Diabetes Diet -
There Is No Secret To An Effective Diabetes
Diet
Unfortunately there is no miraculous diabetes diet that a
diabetic should follow to control their condition, but the good
news is all they have to do is follow the same healthy eating
plan as anybody else. A healthy diet for an average person is
not nutritionally different from that of a diabetic, it just
has a less direct impact on their health.
Four elements of a
diabetic diet plan
If you
are putting together a diabetes diet, it should have four key
goals. These are firstly making blood sugar
easier to control by keeping weight under control, secondly
including food with a low glycaemic index, thirdly to limit the
amount of saturated fat eaten, and finally to increase your
intake of foods high in
fibre.
A diabetes diet
should be designed to achieve a healthy
weight
There
are many benefits to a diabetic of maintaining a healthy
weight. It can limit their risk of heart
disease, protect their joints, help them to move more easily,
reduce stress and fatigue, and boost their
confidence. The main benefit, however, is
blood sugar control. Being overweight can
make maintaining a steady blood sugar level difficult because
excess fat prevents the body using insulin
effectively.
Include low
glycaemic foods in your diabetes
diet
Foods
with a low glycaemic index have less impact on blood glucose
levels than other foods, making diabetes easier to control.
Foods with a low glycaemic index include whole grains, legumes,
fruit and vegetables, and people that eat these types of foods
regularly tend to have a relatively low body fat
level.
Being aware of the glycaemic index of the food
you eat can help you to design an effective diabetes
diet, but you should know that this figure can be altered
by a number of factors:
- Other foods eaten in the same
meal
- Your body’s individual response to the
food
- Fats or proteins added to the
food
- The method of food
preparation
If you want to know more about planning your
meals around the glycaemic index, ask your doctor to
refer you to a dietician, who will be able to help you
put together a personal diabetes diet to suit your
individual needs.
Diabetics should
reduce their consumption of saturated
fats
There are several reasons why diabetics should
limit the amount of saturated fats they
eat. As well as causing high
cholesterol, saturated fats prevent diabetic bodies from
using insulin effectively. Saturated
fats come from a range of animal and plant products as
follows:
Animal
products to limit in a diabetes
diet:
- Poultry fat
- Cream, butter, milk and
cheese
- Beef or beef fat
- Veal, lamb and pork
- Cooking lard
Plant products to limit in a
diabetes diet:
- Cocoa butter
- Coconut and coconut
oil
- Palm oil and palm kernel
oil
A diabetes diet
should include a high level of
fibre
High fibre foods should form part of a diabetes
diet because they release glucose into the bloodstream
slowly, enabling effective blood sugar control. The
amount of fibre in foods tends to be inversely
proportional to the amount of processing the food has
undergone. When grains are processed
the outer layer is stripped away, shedding fibre as well
as vitamins and minerals. Choose
unprocessed foods to get the maximum intake of
fibre.
Here are a few
high fibre foods that could form part of a diabetes diet
:
- Fresh fruit
and vegetables, especially when skins are eaten
as well
- Potatoes cooked in their
skins
- Nuts and seeds
- Beans, peas and
lentils
- Wholemeal flour
- Wholegrain breakfast cereals such as
bran flakes
- Wholemeal and granary
breads
- Brown rice
- Wholemeal pasta
Author: Lisa
Janse
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