COOKING LIGHT/American Diabetes Association - Delicious Recipes for Diabetes Read online

  DELICIOUS RECIPES FOR DIABETES

  100+ EVERYDAY RECIPES AND TIPS

  Contents

  Flank Steak and Edamame with Wasabi Dressing

  Cover

  Title

  What Can I Eat Now?

  Great Beginnings

  Party Nibbles

  Farm-Fresh Salads

  Simple Soups and Sandwiches

  Satisfying Suppers

  Comfort Food Sides

  Decadent Desserts

  Nutritional Information

  Metric Equivalents

  References

  Index

  On-the-Go Solutions

  Copyright

  What Can I Eat Now?

  Once you’ve been diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, knowing what foods are good for you and how to incorporate them into your lifestyle is essential. In this chapter, Cooking Light and the American Diabetes Association give you smart principles for eating and living well, meal-planning advice, practical answers to everyday questions, and an easy-to-understand glossary of the top Power Foods for great health.

  WHEN YOU EAT A MEAL, the levels of glucose in your blood naturally rise because of the sugars and starches in the food. In response to the elevated glucose, the pancreas secretes insulin, a hormone that tells the body’s cells to absorb the extra glucose. In type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that occurs most frequently in young people but can be diagnosed at any age, the cells that produce insulin are destroyed and the body stops or greatly reduces the amount of insulin produced. With type 1 diabetes, you must inject or pump insulin daily.

  In type 2 diabetes, the body does not produce enough insulin, is unable to use insulin to adequately lower blood glucose, or both. Ninety to 95 percent of people with diabetes have type 2 diabetes. A healthy diet and physical activity are major components of successfully treating and managing type 2 diabetes. In addition, people with type 2 diabetes may take medications, including insulin, to lower blood glucose levels.

  An eating plan that includes lean protein, fruits and vegetables, beans, healthy fats, and fat-free dairy foods—all of which are Power Foods—can help control blood glucose levels and help prevent or control other complications of diabetes, such as heart disease and eye, kidney, and nerve damage.

  To get started with making healthful changes, work toward incorporating the following seven essentials for good health into your daily life. But remember to be patient with yourself. It takes time for changes to your lifestyle to become habits, so focus on achieving one objective at a time.

  7 Rules for Healthy Living

  1. INCORPORATE POWER FOODS INTO MEALS.

  Power Foods are natural foods that have not undergone excessive processing that removes fiber or other nutrients. Because of this, Power Foods are nutrient dense, meaning they are an excellent source of nutrients such as protein, heart-healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Once you know what the Power Foods are, they can form the foundation of meals you prepare at home as well as those you enjoy with family and friends away from home. As with all foods, enjoy Power Foods in serving sizes that fit into your personal eating plan.

  2. CHOOSE “SMART CARBS.”

  Whole grains, beans, and sweet potatoes are all high-carb foods, but they are “smart carbs” because they contain fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that are beneficial to your health. “Smart carbs” are nourishing, high-carbohydrate foods that are whole foods or minimally processed.

  As an example, ⅓ cup of brown rice has about the same amount of carbs and calories as ⅓ cup of white rice. But brown rice is a “smart carb” because it has more fiber and is rich in B vitamins and trace minerals contained in the outer hull, bran, and germ, which are removed when white rice is produced.

  Other “smart carbs” include fresh fruits; whole grains such as oats, quinoa, and wild rice; and 100% whole-grain breads and pastas. Serving size is still important, even for “smart carbs”: check the serving size on the label for an exact measure.

  3. MINIMIZE ADDED SUGARS.

  Sugary foods, such as cakes, cookies, pies, and brownies, should be occasional treats when you have diabetes since they cause blood sugars to spike. In addition to sugar, desserts usually contain butter or oil as well as other carbohydrates from white flour, making them high-calorie, low-nutrient additions to your meal.

  You should, of course, sometimes treat yourself to a slice of birthday cake or a piece of pie, but you’ll need to substitute the dessert for other carbohydrates in your meal. For example, if you are going to enjoy a slice of cake that has 30 grams of carbs, you’ll need to eliminate 30 grams of carbs from your dinner by skipping potatoes, rice, or other starches and grains to make room for the cake.

  If sugars were only in desserts, it would be easy to track them, but they are also in many processed foods. Check labels on tomato sauce and pasta sauce, baked beans, frozen dinners, flavored instant oatmeal, flavored yogurt, and non-dairy milk (like soy milk). Sugar lurks in ingredients with names other than “sugar.” Look for honey, maple syrup, agave, molasses, high fructose corn syrup (sometimes called corn sugar), and turbinado (raw) sugar in the ingredient list on labels.

  Avoid sugar-sweetened beverages. They have extra calories and can lead to weight gain, which has been linked to developing type 2 diabetes and worsening cardiovascular risk factors. Plus, they offer no nutritional value other than extra calories. Instead of drinking sugar-sweetened soft drinks, energy drinks, tea, and sports beverages, opt for artificially sweetened or unsweetened beverages or water.

