In this single‑speaker YouTube demonstration, Brigid Titgemeier compares 100 calories of raw broccoli (four cups) with 100 calories of almond‑flour chocolate chip cookies (three cookies). She first records a baseline blood‑glucose level with a finger‑prick glucometer, then eats the cookies, waits an hour, and measures the glucose rise (approximately +17 mg/dL). She describes feeling tired, irritable, and mentally foggy after the cookies despite the modest glucose spike. After the glucose returns to baseline, she eats the four cups of broccoli, noting the effort required to consume that volume, and measures glucose again an hour later (a rise of only +3 mg/dL). She reports feeling full, energized, and satisfied after the broccoli. Throughout, she emphasizes that calories are not equal: the broccoli provides far more fiber, vitamins, minerals, and nutrient density, leading to greater satiety and a more stable glucose response, whereas the cookies trigger a rapid rise and fall in blood sugar that drives hunger, fatigue, and irritability. She concludes by urging viewers to prioritize low‑glycemic, fiber‑rich foods and promotes her "Blood Sugar Reset" program for further guidance.
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100 calories of broccoli is not the same as 100 calories of chocolate chip cookies. Calories are not created equal. If you've been following me for a long time, you know that I've been talking about this for 10 years. This is something that hopefully you know by now. But I want to show you exactly why they are not the same. So first things first, let's just compare the volume. We have 100 calories of broccoli sitting right in front of me. That is four cups of broccoli. I'm going to eat these four cups of broccoli and show you exactly the difference in my blood sugar response compared to, compared to these three cookies that give you 100 calories as well. Now, when we're talking about volume based food, when you think about eating just three cookies for 100 calories that are gonna, after you eat them, still keep you feeling hungry, actually increase your cravings, make you maybe feel tired an hour later compared to eating four cups of broccoli with so much fiber in it that you're gonna feel very full. I mean, I know I'm gonna feel very full after eating four full cups of broccoli. For this video, just to demonstrate one, how long it takes to eat four cups of broccoli compared to three cookies, how much more full you feel after eating four cups of broccoli to three cookies. And the blood sugar difference that we're gonna track on my glucometer so that you can see the difference in the blood sugar response that I have one hour after eating the broccoli compared to one hour after eating 100 calories of cookies. Before I try the cookies, I'm gonna test my baseline blood sugar levels so that we know exactly where I'm at so that then we can test an hour later to see the change that's happened after trying the cookies. So I'm going to use this glucometer, I'm going to prick my finger, get just a little bit of blood. Okay. In three seconds it'll tell me my blood sugar, which is currently 73. Now I'm going to eat these cookies and we'll test my blood sugar again an hour later. Hey Siri, start timer for one hour, counting down. Wait, so we'll check my blood sugar again one hour from now. Okay. My alarm just went off. It's been an hour. I have a few updates. One is I feel really tired and pretty irritable, like I'm really snapping at people. In the last hour, the last 30 minutes, I should say I don't really want to do anything. And the interesting thing is that the cookies that I tried, they are almond flour based. So almond flour based cookies are not going to have as big of a rise in blood sugar as regular cookies. But I chose the almond flour cookies because I don't usually eat a lot of added sugar. And I actually have been trying not to eat added sugar during my pregnancy. So it seems like my blood sugar might not actually be as high as you would think from the three cookies because of them being almond flour based. But I'm really feeling the effects of it. And it makes me just think of how I used to feel when I was a teenager and falling asleep every second of every day uncontrollably, and how hard it was to function and how much I feel bad for people that don't understand the power of blood sugar control and how much it can help them not be so irritable and so tired and so unmotivated to literally do anything. Okay, so let's test my blood sugar and see where it's at. I'm gonna put this strip in and I'm gonna prick my finger. So my blood sugar has gone up 17 points from the cookies. Honestly, 17 points is not a big elevation. That's the crazy part. 17 points. You could have like a blood sugar spike, a blood sugar increase of 17 points from drinking, like, actually a blood sugar balancing smoothie like we made yesterday with just strawberries in it, but with adequate protein, with healthy fats, and that rose my blood sugar by about 17 points. So I think, honestly, it's like how quickly the change is happening too, that makes the difference in how you feel. But I feel pretty bad. And obviously the amount of cookies that I ate was a small amount, just three cookies. I'm about to eat four cups of broccoli in a second. Once my blood sugar comes back down to baseline so that we can see what the broccoli does to give you guys an idea. So the interesting