A glucose spike from a sweet food (cupcake) is worse for our health than a glucose spike from a starchy food (rice). The reason has nothing to do with the glucose measured, though; it has to do with a molecule that’s not visible. A sweet food contains table sugar, or sucrose—that compound made up of glucose and fructose. A starchy food doesn’t. Whenever we see a glucose spike from a sweet food, there is a corresponding fructose spike that unfortunately we can’t see.
