My Bubble: Finding Nature's Alternative For Me ...

It's 12 noon and my stomach's growling!

I've only had a shot of bitter-gourd juice for breakfast. Bitter-gourd looks like a cucumber but with ugly gourd-like bumps all over it. As the name implies, the bitter-gourd is a bitter veggie that contains a hypoglycemic compound (a plant insulin) that is highly beneficial in lowering sugar levels in blood and urine. Researchers have supported that the bitter-gourd juice can significantly improve glucose tolerance without increasing blood insulin levels.

Having not eaten anything after that, I made myself a cup of sugarless iced-coffee topped with rolled oats and ground flaxseeds. Hmmmmmm ... my stomach still feels empty. Considering that I've threw-up all my dinner last night due to stomach-cramps plus a 4km run this morning, that cup of watery concoction sure ain't enough! Ransacked the fridge and found Lo Kong's boiled Japanese sweet potatoes from yesterday. I don't mind eating it cold as it is but it's sweet! But then, what the heck ... I'm hungry!

Guilty as hell biting into that piece of sweet potato, I popped onto the net to check about the likely combination of sweet potatoes with diabetes. I've heard that sweet potatoes are healthy food but to my surprise, I did not figure it will be as good as what I've discovered.

Sweet potatoes are more than just a filling food. It is one of the most nutritious food we can eat. It is rich in complex carbohydrates and low in calories as there are only 117 calories in a 4-oz serving. With the same serving, sweet potatoes can give us half of our daily need of vitamin C and 20% of our daily vitamin E requirements to provide the protection to our blood vessels and certain parts of our eyes. They also have those good B vitamins, folate and vitamin B6, that give the brain a boost as we age.

Sweet potatoes are a great source of fiber too which means it's a good food for people with diabetes, like me! The fiber helps lower blood sugar by slowing the rate at which food is converted into glucose and absorbed into the bloodstream. Also, because they are such complex carbohydrates, sweet potatoes can also help control weight.

When buying sweet potatoes, we need to look for the ones with the most orange color as they contain the most beta-carotene.  Now that I know more facts on the sweet potatoes, I don't think I'll worry about putting the next nutritious piece of sweet potato in mouth ... ever!

Next, I'm going to see what I concoct out of those sweet potatoes ... yummy!!!