4 ms·

How did you prepare the kale? The graph says "Time (s)", but those can't be seconds. What's up? So you did a dozen pinpricks to measure glucose? Does that sta

How did you prepare the kale? The graph says "Time (s)", but those can't be seconds. What's up? So you did a dozen pinpricks to measure glucose? Does that start to get bothersome?

dlo 11y ago
I just ate the kale raw from a box. The brand was Taylor Farms, i.e. http://www.taylorfarms.com/products/organic-salads/baby-kale/#product-view http://www.taylorfarms.com/products/organic-salads/baby-kale... This is an unreasonable amount of kale :-). I'm going to need to figure out a better meal:kale ratio or use a different vegetable side. Actually, you're right. They're minutes. I started sampling my blood glucose when I started eating. Let me go ahead and add annotations to some of those data points, especially the data points that correspond to the end of the meal.
- ivankirigin 11y ago
  Wilted kale and spinach both lose a crazy amount of volume. I wonder how that would affect the experiment. It would be much easier to eat a large volume. Just fry in a pan with a bit of salt and oil. Also, does caffeine in soda (so often paired with this meal) speed digestion enough to make blood sugar spike? I always assumed that caffeine increases your metabolism, but I didn't consider that speeding digestion is worse for blood sugar.
  - dlo 11y ago
    The experiment with sautéed kale and spinach is worth a try. If it is made too soft though, it may not slow down digestion much. I hypothesize that a mix of coarse vegetables, for example, one that includes broccoli, kale, red cabbage, and cauliflower, would slow down the digestion rate even more than 10 oz of kale. Replacing the kale with dino kale would make this mix even better. I didn't drink soda with the meal, simply because I don't normally drink soda with this meal, but an experiment with a caffeinated beverage would be easy enough to do. One of the things we're working on is quantifying how different things, such as caffeine intake, affect your metabolic rate. This is the subject of an upcoming blog post.
- devnill 11y ago
  Have you tried using an equivalent amount of water and/or fiber supplements as a control? It seems reasonable to conclude that eating additional food would cause you to feel satiated for longer.
  - dlo 11y ago
    This is a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion.
dlo 11y ago
Re: the experiment being bothersome... yes, it was! I sampled my blood glucose every ten minutes, which might have been unnecessarily frequent. Having to interrupt myself every ten minutes to do a pinprick prevented me from doing anything that required concentration. I basically found myself watching YouTube videos for two hours. I've heard of people doing continuous blood glucose monitoring, but this may be a bit heavyweight. I really only have to do this a few times for a few different meals to get an idea of what is needed by my body.

How did you prepare the kale? The graph says "Time (s)", but those can't be seconds. What's up? So you did a dozen pinpricks to measure glucose? Does that start to get bothersome?

dlo 11y ago

I just ate the kale raw from a box. The brand was Taylor Farms, i.e. http://www.taylorfarms.com/products/organic-salads/baby-kale/#product-view http://www.taylorfarms.com/products/organic-salads/baby-kale... This is an unreasonable amount of kale :-). I'm going to need to figure out a better meal:kale ratio or use a different vegetable side. Actually, you're right. They're minutes. I started sampling my blood glucose when I started eating. Let me go ahead and add annotations to some of those data points, especially the data points that correspond to the end of the meal.

ivankirigin 11y ago
Wilted kale and spinach both lose a crazy amount of volume. I wonder how that would affect the experiment. It would be much easier to eat a large volume. Just fry in a pan with a bit of salt and oil. Also, does caffeine in soda (so often paired with this meal) speed digestion enough to make blood sugar spike? I always assumed that caffeine increases your metabolism, but I didn't consider that speeding digestion is worse for blood sugar.
- dlo 11y ago
  The experiment with sautéed kale and spinach is worth a try. If it is made too soft though, it may not slow down digestion much. I hypothesize that a mix of coarse vegetables, for example, one that includes broccoli, kale, red cabbage, and cauliflower, would slow down the digestion rate even more than 10 oz of kale. Replacing the kale with dino kale would make this mix even better. I didn't drink soda with the meal, simply because I don't normally drink soda with this meal, but an experiment with a caffeinated beverage would be easy enough to do. One of the things we're working on is quantifying how different things, such as caffeine intake, affect your metabolic rate. This is the subject of an upcoming blog post.
devnill 11y ago
Have you tried using an equivalent amount of water and/or fiber supplements as a control? It seems reasonable to conclude that eating additional food would cause you to feel satiated for longer.
- dlo 11y ago
  This is a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion.

dlo 11y ago

Re: the experiment being bothersome... yes, it was! I sampled my blood glucose every ten minutes, which might have been unnecessarily frequent. Having to interrupt myself every ten minutes to do a pinprick prevented me from doing anything that required concentration. I basically found myself watching YouTube videos for two hours. I've heard of people doing continuous blood glucose monitoring, but this may be a bit heavyweight. I really only have to do this a few times for a few different meals to get an idea of what is needed by my body.