i think it depends on ur level of insulin impairment. if u r one of the lucky people without insulin resistance or hyperinsulinimia, a bg monitor might show very little in my opinion. it is when ur body and or pancreas starts to fail that you see inappropriate bg responses. for me being hyper insulinimic, my body produces as much as 10x the insulin a normal person does in order to get my muscle and fat cells to recognize the insulin and be able to control my bg responses to food. so even tho my bgs are only borderline high right now...if i don't control them with low carb eating, they will soon turn high. i am at the point where i do see responses to food items. when i'm testing an item i do hourly tests to 4 hours. if it makes me spike more than 10pts, i cut it out. dr bernstein (metabollic doctor) talks about keeping post prandial spikes to under 20-25pts. he wants an ideal pp reading to be as close to "zero" as possible. but i don't know that most people without insulin impairment issues would see this kind of spike. i could be completely wrong tho. would be an interesting test for certain!

I can tell what's happening by whether or not I'm craving more food in a short time. Don't really care about the physiological details--could be sugar, insulin, something else not currently testable.

I used to sell those things. Pricked myself enough demoing in the MD's offices to last a lifetime, I hope.