Diabetic Menu Guide

An important aspect of any diabetic menu plan is that it should be sustainable, not of a short-term duration like a fad diet that one quickly tires of. It should not demand sacrifices or involve foods without flavor, it should not be a meal plan with little variety or with boring foods. Although I’ve heard such strict and Spartan diets can work well and achieve good results initially, I wonder for how long? Are they sustainable?

A diabetic friend of mine is doing well by following a vegetables only diet – and while I love vegetables and always have, I cannot face eating vegetables to the exclusion of almost anything else. But then again, I know there are some good vegan and vegetarian diets that are followed diligently and happily by some, even one my own children is a almost a vegan!  [Note: a vegan is a strict vegetarian, someone who does not eat animal or dairy products.]

Let’s face it, food is such an important part of life, and for the diabetics even more so, that we often structure our day around mealtimes. For the person with diabetes, the effort to keep their condition in check is hard enough, restricting much of the food that can be eaten, and trying to reverse diabetes is a daunting task – but some doctors claim it can be done, even though the major diabetes associations and related institutions of most countries say that diabetes cannot be cured, and this is a disease that has been recognized for thousands of years. An alarming statistic about diabetes being incurable, is that it has been forecast that one in every three children born in the United States will develop diabetes – and world wide the expectations are just as disturbing.

So how can we develop a meal plan that incorporates the right foods and meets the needs of diabetics whose reactions to foods can differ from one individual to another?

As I have mentioned previously, there is no single diet or food plan that is suitable for every person with diabetes. So rather than identify specific foods in an exact menu, I have provided, in my previous post, a list of foods together with their carbohydrate, protein, fat, and calorie content. By referring to that list and to other dietary sources, a selection of suitable food items can be made to build a menu that can help the control and management of the glucose load that causes the diabetic condition.

Most diabetic persons should devise their own personalized diabetic menu plan, and that would probably have to be the result of trial and error, after monitoring their blood glucose levels by testing several times daily for a period of time, but it needs to be a food plan that incorporates food items that do not just meet their personal tastes but must also cater to their unique physiological makeup that impacts the role of glucose in their blood. Ice cream might be a favorite, tempting and satisfying dish but except in moderation, it spells trouble for blood glucose control for many diabetics.

An additional concern is that persons with diabetes frequently have other medical conditions for which their diet must be adjusted. While unrelated to the root cause of diabetes, diabetic patients often have problems of high cholesterol and are at risk of cardiovascular disease, and cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death of most diabetic patients. This means that it is necessary to be wary of high cholesterol foods and excessive fats.

Fiber
A good meal plan should include fiber-rich foods, such as breakfast bran cereals, wheat bran, beans, and flaxseeds, which are also a source of essential omega-3 fatty acids and many other beneficial health properties. It is recommended that the diabetic diet should provide 25 to 50 grams of dietary fiber daily, that’s quite a bit and most of us don’t consume that much each day.

Fruits and vegetables
Nutritionists usually urge everyone to eat more fruits and vegetables, they are good for everyone’s health and they contain fiber too.

Carbohydrates and carbohydrate counting
Since it is the carbohydrate portion of foods that is the source of the glucose in the bloodstream, it helps to know the carbohydrate content in foods, it can be found on the Nutritional Facts labels, and knowing that can aid in allocating the amounts of carbohydrate foods that can be safely consumed at each meal, and during the day, without drastically elevating glucose levels in the blood stream, a dangerous situation if it exists for any length of time, a condition doctors call hyperglycemia, which is diabetes.

Protein
Proteins, the most abundant substances, other than water, in the human body, are the basic building blocks of life and are needed, among other things, to support the growth and maintenance of our entire body. Protein is obtained from meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, vegetables, soybeans, kidney beans, nuts, seeds, and other produce.

The daily protein requirement differs with each person and depends on weight, level of activity, and body fat and there is a formula that can help determine the correct amount. It is important to keep a proper ratio of protein versus carbohydrates and fat consumption. See details below.

Fats and oils
Essential to life, they are classified into several categories. We need fats but we should avoid, or keep to a minimum, those fats known as saturated fats and transfats. Monounsaturated fats, the so-called good fats, are found in such foods as olives and olive oil, canola oil, nuts, fish, these are the preferred types of fat to include in our diabetic, or non-diabetic diet. Again we should keep the fat consumption in an appropriate ratio to the protein and carbohydrate amounts in the daily food consumption, as mentioned below.

The ratios
The suggested percentages of the main food categories, according to the American Diabetes Association, and other diabetes research institutions, for example, the University of Kentucky, where Dr. J.W. Anderson and colleagues have reviewed research and international nutrition recommendations, is:

at least 55 percent carbohydrate,
12 to 16 percent protein,
and less than 30 percent fat, including 12 to 15 percent monounsaturated fat.

The successful management and control of diabetes lies in the successful management and control of a combination of food, exercise, and medication.

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