Eat healthy for diabetes: the one article you need to read

If there’s one question we get over and over on South Africans with Diabetes it’s this: What should people with diabetes eat? Here’s a simple answer.

Eating healthy food for diabetes management is one of the 4 things you need to remember to keep you healthy. All you have to remember is TEEL:

Take your medication
Eat healthy food
Exercise, a little every day
Lose weight, if you need to

Too many choices

We know that deciding what to eat when you have diabetes (Type 1 or Type 2) can be hard. There are so many options! Low carb? Banting? Vegetarian? Special diabetes-friendly foods? The truth is that we are all different, so what works for one person might not work for another. Some of us can eat fruit, others can’t. Some of us thrive on Banting, others don’t. But that’s not very helpful, is it?

What should people with diabetes eat?

So we’ve narrowed it down to food advice that we believe is helpful for everyone with diabetes (and, to be honest, everyone without!)

Sweet Life’s diabetes and food advice is simple:
Eat whole foods. Lots of green vegetables.
Cut down on carbs. Remove refined carbs.
Enjoy your food!

Eat whole foods

Food that is good for your body and your diabetes shouldn’t come in a package or with a long list of ingredients you don’t understand. It should be as close to natural as possible – as unprocessed as possible. If we look at the plate model, that means a quarter of a plate of protein (chicken, fish, eggs, meat, legumes), a quarter of wholegrain, low GI carbohydrates (if you eat carbs) and half a plate of green, leafy vegetables. If you’re eating low carb, you can leave out the starch.

When choosing your protein, for example, it’s healthier to eat a chicken breast than chicken nuggets (those are processed). It’s healthier to eat sweet potato as your carb than oven-baked chips (although those are healthier than slap chips!) This isn’t an exact science, but if you can consistently choose the healthier option, your blood sugar will thank you.

Lots of green vegetables

Vegetables are amazing things, and should fill half your plate at lunch and dinner. Green vegetables means don’t fill half your plate with butternut or potatoes or starchy vegetables that will spike your blood sugar. Any non-starchy vegetables are great (no matter what colour they are!)

Low carbohydrate (non-starchy) vegetables are things like green beans, cauliflower, spinach, lettuce, kale, cucumber, brussels sprouts, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, asparagus and mushrooms.

Cut down on carbs

We don’t believe in a strict no-carb diet, but it’s clear that carbs are what spike blood sugar, so you have to find the balance that is right for you. If your family is eating spaghetti bolognaise for dinner, eat more vegetables and less (or no) pasta. Try a bunless burger with lots of sides instead of a burger on a bun. If you can cut the carbs out of a meal without ruining the meal, do it.

It’s not necessary to ‘replace’ the carbs with special low-carb alternatives (these are often expensive). Just try to fill your plate with more vegetables and protein, so there’s less space for carbs!

Remove refined carbs

This is life advice, even more than diabetes advice. Refined carbs – white bread, white rice, doughnuts, cookies, cakes, vetkoek, chips, pizza, sweets and so on – are junk food. You know this! They don’t make you feel well. As far as possible, remove them from your daily diet.

Refined carbs include:

• White bread
• White rice
• Madumbe
• Pap
• Pasta
• Pizza
• Pies
• Chips and slap chips
• Cakes
• Cookies and biscuits
• Baked treats (doughnuts, muffins, vetkoek)
• Cooldrinks (fizzy drinks, energy drinks, juice of all kinds)
• Sweets
• Chocolates
• Ice-cream
• Most breakfast cereals, including cornflakes

It’s a good idea to stop eating all of these foods, except on special occasions. It’s hard, we know! But nothing on this list is healthy food for diabetes.

If it’s a special occasion and you want a piece of cake, why not bake it at home? Then you know exactly what goes into it, you can control the amount of sugar (top tip: you can cut 1/3 of the sugar from baked goods without it making any difference) and you can choose the portion size.

Watch your portion sizes

A portion is how much of a food you eat: how much you serve yourself. It’s really important to understand portion sizes so that you can eat the right amount of each food. We created a free Healthy Food Guide that tells you which food to choose and how much of each you can eat at each meal – take a look at it here, and download it for free.

Always dish your food onto a plate! Don’t eat out of the bag or pick from a serving plate, because then you don’t know how much you’re actually eating.

Sweet Life Diabetes Community

Choose the diet that works for you

Each person with diabetes is different – and not just because they have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. (Here’s the difference between the two.) What works for you might not work for someone else living with diabetes, and that’s totally fine. Remember: there is no one magic diabetes diet!

The biggest question is usually around low carb diets. Are they a good idea? Essentially, a low carb diet means cutting out the carbohydrate portion of your diet so that your blood sugar remains more stable – closer to normal blood sugar.

Here’s some information that can help you decide what works for you:

A simple way to eat low carb: Outlines how to start eating much less carbs without having to change your diet completely.

The low carb diabetic pantry: Tells you what to stock your kitchen with if you want to eat low carb.

Download free low carb meal plans: 7 day Low Carb / Banting meal plans to download.

Another big question when it comes to healthy food for diabetes is whether diabetics can eat fruit. Yes or no? Here’s a diabetic’s guide to fruit to help you decide.

Sweet Life Diabetes Community

Enjoy your food!

We really believe in this one. Diabetes is a chronic condition, which means it’s forever. You can’t be on a diet forever, so you have to find ways to make eating healthy delicious – and enjoyable. Figure out what that means for you, and work it into your daily diet.

Of course, enjoying your food means making exceptions now and again, too. We’re not robots! The most important thing is to keep portions in mind when you’re making exceptions, so you don’t have a crazy blood sugar spike.

Take a look at the Sweet Life 7 Day Meal Plan: A 100% South African meal plan, for you.

What do you think people with diabetes should eat?

So there you have it! An outline of healthy food for diabetes so that you know what to choose to feel your best. Don’t forget to join South Africans with Diabetes and share your diabetes meal ideas and healthy eating tips.

What about you, what do you think? We all have such different experiences living with diabetes – we’d love to know what you think about this! Please comment below or on Facebook or Instagram, and let’s learn from each other…

Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash and Caroline Attwood on Unsplash