The diabetic food diet is a sure way to prevent, and even in some cases, reverse diabetes. The key to getting the most out of this diet is to adopt healthy eating habits. In other words, one should not simply substitute high sugar or fat food products with ‘lighter’ versions of the same. Rather, radical changes in one’s diet are necessary: It is important for the diabetic to rethink his or her relationship to food, to revisit the quality of raw ingredients and to adopt new food preparation techniques.
Selecting the Best Food for Diabetic Diets
The best possible diabetic food diet would incorporate meals made of fresh ingredients, and would meet the nutritional needs of the diabetic. A diet heavy on starches is not such a diet as it provides a higher than necessary supply of carbohydrates to the diabetic. It would be better for the diabetic to set such a diet aside and to, instead, subsist on a diet that incorporated high fiber foods including whole grains, vegetables, and certain fruits. Such a diet would meet the diabetic’s carbohydrate needs, but at the same time would carefully regulate the entry of glucose into the bloodstream. It would also ensure that the diabetic got the very important vitamins and minerals that are essential for the health of every individual.
Some examples of ideal carbohydrate choices for the diabetic food diet include whole wheat pasta and brown rice, which not only keep the diabetic’s bowel movements regular by providing the body with fiber, but also constitute slow-release carbohydrates. Slow-release carbohydrates are notable for being released into the bloodstream slowly after digestion. Thus, whoever eats diets based on them is unlikely to encounter the high blood glucose spikes associated with diabetes.
Examples of carbohydrate foods that meet this guideline include baked goods made from bran, and hot cereals such as rolled oatmeal. Setting aside cold breakfast cereals as a whole would be best as these are often so highly processed as to lose much of their nutritional quality and are often artificially sweetened with sugar. If one can acquire whole grain-based breakfast cereals with no added sugar, however, an exception can be made.
The diabetic food diet also requires attention to such details as portion sizes, number of meals eaten in a day, number of exchanges and number of calories. These are the more mechanical aspects of creating a diabetic food plan, but they do make a big difference. This is because they force one to rethink the whole philosophy behind preparing food for a diabetic. Focus on these details makes one read food labels more carefully, and also causes one to pause before making purchases. It also equips one with the ability to compare food items and to determine which ones would be the superior items to include in the diet.
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