What are the Best & Worst Fruits for Diabetics?
The US dietary guidelines recommend adults consume two cups of fresh fruit daily. [1] Living with diabetes you know it’s important to monitor your blood sugar and sweet foods like fruit can take your numbers on a rollercoaster ride, validating the cliche “fruit is nature’s candy.” You might ask the question: should fruit be eliminated altogether? Or are there just better choices than others?
Let’s be honest, you understand not all sugars are the same. For example, your raw apple presents a much different story than a chocolate donut. But why? It’s really quite simple. But before we dive deeper, let’s set a baseline. Since we’re discussing raw fruit, we’re going to focus on fruit’s main sugar: fructose.
Simply stated, fructose is a monosaccharide, the simplest form of carbohydrate. [2] After you’ve eaten that crispy apple, your liver converts the apple’s fructose to glucose, before releasing it into your bloodstream for energy.
Ready for the aha moment? Here it is.
Raw fruit, outside of containing important vitamins, minerals and plant compounds, also contains fiber, which slows carbohydrate absorption. So while the glucose hit will cause your blood sugar to rise, the fiber helps manage your levels.
By converting this information to a familiar, user-friendly method, we can easily compare carbohydrate loads to decide what fruits make the best choices for our menu. But before we do that, let’s talk a little about TOTAL versus NET carbs.
TOTAL carbohydrates are just what the name implies: the total number of carbohydrates in a food including starch, fiber and sugar. NET carbs, on the other hand, include only the carbohydrates the body can fully digest into glucose. As fiber is indigestible, we subtract it from the TOTAL carbohydrate and use the NET value for meal planning.
The following chart is based on 100 gram portions, or roughly a ½ cup serving. I was shocked when I first compared apples to oranges. I wonder how your favorite fruit will stack up? Enjoy responsibly.
| Raw Fruit ( per 100g ) | Carbs (grams) | Fiber (grams) | Net Carbs (grams) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple | 14.8 | 2.1 | 12.7 |
| Apricot | 11.1 | 2.0 | 9.1 |
| Avocado | 8.5 | 6.7 | 1.8 |
| Banana | 23.0 | 4.6 | 18.4 |
| Blackberry | 9.6 | 5.3 | 4.3 |
| Blueberry | 14.5 | 2.4 | 12.1 |
| Cherry | 16.0 | 2.1 | 13.9 |
| Cranberry | 12.0 | 3.6 | 8.4 |
| Fig | 19.2 | 2.9 | 16.3 |
| Grapefruit | 10.7 | 1.6 | 9.1 |
| Grapes | 18.1 | .9 | 17.2 |
| Guava | 14.3 | 5.4 | 8.9 |
| Kiwi | 14.0 | 3.0 | 11.0 |
| Kumquat | 15.9 | 6.5 | 9.4 |
| Lemon | 9.3 | 2.8 | 6.5 |
| Lime | 10.5 | 2.8 | 7.7 |
| Mango | 15.0 | 1.6 | 13.4 |
| Melon | 8.2 | .8 | 7.4 |
| Mulberry | 9.8 | 1.7 | 8.1 |
| Nectarine | 9.2 | 1.5 | 7.7 |
| Olive | 3.8 | 3.3 | .5 |
| Orange | 11.8 | 2.4 | 9.4 |
| Papaya | 10.8 | 1.7 | 9.1 |
| Peach | 10.1 | 1.5 | 8.6 |
| Pear | 15.1 | 3.1 | 12.0 |
| Persimmon | 18.6 | 3.6 | 15.0 |
| Pineapple | 13.1 | 1.4 | 11.7 |
| Plum | 11.4 | 1.4 | 10.0 |
| Pomegranate | 18.7 | 4.0 | 14.7 |
| Raspberry | 11.9 | 6.5 | 5.4 |
| Strawberry | 7.7 | 2.0 | 5.7 |
| Tangerine | 13.3 | 1.8 | 11.5 |
| Tomato | 3.9 | 1.2 | 2.7 |
| Watermelon | 7.6 | .4 | 7.2 |
| Source: USDA |
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