When dining at a restaurant or other unfamiliar venue, it can often be difficult to determine whether the food you’re about to eat contains sugar or starch. But according to a tip recently posted on Diabetes In Control, there’s an easy, if unconventional, way to check: using urine glucose test strips such as Clinistix or Diastix.
According to the post, to test for the presence of sugar or flour in, for instance, soup, simply put a small amount of the food in your mouth and mix it with your saliva. Then spit a tiny bit out onto the test strip. (Solid foods can also be tested in this manner, but must be chewed first.) “Any color change indicates the presence of sugar or starch,” with the lightest color on the strip color chart label corresponding to a low concentration of glucose.
The author notes that mixing the food with saliva is necessary because saliva contains an enzyme that releases glucose from the sugar or starch in the food, allowing it to react with the chemicals in the test strip.
This method, the post adds, will not pick up fructose in food, nor will it pick up the lactose found in milk products.
For more information, see the article on the Diabetes In Control website.
This blog entry was written by Web Editor Diane Fennell.