Contrary to what you may have heard, there's no such thing as a diabetic diet. Although as a type 2 diabetic, you need to watch how you balance your nutrients and calories throughout the day, you can enjoy a broad range of foods. The goals of diabetic eating plans are to control your blood sugar, reduce your risk factors for complications, balance with your medications, and help you lose weight if you need to do so. So within the context of general healthy eating, you can eat just about any food if you have type 2 diabetes.
What You Should Eat
A diet that is healthy for a type 2 diabetic is healthy for everyone. The American Diabetes Association advises that you eat lots of nonstarchy vegetables like spinach, broccoli and green beans, fruits, whole-grain foods, beans and peas, fish, lean meats, nonfat dairy, and mono- and polyunsaturated oils. The National Diabetes Education Program states that you should mainly go easy on foods prepared with added fat, especially trans fats, as well as salt and added sugar.
Blood Sugar Control
Because carbohydrates are easiest converted to blood sugar, balancing foods from carbohydrate sources is a top priority for type 2 diabetics. For that reason, diabetes health providers and dietitians often use "carb counting" as part of type 2 diabetes nutritional therapy. Harvard's Joslin Diabetes Center uses the example of a diabetic man who's 6-ft-2-in and weighs 180 pounds and has been told that he can have 350 g of carbs spread as evenly as possible throughout the day; this translates into about 60 g per meal or snack. At dinner, he may have a choice of a serving of rice with his entrée or a brownie at dessert --- but not both --- because he only has 60 g of carbs to spare at each meal. Just because the brownie has sugar or the rice is a "white" food doesn't mean he can't enjoy either, but he must stay within the context of an overall healthy plan. The same goes for you.
Reduce Risk Factors
When you follow a healthy diet that keeps your blood sugar controlled, you can help prevent complications that many diabetics suffer including high blood cholesterol and heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease and nerve damage, and problems with mental health and cognition. To avoid increasing your cholesterol and heart disease risk, limit your consumption of saturated and trans fats. Sodium is the main perpetrator of high blood pressure and kidney-related problems, although sugar, especially soda, is also involved. You should not consume more than 1,500 mg of sodium each day. The major sources of fats in most Americans diets include butter, meat fats, grain-based desserts like cakes and cookies, pizza, cheese and sausage, bacon and franks. Sodium, found in salt, is more ubiquitous. You need to take special care to ensure that you're not getting too much, even though it's hard to isolate foods that supply too much sodium. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 states that yeast breads, chicken and pasta dishes, pizza and cold cuts supply a concerning amount of sodium.
Balance Food with Medication
Balancing food with medication is not so much about what you eat as when you eat. The American Diabetes Association states that diabetics who are on medication must balance their eating with their medicine. Joslin notes that you need to have enough blood sugar from your meals at the time the medication is active inside your body. The take away is not to avoid carbohydrates if you have diabetes; you need them to stay healthy.
References
- National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse; What I Need to Know about Eating and Diabetes; October 2007
- National Diabetes Education Program; Tips to Help You Stay Healthy; February 2011
- Joslin Diabetes Center: 5 Common Myths for People With Diabetes Debunked
- American Diabetes Association: Making Healthy Food Choices
- American Diabetes Association: Diabetes Meal Plans and a Healthy Diet
- "Diabetes Care"; Nutrition Recommendations and Interventions for Diabetes; January 2008
