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| Diabetic Foods |
If you plan your meals around this list of low glycemic foods you won’t have to worry or wonder if you’re doing the right thing to reduce blood sugar. Nearly all patients can control type 2 diabetes through diet and lifestyle changes. There’s no excuse except for ignorance and laziness. Sure, it’s not always fun to cater to a health problem, but the alternative is being on insulin injections for the rest of your life or potentially dying from it. When you look at those alternatives, sticking to your list of diabetic foods doesn’t seem so bad!
Starches
Bread, cereal, grains, pasta – When buying breads and cereals be sure whole grains are their primary ingredient. Stay away from refined carbohydrates since these will send your blood sugar out of control. Stick to brown rice, oats, and other whole grains.
Beans and lentils – these are all great since they’re high in protein and fiber, which makes them good choices.
Proteins
Lean meat, fowl, fish РStick to meats that have 3g of fat per serving or less. Enjoy chicken and turkey breast with the skin removed and fish of all kinds, especially salmon. Try some other low-fat meat like bison or ostrich, and enjoy cuts of pork and beef that are very low fat. Have your meat baked, broiled, grilled, or saut̩ed.
Eggs – More and more studies are showing that the cholesterol in eggs doesn’t have an effect on overall cholesterol levels in the body. Have eggs as often as you’d like, but if you’re still worried about cholesterol replace one egg with two egg whites or limit your whole egg consumption to three per week.
Reduce blood sugar by including protein with every meal.
Vegetables
Low starch vegetables – Enjoy these as often as you’d like and in any amount. Yes, vegetables can be boring, but they can be added to casseroles, soups and other dishes to make them healthier, cheaper, and you can even eat more. Vegetables not on this list are starchy ones such as peas, corn, and potatoes.
Fruits
All fruits – Although fruits seem to be high in sugar, they also have good amounts of fiber and are loaded with vitamins. To be safe, limit your fruit to one serving per day, or two if your doctor okays this. You can have dried fruits too, but these are often coated with sugar and their natural sugars are concentrated. Have only ¼ cup of dried fruit, and stick to fresh whenever possible.
Dairy
Low fat milk and cheeses – Many people are against milk, especially the pasteurized kind. Raw milk is better for you though not always easy to get. If you enjoy milk and cheese buy low fat varieties and limit your intake to one serving per day unless otherwise instructed by your physician.
Fats
Unsaturated fats – Yes, you need fat to stay healthy and keep your blood sugar levels even, but use unsaturated fats like olive oil, olives, nuts and seeds.
Make your own healthier butter spread – If you like a little butter on your toast or vegetables mix a cup of butter with a cup of olive oil and use this in place of pure butter. Although butter contains saturated fat, it’s often better than all the chemicals they put in margarine and it tastes better. By adding healthy extra virgin olive oil you’ll be getting some good fat and more flavor.
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but it’s a bare bones list of diabetic foods. If you stick with these foods and do more research or buy a good diabetic cookbook you should have no trouble in keep your blood sugar levels balanced.
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