If anybody knew what food causes diabetes, it would certainly make thing a lot easier. Unfortunately, there isn’t any one food that causes diabetes. And contrary to what some people still believe, eating more sugar, or drinking sugary drinks doesn’t cause diabetes either. Instead of looking for what food causes diabetes, it would serve you better to understand the risk factors for the different diabetes types and figure out what food causes diabetes risk factors like being overweight, or which foods contribute to fat levels in the blood getting too high.

Probably the biggest risk factor for type 2 diabetes is being overweight or obese. There are many foods that that are high in fat and sugar that increase the risk for developing type 2 diabetes by making you gain weight. And simply eating too much of any food can contribute to obesity. So it is more helpful to examine your eating habits in general and come up with a diet you can live with than attempting to single out what food causes diabetes.

 

What are some of the Foods That Contribute to the Risk Factors for Diabetes?

 

There are certain foods that should be avoided by diabetics because they contribute more calories than their nutritional value warrants. Some oods in this group include the following:

  • Refined Grain products – foods made from refined grain products are made from grains that have their outer husks removed in the processing of them. It is cheaper to do this, but removing the outer husk takes away almost all of the nutritional value while leaving in the calories. These are the bad carbohydrates, like white bread, cake and cookies, low-fiber cereal, white rice, and commercial pastries. When looking for what food causes diabetes risk factors like obesity, these are high on the list because a lot of people eat them without realizing the how many “empty” calories they are consuming.
  • Fatty dairy products – things like whole milk instead of skim milk or ice cream instead of frozen yogurt. Whole milk cheeses are also high in fat.
  • Fatty meats are not a good choice for diabetics. Fast food is notoriously high in calories not only because of their contents but also because of the way they are prepared. Take a fatty hamburger and fry it and you are just adding calories on to an already fatty meat. If you had to answer “what food causes diabetes”, a good answer would be fast food!

 

Sodas, contrary to what some people think, don’t contribute to diabetes because they contain sugar, but rather because they contain a lot of calories. Drinking several sweetened colas daily adds thousands of calories in a week. Try drinking water or black coffee and unsweetened tea instead.