It’s the new year: Time to get your priorities — and your food — in order.
A TikToker with a family history of Type 2 diabetes has gone viral showing how eating food in a certain order can prevent blood sugar spikes.
Justin, known online as @insulinresistant1, posts videos of himself consuming different foods and using his glucose monitor to determine how they affect his blood sugar levels.
Two of his culinary clips collected a combined 5 million views after he compared his blood sugar levels by eating the same foods in a different order.
He explained in the first TikTok video, posted in November, that the “right” order to eat a meal is: high-fiber vegetables; fats and proteins; then starches and sugars last. The idea is that the fiber, fat and protein will help “slow down the digestion of … simple carbs.”
“From what I’ve been reading online, this method can actually reduce a blood sugar spike by as much as 75%,” he said, referring to a 2015 food order study published in the Diabetes Care journal.
To test out the method, he ate the exact same meal of broccoli, avocado, tuna and rice two days in a row — first in the reverse order, and then in the “right” order.
The first video shows Justin eating his meal “backwards,” starting with the rice before moving on to the tuna, then the avocado and finishing with the broccoli. Several hours after the meal, the TikToker showed his blood sugar level spiked 33 milligrams — which he noted “isn’t bad,” but could be better.
The next day, Justin sat down to eat the same meal, but in the “right” order this time: starting with the broccoli before going for the avocado, tuna and then the rice.
“I’m really curious to see if this is actually going to work,” he said in the second TikTok video as he waited for his body to digest the meal. His glucose monitor revealed his blood sugar had only jumped 14 milligrams.
“So, for me, it’s quite obvious that this food order method really works, and that’s good news because it gives me a little bit more control over my blood sugar,” Justin declared.
Blood sugar monitoring is the most important and effective way people diagnosed with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes can manage their health and avoid serious complications such as heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease, blindness and amputation, according advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
People like Justin, without a diabetes diagnosis, can also monitor their blood sugar levels if they want to detect pre-diabetes, “optimize” blood sugar for peak mental or physical performance or gain more knowledge and control over their nutrition, Dr. Robert H. Shmerling explained in a 2021 Harvard Medical School post.
The CDC says an ideal blood sugar range is between 80 and 130 milligrams when sitting down for a meal and up to 180 milligrams two hours after licking the plate clean.
A “startling” new report from the CDC found the number of young Americans with Type 2 diabetes is projected to skyrocket nearly 700% by 2060 if current trends continue unchecked. A spike of up to 65% in young people with Type 1 diabetes is also likely.
Researchers said the “alarming” growth rate could be sparked by multiple factors — ranging from gestational diabetes in women of childbearing age (as their babies are more likely to develop the disease) and the deeply ingrained prevalence of childhood obesity in US culture.
The report also highlights the importance of preventing and managing chronic diseases for current and future generations.