  4. LIMIT SODIUM.

  Eating too much sodium can raise blood pressure, which increases the risk for heart attack or stroke. In people with type 2 diabetes, the risk for heart attack and dying from heart disease is the same as in people who have already had heart attacks, so keeping blood pressure in check is vital. Aim for 2,300 milligrams or less of sodium each day. If you have high blood pressure, talk to your health-care provider about the right amount for you.

  You may be surprised to find out that it’s the salt found in processed foods that is the biggest source of sodium for most people. Reading labels is crucial. It’s important to choose products with the least amount of sodium—the amount can vary widely between different brands of the same type of product—or, even better, make your own versions at home. Soups, broths, soy sauce, packaged seasoning mixes, and snack foods are high in sodium, but other foods you wouldn’t think of as containing excess sodium can contain a surprisingly high amount, including bread, breakfast cereals, pre-marinated meats, condiments, and pasta sauces.

  Cooking at home is one way to control everything that goes into your meals, but even then, it’s important to be mindful of how much salt (and high-sodium food) you’re adding to your diet. If you often reach for the salt shaker to season food, try stirring in a pinch of grated lemon zest, a splash of lime juice or vinegar, or a spoonful of chopped fresh herbs to add lots of flavor and cut the amount of salt you need. When you begin to cut back on sodium, things may initially taste blander, but your taste buds will adjust, and over time, you’ll need less salt in your food.

  5. WORK TOWARD AND MAINTAIN A HEALTHY WEIGHT.

  Being overweight is strongly correlated with having type 2 diabetes—almost 90% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight. If you weigh more than you should, losing 7% of your body weight can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, losing 15 pounds, 7% of your body weight, can help control blood g
lucose, improve blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and give you more energy. Losing weight is most likely to help blood glucose if you have not had diabetes for a long time.

  Talk with your registered dietitian, who will personalize your weight-loss goals and eating plans to help you take off pounds sensibly and safely. When you change your eating and exercise patterns, you may need an adjustment in your insulin or other diabetes medications, so involving your health-care team is essential. Your dietitian can guide you to take small, easy-to-incorporate steps toward being more active and eating fewer calories, making it more likely that the changes will become an enjoyable part of daily life.

  6. GET SOME EXERCISE.

  Being physically active can help lower your blood glucose, keep you at a healthy weight, and help maintain a healthy heart. Health experts recommend 30 minutes of exercise at least five days a week. If this sounds like it’s more than you have time for, break it up into smaller sessions when it fits into your schedule to accumulate 30 minutes each day. You can do jumping jacks or jump rope while you watch TV, go for a walk, ride a bike, swim, take an exercise class, dance, or do an online workout at home.

  If you have not been active, check with your health-care team before starting any strenuous exercises to make sure you’re choosing activities that are safe for you. Your insulin or other diabetes medications and your food intake may need to be adjusted when you start working exercise into your daily routine. Your diabetes educator or your physician will explain what you need to do to get fit while keeping your blood glucose at a steady level.

  7. CHOOSE HEALTHY FATS.

  All fats are high in calories—there are about 120 calories in a tablespoon of any type of oil—so you’ll want to keep portions small even for healthy fats. Fat is a vital component of your diet. You need fat for energy; absorption of vitamins A, D, E, and K; and for healthy hair and skin.

  But for heart health, it’s important to make smart choices about the fats you do include in your meals. The key is to substitute mono- and polyunsaturated fats for trans and saturated fats. (Your diabetes educator or registered dietitian will help you learn to substitute healthy for unhealthy fats.) Saturated fats and trans fats raise your cholesterol levels, and having high cholesterol is a key risk factor for heart disease. Limiting these fats is particularly important for people with diabetes, since having diabetes already puts you at high risk for heart disease.

  Saturated fat is found in foods such as fatty meats, chicken and turkey skin, butter, cheese, whole-milk dairy products, lard, coconut oil, palm oil, and chocolate. Trans fat is produced when liquid oil is processed to turn it into a solid fat. It’s found in margarine, shortening, snack chips and crackers, commercially made cookies and cakes, and French fries. Read labels carefully, and look for foods containing 0 grams of trans fat.

  While cutting back on saturated fat and eliminating trans fat, you can substitute heart-healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, and omega-3 fatty acids. For cooking oils, these include canola, olive, corn, cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, and soybean oils. They’re also found in avocados, nuts, sunflower seeds and pumpkinseeds, and fatty fish. Tuna, trout, sardines, and salmon are excellent sources of omega-3 fatty acids.

  3 Meal-Managing Strategies

  There are three methods to choose from when planning what to eat each day. Meal planning is critical for people with diabetes to help improve blood glucose levels, balance food intake with insulin or other diabetes medications (if medications are prescribed), and help you maintain or lose weight and eat heart-healthy foods.

