Continuous Glucose Monitoring

I discovered that a bunch of things I thought were reasonably healthy actually caused huge glycemic spikes -- e.g., white bread in the morning, croissants, dried mangos, excessive amount of fruits, etc.

I also discovered the importance of what you eat for your first meal in the day (either breakfast or lunch), or how to better order what you eat (fibers, fat and protein first, carbs last), light movement after eating reduces 20+ mg/dl, and more.

At this point I don't even need to wear a CGM every day; I can tell my glucose level just by thinking of what I ate earlier.

I still wear one when I'm traveling for work, as I know I'll have less control over food and calorie intake (airplane meals, restaurants, team lunches, etc).

ps: if you're interested in learning more even without using a CGM, strongly recommend "Glucose Revolution" [1].

[1] Glucose Revolution: The Life-Changing Power of Balancing Your Blood Sugar - https://www.amazon.com/Glucose-Revolution-Life-Changing-Powe...

> white bread in the morning, croissants, dried mangos, excessive amount of fruits, etc.

white bread is basically 100% carbs (converts to sugar). croissants aren’t much better _and_ have unhealthy fat (butter). Dried mangoes pack the sugar of the fruit without much of the fiber and water (speeds up the processing of the sugar).

Healthy breakfast would be like 2 eggs with small slice of toast on the side. Or a small omelette with cheese and mushrooms and spinach. Or perhaps steel cut oats, with thin sliced banana.

Basically - real food that also not loaded with carbs and sugars. Carbs are OK if you actually need them (workouts, etc). Office workers don’t need lots of carbs.

Granted, “healthy” is a spectrum…some people would consider it a win to not smoke, drink soda, etc.

And you’re 100% right about eating fiber first. It greatly slows down sugar absorption/processing! And reduces the sugar spike. That’s an advanced tip most don’t know about.

So saying that it is basically 100% carbs is definitely wrong. Good wheat flour for bread has about 1/8 of its weight as proteins, while e.g. maize meal has only about 1/16 and rice between 1/16 and 1/12, but typically towards the lower end of that interval.

White bread is the cheapest source of proteins, but it has the serious disadvantages that its proteins are digested incompletely by most people and the proteins come with too much carbohydrates. The carbohydrates, i.e. the starch, can be removed totally or partially by making a dough and washing it, but that consumes a lot of water and time.

Otherwise, I agree with what you have said.

White bread could be combined with something that contains mostly proteins, possibly with fat, e.g. chicken breast or eggs, but then bread retains no advantages from its higher protein content (except of lowering the total cost of the food), so it should better be replaced by a healthier source of carbohydrates, i.e. maize or rice.

What i do know is white bread for breakfast wouldn’t be considered healthy by any nutritionist i’ve spoken to. Unless it’s paired with something else like eggs. And comparing it to cereal feels absurd, since cereal is loaded with extra sugars on purpose. Except for plain cornflakes and a few healthy brands at whole foods / trader joes.

I guess try speaking with a French nutritionist? Typical breakfast here is a "tartine" which is baguette with butter and jam. Eggs for breakfast are nonexistant. And yet very few people are fat.

The obesity epidemic is (a) very recent and (b) mostly US-specific. Something I don't understand is why people keep looking for culprits among things that are (a) very old and (b) popular worldwide.

People have been eating white bread for millenia and still do all around the world. It's unlikely that white bread suddenly became evil and decided to kill people.

Look for things that are new like sugary drinks. Or better, new AND US-specific like HFCS added everywhere including bread. Huge portions are also new and so are private cars.

I don't know what's the main driver but I'm pretty sure it's not white bread or butter.