How to eat Taco Bell without dying instantly

diabetes taco bell hard shell tacos burrito bowl

Not all that long ago, I wrote a whole thing about Taco Bell and how bad it is for you. More specifically, those flour tortillas they use are definitely NOT friendly to your goddam diabetes.

But when I did that Taco Bell test, the crunchy hard shell tacos seemed like they had much less of an impact on the glucose.

diabetes taco bell hard shell tacos burrito bowl

Those tacos yielded some weird results: I ate two hard shell tacos, and my blood sugar went down. That happens sometimes, but at least it didn’t go up.

So, in the name of science, and also because I just can’t quit Taco Bell, I went back for another round!

This time, I skipped the flour tortillas entirely. Instead, I ordered:

  • (2) hard shell tacos
  • (1) carnitas burrito bowl
diabetes taco bell hard shell tacos burrito bowl

I dunno if they have the carnitas burrito bowl in the US or elsewhere, but I imagine all Taco Bells worldwide will have something similar.

The one mistake I made was forgetting to tell them to skip the rice in the burrito bowl! Rice is not bueno. But no big deal, I just ate around it.

Blood sugar reading before eating: 123

This reading of 123 was about three hours after eating lunch. I hadn’t taken my Diabex/Metformin yet.

diabetes taco bell hard shell tacos burrito bowl
Ew, rice. I mean, it’s delicious. But ew.

Blood sugar reading after eating: 182

This reading was about an hour after I finished my tacos and burrito bowl.

This lil’ Taco Bell fiesta, sans flour tortillas of any kind, was pretty ‘beetus-friendly! By itself, 182 is not a great number, but I started a bit higher than I usually do.

diabetes taco bell hard shell tacos burrito bowl
If there’s rice in your burrito bowl, DON’T EAT IT! I just took one tiny bite.

The total increase was only 59 mg/dL. To steal a phrase from The Ronimal in that movie Cedar Rapids, +59 is N.T.S. Not too shabby!

This doesn’t mean that Taco Bell is suddenly “good for you.” But if you’re craving it, maybe you can do OK by sticking to low-carb things that are free of flour and rice.

Do your own test and see what happens!

diabetes taco bell hard shell tacos burrito bowl
diabetes taco bell beer
Beer at Taco Bell??!! Is this a thing now?