted your meal for dieting or blood sugar management, one sweet drink afterward makes all that effort go down the drain. Compromise with Americano or unsweetened latte instead!