 Hey guys, this is Dr. Ahmet Ergen. I'm an endocrinologist, a diabetes specialist, and a diabetes educator. Today, we are talking about pineapple. It's March. It's the season for pineapples. I know pineapples are everywhere pretty much all year long, but the real season starts in March. Now, why we prefer fruits in season? Because they taste better. Okay, so they taste better. We love it when they're in season. They're more nutritious. They're delicious. Oh my god, I love pineapples. If I was diabetic, would I eat pineapples? Oh yeah, I would. All right, so if you tell me, oh, you cannot eat any fruit if you have diabetes, well, then see you later. Because you have the right to eat fruits. And if your blood sugar is going to 400 for just having a bite of fruit, you're in major trouble, my friend. Then you need something to help you with your body. So basically, guys, what they're telling you, if they're telling you that don't eat any fruits at all because you have diabetes, it's just saying that because you lost your job, then you can never go out and eat ever again. Or if because you lost your job, you have to sell your car and sell your house and live in a tent. Okay, it doesn't work that way. Life is still there. You're not dead. You can eat something like pineapple. Now, I'm not saying that's flourishing pineapple and eat the whole pineapple. And we'll talk about how to eat that right. Let's get started. Now guys, pineapples are delicious. Papaya is similar, right? Oh my god, when I was in Dominican Republic, we had some papaya. That was out of this world. Oh my god. But I'm telling you, I'm going to give you a couple of tricks about how to eat those fruits and without spiking your blood sugar like crazy. Remember, the pineapples glycemic index is around 56 to 65, depending on the ripeness and the origin of the pineapple. Papaya is similar, glycemic index, which, you know, as you know, if you're watching our channel, for those glycemic indexes, tells you how much spice you get from a food item. Now, we prefer things that are less than 55. So definitely not ideal for anybody with diabetes. But there's something else called glycemic load, right? Glycemic load is determined by how much carbohydrate is in proportion. So let's say watermelon. We talk about this a lot. Watermelon has a glycemic index of 72. It's supposed to spike your blood sugar a lot. But since it is filled with water mostly, the sugar content in a portion is not really that much. So glycemic load is still low. Same thing for pineapple. Pineapple's glycemic load is six. So anything less than four is perfect. Anything less than 10 is reasonable. More than 10, don't do it, right? But six is still reasonable. So how do you pineapple? I would suggest have a thin slice. And if you're going to be active and you're going to be taking a walk, have a thick slice or have a cup of the pineapple. So basically, if you do that, you are not going to really kill yourself with too much sugar. Just around 16 grams of carbs per cup of pineapple. Now, if you sit down and eat pineapple only, first of all, you will probably eat more than what you need because that's the only thing you eat. So you know, you may feel like, oh yeah, that tastes good. Let me have some more. So that may be a problem. But here's a trick. Like we discussed before, if you are eating carbohydrates by itself, they tend to spike your blood sugar. If you eat it with something else, you know what my favorite thing to do? And they do that in Middle East and Mediterranean countries all the time. They eat, for example, watermelon with cheese. That's their summer favorite. So when you are having a whole fat cheese, for example, with watermelon, what happens? Then the the spike in your blood sugar is much less because the fat slows down the absorption. So if you're having your fruits at breakfast and you're having eggs, for example, and some cheese, for example, you know, then your blood sugar is not really going to spike as much. You can try it yourself. You can put the watermelon or pineapple, eat and then check your blood sugar by itself and eat it with a cheese or eggs and check it again. Your blood sugar is not going to spike as near as eating those things by itself. So guys, I hope this video was helpful. Please write a comment, share your thoughts, and we'll talk more about this.