October is Diabetes Awareness Month

Being diabetic can be confusing, especially since there are basically two different kinds. And, they are not what they used to be. Type 1 diabetes, which used to be called “juvenile onset diabetes”, is when your pancreas doesn’t produce any insulin. While it mostly affects younger people more, it can happen at any time. Type 2 diabetes, which used to be “adult onset diabetes”, though, with the growing epidemic of obesity, there are different angles of type 2, that your pancreas still makes insulin, but, is affected by one or more of these - A) your pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin B) the insulin is inefficient, and your body doesn’t know how to use it, because of that C) the insulin receptors that grab the insulin to process carbohydrates is somehow out of the loop in doing their jobs

If you have type 1 diabetes, you cannot be cured. Your body doesn’t make it’s own insulin, so you will have to inject insulin for the rest of your life. But, luckily for type 2, if you can lose the weight and actually be able to reverse diabetes to your pre-diabetic state, if you can do it as early as possible. Losing weight and eating a healthy diet is key, and maintaining the lower weight and healthy eating. To read more, here is an article on Web MD - http://www.webmd.com/diabetes/featu...

 

Part of eating healthy, is to ensure that you get enough vegetables in your diet. Well, duh, right? First Lady Michelle Obama has the right idea with her “My Plate”, where your dinner plate should have non starchy veggies on half of the plate. The suggestion of eating 5 fruits and vegetables is to have 3 servings of veggies and 2 fruits each day. Eating them is better for you than drinking them. Some of the foods that are really good for you if you are diabetic is listed here in this article - http://www.healthline.com/health-sl...

 

To keep a check on how many carbohydrates in your diet, first, have your doctor in charge of your diabetes on how many calories you should eat in a day. Your gender, height, weight, BMI, age, and a couple of other things will factor into how many calories vs. how many carbs you should eat in a day. Carbohydrates come from 3 different food groups, and dessert or snack food. First, is your starches - which include pasta, tortillas, breads, rice, barley, cous cous, potatoes, cereals, and if it’s a grain of any sort, it is a starch, or a carbohydrate. Second, is from fruit. Fruit contains natural sugars called fructose, and out of all of the sugars out there, this is probably the healthiest one. Because of the sugar content, it’s better to eat the fruit, so you get the fiber along with it, also, and fiber helps slow down the rate of absorption to keep your blood sugars down lower. Drinking fruit juice actually goes straight into your blood stream. Third, is from dairy products, from the lactose contained within milk products. Dairy includes milk, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, etc. 1 point, or 15 grams, is considered a serving, and a serving would be a slice of bread, a SMALL tortilla (such as for tacos, NOT fajitas or burritos), 1/3 cup of rice or pasta, a small potato, 1/2 of a bun. Your doctor or diabetic dietician will go over a plan with you, and will decide if you should eat 3 meals a day, or 5 or 6 mini-meals a day, and how many carbs you can eat with each one. With snacks like potato chips, but especially cookies, cakes, brownies, etc, it’s processed sugar cane, which has a lot of calories but almost no nutrition, so keep these at a minimum. No, do NOT try to say you will never eat these... When you make them taboo, they will become more delightful, so, include a baby portions of your favorites to have one a day, or just one every other day is fine, and you’re more likely to not binge eat on the foods that are bad. Meats and vegetables have such miniscule amounts of carbohydrates that they don’t count as being starchy.

 

The next issue to tackle is calories. These are different from counting carbs. Calories come from 3 different categories. Meat, because of the density and whatnot, has plenty of calories, so when choosing, choose a leaner cut, and then also take off excess fat by trimming it off before cooking, or taking the skin off of the poultry. Baking, steaming and grilling are the healthiest ways to cook. I know, boring.... But, this is for your health, right? Next is from fat. Obviously. But, make sure that you know the difference between good fats and bad fats, and the healthier ones can help making a HUGE difference in how many calories are being consumed. Lastly, calories come from carbohydrates, which are complex, but, they get digested down into a sugar, which adds weight if you eat too much. When we eat the right amount of calories, we will not gain weight, or lose if we are over weight. The extra calories you eat will convert to storage fat, regardless of where the calories come from. Your body needs carbs/sugars, to function properly. So you should eat some. But, if you eat too many, the carbs break down and tell your body to store the extra calories as fat.