thing is that I did test this just about 10 minutes ago to see where I was at since I'm not wearing a continuous glucose monitor. Little bit hard to capture this entire curve, but I was about 5 points higher than where I'm at right now. So maybe my blood sugar is coming back down. What often happens, actually, is that it's the decline that makes people really feel tired. So I might be on that decline right now where when blood sugar goes up, it comes back down just as quickly as it went up. And a lot of times It'll actually be lower than where you started. So that's where people really feel, like the cognitive impairment and brain fog and lack of motivation, irritability, fatigue, all those feelings that I'm feeling right now. So we're gonna wait until my blood sugar comes back to baseline, and then we'll test the four cups of broccoli, and I'll show you what that looks like. Okay. Testing my blood sugar for basically the sixth time because I can't get it to come down from 93. So let's hope that it comes down, mainly because I need to be able to test the broccoli. And. Great. 78. That's good. Okay, so I'm gonna get started on eating this bowl of broccoli. We have four cups of broccoli here. It's a lot of fiber. Here we go. Drop broccoli. No oil, no salt, no pepper, no seasoning. Just raw broccoli. It's a big commitment to eat 100 calories of broccoli. So much more work is entailed than eating 100 calories of three cookies. And then, not to mention all the vitamins and minerals and fiber that you're getting from this bowl of 100 calories. It's just, like, insane when you are trying to eat four cups of it. Okay, here we go. I love broccoli, but I've never sat and just ate four cups of raw broccoli before. It's been 16 minutes, and I've just been sitting here eating broccoli. Just 100 calories of broccoli. It's so crazy. Last piece. Okay, so my broccoli bowl is empty. I just ate 4 cups, 100 calories of broccoli in 22 minutes. I love broccoli, but there's a part of eating that that I was like, I don't love broccoli so much. This current moment, I don't want to eat another bite. I think it goes to show how quick I was able to just eat those cookies and how long that took me to eat the broccoli, how much effort and energy went into eating 100 calories of broccoli. If you feel hungry often, you might not be getting enough fiber in your diet. Fiber is so filling. Right now, I actually feel very satisfied, whereas I didn't get that feeling from eating the cookies. I felt like I could just continue eating anything after eating the cookies. I also felt tired pretty quickly after eating the cookies. Right now, I'm feeling great after eating the broccoli. So we'll see. Where I'm at in an hour. But I have a feeling I'll probably just continue feeling exactly like I feel right now because I just ate foods that make me feel good, even though four cups is a little extreme. So yeah, it's crazy how long it takes to eat 100 calories of broccoli. And if you don't feel really satisfied and you feel like you're hungry frequently, then eating more fiber rich, non starchy vegetables would really help because for a very small amount of calories, not that calories matter extensively, which you can watch my prior video to learn more about the accuracy and lack of accuracy actually behind calorie counting for regimens. But it really goes to show that you get so much in such a small amount. That's called nutrient density is really the definition of nutrient density when you're eating the broccoli compared to the three cookies. So I'll see you in an hour when we check my blood sugar. That was crazy. Okay, so we're gonna wrap up this experiment with testing my blood sugar levels one last time to see what happened with the broccoli. I'm still feeling really good. Nothing like when I ate the crack cookie and snapped it a few people and wanted to take a nap. Okay, so here we go. 81. So we started at 78. When I started eating the broccoli, it's gone up three points to an 81. So super stable for four full cups of broccoli compared to the three cookies that I had that had increased my blood sugar. Actually not as much as you would expect for regular cookies. But again, those were almond flour cookies and I still had a fairly large spike. But I think the takeaway too is that larger than even the glucose changes is that the broccoli is so much more filling, so much more energizing, makes you feel so much better compared to the cookies where you could eat like you know, nine cookies and still feel like you could continue eating because you're not full or satisfied at all. It's going to increase your hunger soon after eating them. And just at least for me, made me feel very tired and irritable. So I hope that this was a helpful experiment for you to be able to see truly that 100 calories of broccoli are not the same as 100 calories of cookies. That, that all calories are not created equal at all. Different calories exert different metabolic effects on the body that impact your hormones, that impact your endocrine system, that impact your cardiovascular system, that impact so many different aspects of your health. So if you're interested in learning more about blood sugar and trying more low glycemic meals to incorporate into your diet, check out our Blood Sugar Reset, which is gonna be an amazing way to support your blood sugar levels. I'm so excited. I hope that you join us and I'll see you soon.
