The good news is that you can eat almost anything when you have diabetes. But healthy cooking is of course the best. Everyone with diabetes has different nutritional requirements. The difference between a suitable and a less suitable meal lies in a few tricks. If you have a guest with diabetes, ask ahead of time if you need to take it into account. This may be helpful for some because of medications. Others would rather not have to make a special effort. If you let your guest choose his own portion or skip something, you are always on the safe side.
Healthy cooking
Healthy cooking is nice for everyone at the table. Take as a starting point: lots of vegetables. And nice small portions, because sometimes you enjoy that more than a big bowl of spaghetti, which you have to belly up to afterwards.
Good For The Blood Sugar
- For pasta, rice and bread, choose the whole grain version, and brown rice. These contain a lot of fiber, which makes blood sugar levels rise more slowly and less.
- Legumes such as peas, lentils and beans are healthy. These also contain fiber, which makes your blood sugar rise more slowly.
- Do not use too much sugar, jam, honey, syrup, white pasta, white flour, white rice or mashed potatoes. They contain a lot of "fast" carbohydrates, which cause blood sugar to skyrocket.
- Instead of a sweet dessert, choose some yogurt with a piece of fruit.
Drinking
Alcohol can also contain carbohydrates that raise blood sugar. And the insidious thing is that alcohol actually lowers blood sugar after a few hours. It is recommended to drink no more than one glass of alcohol a day and not to save it. Drink as little as possible soft drinks and fruit juices, these contain a lot of fast sugars. You can always drink water, or coffee and tea without sugar. Or choose a light drink once in a while. Look at the packaging, some light drinks still contain some sugar.
Good for heart and blood vessels
- When baking, use mostly healthy, unsaturated fats. These are liquid when cold, such as: oil, liquid margarine or liquid frying fat. Spread soft margarine or low-fat margarine on your sandwich.
- Good types of fat are also found in nuts, fish, avocado and olives. The Nutrition Centre recommends eating fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring at least once a week. A handful of unsalted nuts a day is also good for your blood sugar.
- Use butter, hard margarine, coconut fat, palm oil and cocoa butter with exception. These contain more unhealthy, saturated fats. You sometimes hear that coconut fat and butter would be suitable for people with diabetes, but this has never been proven by reliable research.
- Do not eat too much red and processed meat. Preferably choose lean, white unprocessed meat such as chicken breast. For people with diabetes, processed red meat increases the risk of complications, such as cardiovascular disease.
Good For Blood Pressure
Its often a habit: Just shaking the salt can a few times over the pan. But too much salt is not good for blood pressure. Rather use herbs, spices, pepper, vinegar or lemon juice, which also provide a lot of flavor.
Source: https://sites.google.com/view/mebely-diabetes-management/diabetes/tasty-and-healthy-food