Here are your serving sizes and approximately how many servings a day you ought to eat.

 

Vegetables - 1 cup raw or 1/2 cup cooked. Corn, peas, parsnips, squash, zucchini are examples of starchy vegetables, so count them in that category. For those of you who are meat and potatoes types, go slow and try the veggies that are the most appealing. It’s okay if it’s tomatoes, or baby carrots. You can always expand later, to try other good ones, and just because some veggies such as canned spinach can leave a bad taste in your mouth, look up some recipes to where you can use fresh or frozen spinach to make your own good side. I personally like to use fresh spinach on my sandwiches, and mix spinach and romaine lettuce for salads. Ice burg is mostly water. Eat 3 servings a day! And, because of the low calorie content, when ever you’re hungry, have more veggies. They are the same as “free food”, because they’re almost “free” of calories.

 

Fruits - 1 medium size piece of fruit, which is about the size of a baseball. Be careful with bananas, since many of them are huge. 1/2 cup of juice is a serving, and no, the fruit roll ups don’t count. Eat 2 a day! Again, start with what you think you will like, if you’ve never been one to eat much fruit. Maybe pears, or various berries, or what have you... For the taller people or those with bigger frames, 3 servings of fruit is probably better.

 

Fats - Olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, and such are better for you, because they may raise your good cholesterol, and 1tsp is a serving, not much, but, better than other ones. Limit the butter you put on your toast, and when cooking, if something calls for a 1/4 cup of butter, use 1/8 of each butter and olive oil. Olive oil has a creamy flavor, which blends nice with your butter, and you won’t miss the extra butter. Avocados, mayo, bacon and olives are also considered fats. Because mayo and bacon are so high in saturated fats, it’s better to go with the others, and another trick is, use an avocado and blend smooth with olive oil, and you can use that in place of butter or mayo on your sandwich. Dressings for your salad also is a fat, and use it sparingly. Use as little as you can stand, and draw back from there. Also, when grilling skinless meat, canola oil is good to brush on to help lock in the juices. A serving is 1 tsp, (there are 3 tsp in a TBS), and don’t exceed 2 TBS of fat. in a day.

Meats - chicken, beef, turkey, pork, and legumes such as pinto beans, navy beans, lima beans, black beans, and all forms of beans except green, wax, etc are considered proteins. Eggs and cheese, also. Because how much of this you need depends on being a man or a woman, your age, and how active you are, so, please check it through to your doctor or diabetic nurse educator to figure out how much, and next time will talk about how legumes, which are the beans that often come in a can or a bag of dried, are to be considered tricky to count, because it’s a combination of protein and starch. Up to 7 eggs daily, depending, and cheese is a meat, so watch that on sandwiches.

 

Dairy - Low fat milk is best, but, come down slowly. If you like the whole milk, start by drinking 3 parts whole, and 1 part 1%. Gradually make it closer to 1%, but, if you can’t seem to get past it, try it with 2% to see how it goes. Growing children need the whole milk from when they turn 1, to 2. Switch to 2% at age 2, and keep it there until they go to kindergarten, and switch to 1%. Kids should be getting 3 cups, adults 2 - 2.5, depending. Keep it low, and if you’re hitting a plateau, switch to almond milk. I like the Blue Diamond brand of the original almond, not sweetened, not vanilla. It’s good for you.

 

I love to cook at my house. We love all ethnic foods. But, what surprised me, is that diabetes runs higher in Hispanic, African American, and Asian Americans here in the US are diagnosed with diabetes fastest. We love all foods with flavors, and I have been successful in modifying some Asian foods to be a whole lot healthier. What I want to ask you, all of my peeps and readers, is if you have your own legitimate ethnic recipe, I’d like you to post it, whether here or message me, so I can see how I can modify it without making it taste so American that it’s no good for you, anymore. Maybe we can turn it into a cookbook, I don’t know, but, I’d love to develop authentic ethnic foods w/o having to spend a lot for them.

 

I hope this helps for now, and feel free to ask me any questions, and I will answer, either privately or with the post Thank you.