Although a proper diet is important for everyone, it is essential when you have diabetes. To stay healthy, you must find a way to balance your body weight and nutritional needs against the equally important need to manage blood glucose levels. If your doctor recommends a calorie-specific diet, the American Diabetes Association and American Dietetic Association provide an approach to meal planning called the Diabetic Exchange Diet, which considers all these.
Identification
The food exchange diet is a way of looking at food choice from a different perspective. The idea behind this diet, says Jacquelyn W. McClelland, nutritionist for the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, is to place foods that share a similar nutritional value, calorie content and effect on blood glucose together. Rather than classifying a food item as a carbohydrate, protein or fat, you consider its composition of carbohydrate, protein and fat, as well as total calories. Milk, vegetable, fruit, bread and starch, meat and fat comprise the six groups, or exchange lists, from which you make food choices.
Size
Each food exchange list includes a constant and a variable factor. The constant is a definition that describes the composition of carbohydrate, protein, fat and calories per serving that each food within the list contains. The variable factor is the serving size. Variable serving sizes ensure composition remains the same no matter which food you choose from a specific list. For example, according to Glycemic.com, each food in the bread and starch exchange list contains about 15 g of carbohydrate, 3 g of protein, a trace of fat and 80 calories. Food choices and serving sizes that equate to this composition are one-half cup of cooked pasta, one-fourth cup baked beans or one slice of whole wheat bread.
Requirements
The National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse, an informational site created by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, suggests working with your doctor or nutritionist to create your first few meal plans before creating them yourself. If your doctor suggests a 1,400 calorie per day food exchange diet, the NDIC recommends a daily meal plan that includes two milk exchanges, three vegetable exchanges, two fruit exchanges, six bread and starch exchanges, five meat exchanges and up to three fat exchanges.
Calorie Counts
Except for calorie variations in the milk and meat exchange lists due to fat content, all others feature a certain number of calories per serving, says Glycemic.com. Each vegetable exchange contains about 25 calories, each fruit exchange about 60, each bread and starch exchange about 80 and each fat exchange about 45 calories. Calories in the milk exchange depend on whether the item is fat free, low-fat or a whole milk product and range from 90 to 120 calories per exchange. Meat exchange calories range from 35 to 100 calories per exchange, depending on the fat content in your food choice.
Relating this to a 1,400 calorie food exchange diet, you will get about 75 calories from vegetable exchanges, about 120 calories from fruit exchanges, about 480 calories from bread and starch exchanges and a maximum of 135 calories from fat exchanges. Milk exchange calories will range from 180 to 240 calories and meat exchanges from 175 to 500 calories.
Tools
You can plan meals in whatever way you prefer as long as your food choices adhere to exchange recommendations and do not exceed your 1,400 calorie per day limit. Ask your doctor or nutritionist for a detailed food exchange list, or visit the American Diabetes Association or the American Dietetic Association website for publications that have this information. Serving size is crucial when following this diet, says Glycemic.com. Instead of guessing, Glycemic.com recommends measuring foods into exact amounts using measuring spoons, a measuring cup and a food scale.
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