More processed, more problems.

I've noticed that the more processed a food is, the more difficulty I have keeping my blood sugar in the place it needs to be. This goes even for foods made at home.

For example, a typical lunch for me might be a big salad consisting of several types of greens, tomatoes, avocados and nuts with balsamic vinegar and oil. A blood sugar after this kind of lunch is perfect.

However, the other day I made a home-made grain free pizza recipe like the one in this link. Things were still relatively home made, but the pizza included home made pesto as well as home made almond meal as the base ingredient. Despite these things being home made, they were prepared using a food processor machine. The name is right in it. Whenever we process something, we make it more dense than it naturally was. Even though this pizza is extremely friendly to the blood sugar and I will eat it any day, it is comparatively not as friendly as the raw salad. Blood sugar 1 hour after eating the salad= 95; 1 hour after the grain free pizza= 120. Despite the fact that this pizza is not made of grains, the processing still makes it more dense.

I've noticed this with even "raw" foods that when purchased and prepared at a restaurant or out and pre-packaged will yield higher postprandial blood sugars. A salad from Au Bon Pan with a packet of their dressing will yield 1 hour postprandial sugars higher than a salad prepared at home with oil and vinegar.

I notice this eating foods generally considered "unprocessed." Foods generally considered processed cannot compare to raw ones. If for example you are going to eat a home made regular pizza versus pizza made at a restaurant versus a frozen pizza, you can bet that the postprandial blood sugars will increase respectively; none of them will compare to a raw salad prepared at home. There's just something about processing foods that makes them less friendly to blood sugars. When a food is processed it becomes more dense and you end up eating more than you need.

In short, whenever possible, make it at home. Keep it simple and eat only what you need.