The diabetic diet focuses on nutritious, healthy foods, while excluding those that are detrimental to health. A simple dietary plan, called Create Your Plate, provides general guidelines in how to eat to control your blood glucose. Consult your doctor or nutritionist for specific dietary instructions tailored to your individual needs.
Foods to Include
The digestion process breaks down carbohydrates into blood glucose. The healthiest carbohydrates include fruit, vegetables, whole grain products and legumes, which are beans and peas. You should incorporate high fiber foods into your diet, as they will help you with your blood sugar level. The list of these foods is identical to the healthy carbohydrate foods, but includes nuts as well. Twice a week, you should have eat heart-healthy fish, such as salmon, tuna, cod and herring. Abstain from fried fish and fish with high quantities of mercury, such as swordfish and king mackerel. You should also consume small quantities of foods containing monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, such as avocados, nuts and olives. Other sources of these good fats include olive, canola and peanut oils. You may also incorporate low-fat dairy foods into your diet plan.
Foods to Exclude
The list of foods to exclude relates to the fact that diabetes raises your risk of heart disorders and stroke, by increasing the development of occluded and hardened arteries. MayoClinic.com recommends ingesting no more than 7 percent of your daily calories from saturated fat. Dietary sources include high-fat dairy foods and also meats such as beef, hot dogs, sausage and bacon. Abstain from trans fats food sources, like shortening, margarine, baked goods and processed snacks. You should also avoid high cholesterol foods such as organ meats, egg yolks and high-fat animal proteins. Additionally, you should try to consume less than 2,000 mg of sodium per day.
The Dessert Solution
Although the diabetic diet plan emphasizes healthy foods, you can indulge in desserts occasionally without interfering with your blood sugar control. The method doctors advocate is to substitute a small portion of dessert for other carbohydrate foods in your meal, being careful to keep the total carbohydrate amount you consume unchanged. For example, you could substitute a cupcake for a slice of whole grain bread and serving of fruit. As desserts generally are empty-calorie foods with low nutrition content, you shouldn't indulge in them often.
Create Your Plate Plan
The American Diabetes Association advocates an easy dietary plan, called Create Your Plate. According to this plan, the first thing to do is draw an imaginary line down the center of your dinner plate. Next, draw another line, dividing one section into two sections. These divisions will give you three sections, with one section being twice the size of the other two. The largest section is for nonstarchy vegetables such as broccoli, carrots and spinach. One of the smaller sections is for starches such as beans, potatoes or grains, while the other smaller section is for lean meat or meat substitutes. Add a serving of milk or yogurt, as will as a serving of fruit to complete your meal.
