In my spare time as a nutrition scientist…I try to read the labels of most everything I purchase. I also attempt to understand my gaps in knowledge. To combat or control a human with insulin resistance, the primary area to pay attention to is sugar, by any name.

My current mode of operation is to not trust anything man-made and marketed as “healthy” without first viewing it with my special skepticism glasses. Especially artificial sugars. I fell into this rabbit hole initially when trying to formulate a healthy protein shake, which I wanted to use regularly as a meal replacement. The core ingredients: protein powder, whether whey or plant based, real ingredients like banana, blueberries or blackberries, nut butter or peanut butter, and flavorings like cinnamon, cacao and peanut butter powder - all of these have natural or fake sugar. The insulin spike is real. The powdered products produced for the healthy person have such long ingredient labels that it just feels better to not rely on them.

I have reduced my protein shakes down to 1 or 2 a week. I have replaced them with Greek yogurt and I’ll add some fruit myself. Less time spent reading labels!