How to eat right with diabetes: menu principles

Dia­betes mel­li­tus scares peo­ple not only with ter­ri­ble con­se­quences, but also with dietary restric­tions. After all, com­pli­ca­tions may not hap­pen, and sweets are not allowed right now. Yes, the diet food is bor­ing. Is it so? Not real­ly! Nutri­tion for dia­bet­ics can and should be tasty and var­ied.

What can you eat with diabetes

Dia­betes mel­li­tus impos­es some restric­tions. Nutri­tion in this dis­ease is based on the prin­ci­ples of the treat­ment table (diet) No. 9 accord­ing to Pevzn­er. In accor­dance with this diet, the amount of quick­ly digestible car­bo­hy­drates and ani­mal fats should be lim­it­ed, the calo­rie con­tent of the menu should be reduced, and the amount of veg­etable fiber and dietary fiber should be increased. You need to eat small meals and often (5–7 times a day) to keep your blood glu­cose lev­els sta­ble. It is allowed to cook food in all ways that do not increase its calo­rie con­tent — bake, stew, boil. The amount of salt in the diet should be lim­it­ed.

• Lim­it ani­mal fats.

Since dia­bet­ic patients often also have a vio­la­tion of fat (lipid) metab­o­lism, they need to lim­it the intake of ani­mal fats. Fats are also exclud­ed because they “pre­vent” insulin from work­ing effec­tive­ly and reduc­ing blood glu­cose. Meat, fish, dairy prod­ucts should be low in fat. The excep­tion is red fish — its meat con­tains omega‑3 acids that improve lipid metab­o­lism, so this fish must be in the diet. But­ter should be exclud­ed from the menu, and among cheeses, pref­er­ence should be giv­en to low-fat Adyghe. The num­ber of eggs should be reduced to one per day, as they are rich in cho­les­terol.

• Replace “fast” car­bo­hy­drates.

Instead of “fast” car­bo­hy­drates with a high glycemic index, long-digest­ing (“com­plex”) car­bo­hy­drates are offered, since they do not cause blood sug­ar spikes. Com­plex car­bo­hy­drates include:

1. legumes,
2. cere­als (exclud­ing rice),
3. gray flour pas­ta,
4. veg­eta­bles (except pota­toes, car­rots and beets),
5. some fruits and berries.

The best fruits for dia­bet­ics are apples and pears, which con­tain pectin. Pectin pro­motes the removal of cho­les­terol and tox­ins, nor­mal­izes metab­o­lism, low­ers blood glu­cose lev­els. Many peo­ple think that with dia­betes you can safe­ly eat water­mel­on and mel­on, but this opin­ion is erro­neous. Mel­ons and water­mel­ons have a high glycemic index, and there­fore their amount in the diet should be lim­it­ed.

Veg­eta­bles are most­ly low glycemic and rich in vit­a­mins. The fiber con­tained in them improves the diges­tion process, slows down the absorp­tion of glu­cose and removes cho­les­terol. In addi­tion, veg­eta­bles are low in calo­ries, and you can eat a lot of them with­out risk­ing weight gain. But pota­toes, car­rots, and beets should be con­sumed in mod­er­a­tion, as they have a high glycemic index. A large amount of glu­cose con­tained in them leads to a jump in sug­ar lev­els and an exac­er­ba­tion of hunger.

Nutri­tion in dia­betes allows fruc­tose, as it is absorbed slow­ly and does not cause a sharp increase in blood glu­cose. Despite this, fruc­tose is high in calo­ries, and there­fore sweets based on it should be eat­en in mod­er­a­tion. If fruc­tose is con­sumed in large quan­ti­ties, it is not uti­lized by the liv­er and is deposit­ed in fat stores. And one more “but”: when using fruc­tose, the brain does not receive a sati­ety sig­nal, since the hor­mone lep­tin, which sup­press­es appetite, is not pro­duced.

Dietary restrictions in diabetes

The diet for dia­betes has a num­ber of restric­tions, and they are dif­fer­ent for dif­fer­ent types of dia­betes.

In type 1 dia­betes, the body does not pro­duce its own insulin, and the intro­duc­tion of an arti­fi­cial­ly syn­the­sized hor­mone should replace the nat­ur­al pro­duc­tion. There­fore, in the diet of a type 1 dia­bet­ic, car­bo­hy­drates should be present in a uni­form amount through­out the day. You need to con­trol their num­ber in order to cal­cu­late the cor­rect dose of insulin for injec­tion. In addi­tion, nutri­tion should be high in calo­ries and pre­vent weight loss, which patients with the first type of dia­betes are prone to.

In type 2 dia­betes, patients must mon­i­tor their own weight and fight obe­si­ty. There­fore, the calo­rie con­tent should be reduced, as well as the amount of car­bo­hy­drates con­sumed — there should be as many of them as the body is able to digest due to its own insulin.

What is strict­ly not rec­om­mend­ed for dia­bet­ics? Diet in dia­betes pro­hibits foods that con­tribute to the rapid increase in blood glu­cose lev­els. They have a high glycemic index:

• Sug­ar, jam, hon­ey.
• Goods and pas­tries.
• Juices and sparkling water.
• Grapes and bananas.

Alco­hol in dia­betes is also pro­hib­it­ed, because it not only dra­mat­i­cal­ly changes the amount of sug­ar in the blood, but also pre­vents glyco­gen stores in the liv­er from being bro­ken down into glu­cose.

Diet for diabetes: a possible menu

Con­trary to the well-known myth about bland and taste­less food for patients, a dia­bet­ic diet can be var­ied, and dish­es can be appe­tiz­ing. What can dia­bet­ics cook and what should a dai­ly diet look like?

The list of pos­si­ble meals for dia­betes looks like this:

• Break­fast — low-fat cot­tage cheese with berries or cot­tage cheese casse­role, scram­bled eggs from 1 egg and low-fat milk, oat­meal.
• Sec­ond break­fast — apple, pear, berries (except grapes). Milk jel­ly or souf­fle on fruc­tose.
• Lunch: pick­le with pearl bar­ley, fish soup, borscht with meat. Beef goulash, liv­er stew. Buck­wheat, durum wheat pas­ta, boiled cau­li­flower or broc­coli. Black or whole grain bread. Veg­eta­bles (zuc­chi­ni, egg­plant, toma­toes), stewed with turkey.
• Snack: yogurt, kefir or an egg. Fruits (except bananas). Fruit sal­ad with yogurt.
• Din­ner: steam cut­let, stewed chick­en, stewed cab­bage, bar­ley por­ridge. Vinai­grette (a lit­tle). Ragout of cau­li­flower, zuc­chi­ni, egg­plant.
• Before going to bed — kefir, yogurt, yogurt, rose­hip broth or com­pote with­out sug­ar.

Since the diet for dia­betes should be fol­lowed for life, in order to avoid break­downs, try to diver­si­fy your diet with mouth-water­ing, beau­ti­ful dish­es. Healthy must be deli­cious! Meat­loaf, fish steaks, puff pas­tries of meat and veg­eta­bles, grilled meat and chick­en, some fruc­tose sweets, jel­lies and whole grain flour-based berry pies will help to make your menu tasty and var­ied.