Eating healthy food for diabetes management is one of the 4 things you need to remember to keep you healthy. All you have to remember is TEEL:
Take your medication
Eat healthy food
Exercise, a little every day
Lose weight, if you need to
Healthy food for diabetes
There are so many different opinions about what people with diabetes should eat, but there is no one magical diabetes diet. There are a few rules that everyone agrees on, though.
1: Half a plate of green vegetables
The plate model is a helpful way to decide what to eat. If you fill half your plate with green, leafy vegetables that fills up a lot of space! The other half of the plate can be divided into good quality protein (eggs, fish, chicken, meat) and low GI, high fibre starch (sweet potatoes, brown rice, butternut). Add in a small amount of healthy fat (olive oil, avocado) and you have a healthy plate! If you’re eating low carb, you can leave out the starch.
2: No refined carbs
To understand what refined carbohydrates are, it’s first important to understand what carbohydrates are. Essentially, carbs are sugars. They break down in the body to create glucose, a major source of energy. Too many of the wrong kinds of carbs (refined carbs like white bread, white rice, pap, cakes, cookies) spikes your blood glucose.
Choosing the right carbs and cutting out all refined carbs is very important, but it’s also helpful to be able to count your carbs. Counting the carbs you eat at every meal and pairing them with the correct dose of insulin can keep your blood sugar level closer to a normal range.
Refined carbs include:
- White bread
- White rice
- Pap
- Pasta
- Pizza
- Pies
- Chips and slap chips
- Cakes
- Cookies and biscuits
- Baked treats (doughnuts, muffins, vetkoek)
- Cooldrinks (fizzy drinks, energy drinks, juice of all kinds)
- Sweets
- Chocolates
- Ice-cream
- Most breakfast cereals, including cornflakes
It’s a good idea to stop eating all of these foods. But nothing on this list is healthy food for diabetes.
3: Watch your portion sizes
A portion is how much of a food you eat: how much you serve yourself. It’s really important to understand portion sizes so that you can eat the right amount of each food.
4: Choose the diet that works for you
Each person with diabetes is different – and not just because they have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. What works for you might not work for someone else living with diabetes, and that’s totally fine. Remember: there is no one magic diabetes diet!
The biggest question is usually around low carb diets. Are they a good idea? Essentially, a low carb diet means cutting out the carbohydrate portion of your diet so that your blood sugar remains more stable or closer to normal blood sugar.
Download your free Diabetes Food Guide that tells you which food to choose and how much of each you can eat at each meal take a look at it here.
