May I share a fun, nerdy game that my family likes to play? It’s called “Vegetable or Fruit?” It goes like this:

Is a tomato a vegetable or a fruit?

It’s a fruit!

Ok, you might’ve know that one. Then, tell me, is a squash a vegetable or a fruit?

A squash is a fruit too!

A fruit is defined as a seed-containing structure that blossoms from a flowering plant. So, by this definition, a cucumber is a fruit too!

It’s a little silly that fruits and vegetables are confused so often. In general, we correlate the taste of fruit with sweetness! So, I think many fruits are misnamed as vegetables because they’re not sweet. It seems just wrong to call a cucumber a fruit, right?

To be honest - we get fruits and veggies a little confused when it comes to nutrition too! Fruits are often (inappropriately) equated to vegetables in discussions about healthy eating, meal plans and diets. Both fruits and veggies are healthy carbs, but there is one very important distinction between them. Do ...

Nope! This doesn't require needles or tests or actual blood.

Yup! It’s important even if you don’t have diabetes.

But, it’s especially important, if you do have diabetes. We are hard-wired to love sugar. It’s delicious! But does sugar benefit us beyond its taste? Are there any consequences to loving sugar? To understand how eating sugar affects us, we have to understand how our body turns food into fuel.

Metabolism is turning food into fuel.

Simply put, metabolism is turning food into fuel. As soon as you pop a bit of food into your mouth, metabolism begins. Once you swallow, metabolism continues in the stomach and the gut. However, the exact process of metabolism varies depending on what each bite contains.

When the bite contains carbohydrates, affectionately known as carbs, your blood sugar goes up. A carb is a nutrient defined by its chemical makeup: a combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. For our purposes, a carb is a vegetable, fruit or grain.

But carbs are not create...