This is the question my diabetic patients always ask. Hopefully this article will enhance your knowledge about diet for a diabetic patient.
AVOID THESE FOODS
If you are a diabetic patient try to avoid following list of foods.
1-Sugar, artificial sweeteners and honey. However you may take sweetner like stevia. It is difficult to omit sugar from your diet at-once, I will recommend you to decrease sugar in your diet gradually.
2-You should stop taking sweets and chocolates. If you are in a party and want to take chocolate, then preferably try to take Continental dark chocolate with at-least 70% or more cocoa solids, and try to avoid chocolates where sugar is the first named ingredient
3-Try to avoid foods containing ingredients end in (ol) or (ose) as these are mainly different forms of carbohydrates like fructose, glucose, dextrose.
4-Avoid grains like cakes, biscuits, pies, tarts, breakfast cereals, wheat, rye, barley, corn, rice, bread, pasta, pastry,
5-Avoid vegetables which contain larger amount of starch and carbohydrates like potatoes,carrots, peas, beans, parsnips, beet.
6-Also avoid fruits like water mallon, mangoes, banana, Chikoos(Pakistani), jackfruit, grapes, Strawberry, Sugarcane.
7-You may take milk but in small quantity. Avoid fat yogurts and cheeze. Also be careful not to drink too much coffee or tea and add only as much sugar as in needed for taste.
8-Avoid commercially packaged foods like TV dinners, “lean” or “light” in particular, and snack foods, fast foods.
9-Avoid fresh fruit juices as these are highly concentrated carbohydrates. If you like fruit juices you may dilute one part of juice with 3 or 4 parts of water.
10-Always avoid saturated fats like fatty meat, full fat dairy products, butter, lard. Try to prefer unsaturated fats like olive oil, corn oil, canula oil, sunflower oil,soya oil.Avoid cottage cheese as it has a high carbohydrate content and very little fat
You must be thinking that I have mentioned here all the stuff, and nothing is left to eat, these are foods you can eat:
1-You may take fruits like apple, Grapefruit, Lime, Peaches. You must divide your fruit and vegetable diet in five portions through all the day, by Spreading the fruit you eat through the day helps to avoid a sudden rise in blood sugar levels.
2-You must take high fibre diet. Fibrous diet is Cereals, Fruits, Nuts, Pulses, Seeds, Vegetables. Fibrous diet not only lowers your glucose level but also decreases blood cholesterol.
3-Always try to take whole grain rather than processed food and take things like whole-wheat spaghetti and brown rather than white rice(Indian Pakistani). Pakistani and Indian people do like white rice very much, but if you are diabetic, please avoid these.
4-You may take meat of lamb, beef once or twice a week. Organ meats can also be taken like liver kidneys and heart to meat your vitamin needs.
5-Try to take white meat like poultry chicken fish meat duck etc.
6-You may take Fish and seafood of all types. It is recommended to boil, steam, bake or grill fish rather than frying it.
7-Always prefer non-fatty dairy products such as “skimmed milk”, non-fat cheese and yoghurt.
8-You may take eggs as well but try to take whitish part not the yellow one as it may increase your cholesterol level.
9-All cheeses can be taken except cottage cheese.
10-You may take all vegetables, onion and garlic are known for decreasing blood glucose level.
Generally Type 2 diabetic patients need 1500-1800 calorie diet per day to promote weight loss, however calories requirement may vary depending upon patients age, sex, activity level and body weight. 50% of total daily required calories should come from carbohydrates.One gram of carbohydrate is about 4 calories. A diabetic patient on a 1600 calorie diet should get 50% of these calories from carbohydrate. In other words it will be equal to 800 Calories from Carbohydrates, it means you have to take 200gms of carbohydrates everyday.It is better that you buy food tables with calories measurements to know more about your daily required food.
Hope this article will help you understand, what to eat and what not to eat in diabetes. To know more about Diabetes Diet please visit my comprehensive website.
