We thought it would just be kind of wrong to wrap up March — National Nutrition Month — without reflecting upon a beloved condiment that many of us can’t live without: KETCHUP.

If you Google “ketchup” in the context of blood sugars, you’ll see all kinds of results that vilify this condiment as the worst possible choice for people with diabetes — to the tune of “Worst Foods for Diabetics,” “10 Diabetic Foods to Avoid,” and “10 Bad Foods for Diabetes.” Yikes! Fortunately, we know ketchup isn’t really taboo and we can manage it just fine (like salad dressings, etc.), with a little planning.

No one in our Diabetes Online Community shows more PDA (public display of affection) for ketchup than our Minnesota friend Scott Johnson, who’s been living with type 1 for more than three decades, blogs at Scott’s Diabetes, and works for diabetes app company mySugr. Scott is not quiet about his love for all things Diet Coke, grilled cheese and ketchup. And he certainly has his preference on how this beloved condiment should be served.

Curious to know the real blood sugar effects, Scott recently took on The Great Ketchup Experiment — adding to our own similar experiments with coffeeand beer. Now, here’s what Scott found out:

Do you carb-count your ketchup? OR Carb counting your ketchup? (or something along those lines?)

Ahhhh… Carbohydrates and condiments. The words roll off my tongue like they belong together. The soothing mix of chilled ketchup with hot french fries or the edge of a perfectly crisp yet gooey grilled cheese sandwich is enough to make my mouth water just thinking about it.

But any mention of mouth-watering and diabetes usually means there’s math involved – and maybe even some insulin, depending on the amount. And when we’re talking about ketchup and Scott Johnson, the amount is usually significant.

And I recently realized that even though I understand there are carbohydrates in ketchup, I’ve never actually included them in my meal calculations. This should be an issue for me, but I’ve never noticed before. How can that be?

No. Wait. You’re not feeling me…

Before we go much further, I want to bring you a little deeper into my ketchup world so you can better understand why this realization hit me so hard.

  • For me, ketchup is as much a part of the meal experience as the food itself.
  • If I go to a fast food place, and the ketchup pump is empty or broken, I might leave. It’s enough to ruin my visit. C’mon, is it really that hard to keep your ketchup game on point?
  • I have temperature preferences. Cold ketchup is better than warm ketchup, but warm ketchup is better than no ketchup. However, I wouldn’t choose chilled packets over a room-temperature bottle (the pain-in-the-ass factor outweighs the temperature preference).
  • When out to eat with people, a partially-loaded ketchup bottle makes me nervous. Even before ordering I start eyeballing empty tables nearby for backup bottles in case we run out.
  • I have ketchup ratios for some things. 1 McDonald’s hash brown = 1 paper ketchup cup. 1 medium McDonald’s fries = 3 paper ketchup cups (if they’re REALLY hot, maybe 4 cups). Burger King fries need more ketchup, 4 cups for sure.
  • I don’t do drive-through fries or grilled cheese because… how do you ketchup?

I could go on and on… you get the idea. This ketchup stuff is serious business for me.

KETCHUP Q&A

Determined to figure this out, I started breaking things down, doing my own research and answering some questions.

How many grams of carbohydrates are in one serving of ketchup? And hey, just what is one serving of ketchup?

One serving of Heinz 57 is 1 tablespoon (17g) and has 5 grams of carbohydrates.

How much ketchup does a typical fast food paper ketchup cup hold?

The samples from a nearby McDonalds hold about 2 tablespoons (note: I did not measure by weight), which is 10 grams of carbohydrates. Yikes! I’ve treated lows with less than that… And think of it another way, three of those have as many carbs as a sandwich!

You know those restaurants where they don’t have ketchup out for you, but instead bring it in a fancy ramekin? How much is in one of those?

According to my sources, a typical ramekin can hold 5-6 tablespoons of ketchup. That’s a whopping 25-30 grams of carbs! Each!

What about take-out packets?

It’s deceptively hard to find out how much ketchup is in each of those packets! So I called Heinz customer service. I couldn’t help but smirk when I got the typical “we are experiencing heavy call volumes…” recording and had to wait for a representative (I guess I wasn’t the only one with burning questions about ketchup).

Heinz told me that each packet has 9 grams of ketchup in it. You might remember that one serving of Heinz is 1 tablespoon, or 17 grams, and has 5 grams of carbohydrates. So that means that 1 packet is just over half a serving and has 2.647058823 grams of carbohydrates. Approximately.

Those are the ketchup basics, straight from the dispenser. But in the context of diabetes, does it all really matter?

That’s where my experiments come into play.

THE KETCHUP EXPERIMENT

Armed with the above information I tried to do some experiments.

The first few tries didn’t work as well as I hoped. I needed to do more tests to confirm/deny what I was seeing, but after three rounds of ketchup shots I couldn’t stomach the idea anymore. I guess mom was wrong – I would NOT drink ketchup from a straw if I could!

For each of these experiments I was fasting and hadn’t taken any correction insulin for more than four hours. I did a blood sugar check, slammed two measured tablespoons of ketchup, then checked my blood sugar every 10 minutes for the next hour and a half.

Day 1 (March 5 chart)

A mild rise and a mild return right to where I started.

Day 2 (March 6 chart)

Spikey, spikey! But look at that, right back to where I started again.

Day 3 (March 7 chart)

This one looks like what I’d expect. But since I was low to start with, my body could have been reacting to the adrenaline, etc. Either that or in DIRE circumstances we’ve learned that you can slam some ketchup if there’s nothing else around (please don’t do this except in extreme emergency — try to use fast-acting glucose if you’re low).

Doing these experiments raised SO MANY questions for me, including:

  • Would consuming more ketchup help me see something new? Or would it just gross me out and confuse me more?
  • Would there be a noticeable BG difference between a grilled cheese with ketchup vs. one without? (probably yes?)
  • If I’m under-counting my french fry carbs by THIRTY GRAMS (!!) why haven’t I noticed before?
  • Are things that sloppy with my diabetes?
  • Or is it more probable that the high-fat fries drag everything out soooo long that other variables are covering up the trouble?
  • If so, are ALL the foods I eat with ketchup high-fat (and, therefore, slow)? Yeah, it seems so!

Bottom line is that I need to do more research on this. But I’m also totally done with eating ketchup all by itself. It’s one of those things that will always require company in my mouth. Sorry to let you down.

I’m really curious to know how YOU handle ketchup? Do you carb-count for it? Or only if it’s a lot? Do you notice it one way or another? Or…?

Leave a comment and fill me in!

Thanks for working this ketchup issue for us all, Scott! Definitely eye-opening, and we look forward to hearing what others in the DOC have to say about carbs and condiments, too.