  The method you use is up to you and your health-care team, who will personalize the plan, taking into account your food likes and dislikes, exercise level, daily work and activity schedule, and the diabetes medications you take.

  1. CREATE YOUR PLATE

  This is the easiest method for meal planning for people with diabetes. You simply use a dinner plate to decide how much to eat. One caveat: Use a 9-inch plate with this method, not an oversized one, to help keep portions in check.

  Fill half your plate with colorful vegetables, such as green beans, carrots, broccoli, or spinach. Fill one-fourth of your plate with a carbohydrate-containing food such as 100% whole-grain pasta or bread, brown rice, or sweet potatoes. Fill the remaining one-fourth with a lean-protein food, such as 3 ounces of chicken, lean beef or pork, fish, or tofu.

  2. CARB COUNTING

  Carb counting is a bit more complicated than the “create your plate” method. It is generally only recommended for people using basal-bolus insulin therapies, in which individuals match their insulin to the number of carbohydrates they eat. Because the “carb counting” method is individualized, you must consult your registered dietitian or certified diabetes educator before you begin. They will help you determine how many carbohydrates you can eat at each meal based on your food preferences, eating habits, and blood glucose levels before and after meals.

  For this method, you need to know how many carbs foods contain. You can look at the label, or if the food doesn’t have a label, use a carb-counting book, website, or app. At first, it may seem time consuming, but once you learn the carb count of the foods you commonly eat, you won’t have to look them up every time. Keep in mind that you need to match your serving size to the serving size on the label or in the book or app. It’s easy to focus only on carbs using this method, but you’ll also need to include lean protein in your meals, use heart-healthy fats, and watch calories if you are trying to maintain or lose weight.

  3. FOOD CHOICES

  The food choices system, previously called the exchange system, groups foods together based on their carbohydrate, protein, fat, and calorie levels. For example, starchy vegetables are grouped together, and the serving size of each one varies so that the carb, protein, fat, and calorie level for a serving is the same for the entire food list of starchy vegetables. In this category, a serving of corn is ½ cup, a serving of hominy is ¾ cup, and a serving of winter squash is 1 cup. You can make “choices” for each meal from the food lists, using the serving sizes provided.

  This method is more complicated to learn, but it helps with weight control because foods are grouped not only by the number of carbs they contain, but also by their calorie counts. In addition, serving sizes for each food are given within the food lists. The food choices method also helps with heart-healthy eating, since milk and yogurt are grouped as fat-free, reduced-fat, and whole milk choices, and protein foods are grouped as lean, medium-fat, and high-fat choices.

  5 Real-Life Questions

  1. SHOULD I CONSIDER THE GLYCEMIC INDEX OF FOODS?

  The glycemic index (GI) is a measure of the rise in blood glucose after eating a serving of food that contains 50 grams of carbohydrate compared to the rise in blood glucose after eating pure glucose (sugar) or white bread. Foods with high GI raise blood glucose more than foods with low GI. Once you have mastered carb counting, choosing foods with lower GI/more fiber may be helpful in keeping your blood glucose in control.

  One of the pitfalls of using GI as a method for choosing foods to eat when you have diabetes is that serving size is not taken into account. Split peas have a medium GI of 25. If you eat ⅓ cup, that’s only 14 grams of carbs, but if you eat 1 cup of them, it’s a whopping 42 grams of carbs.

  Another problem with using GI is that the number the food is assigned is based on a serving size that contains 50 grams of carbohydrate, which may not be a typical serving size. For example, broccoli has a very low GI of 10. But, to get 50 grams of carbohydrate from broccoli florets, you would need to eat more than 13 cups.

  Yet another issue with this method is that it’s based on eating single foods, not as in real life where you eat a combination of foods at once. You may know the GI of each particular food, but you don’t know what the GI would be of all the foods combined in your meal in the serving sizes you consume.

  In general, though not always, low-GI foods are less processed, more wholesome foods. But don’t u
se GI as your only consideration in meal planning—you still need to take into account the grams of carbohydrate and serving sizes.

  2. WILL ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS HELP ME CONTROL MY BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS?

  Foods and beverages that use artificial sweeteners may help you control your sweet tooth. These sweeteners, also known as sugar substitutes or low-calorie sweeteners, have far fewer calories and carbohydrates and are also about 100 times more intense than regular sugar, which means you can use less while still satisfying your cravings for something sweet. Here are sugar substitutes you’ll find in stores:

  • Acesulfame potassium (brand names: Sunett, Sweet One)

  • Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal)

  • Neotame

  • Saccharin (Sweet ‘N Low, Sugar Twin)

  • Sucralose (Splenda)

  • Stevia/Rebaudioside A (SweetLeaf, Sun Crystals, Steviva, Truvia, Pure Via)

  3. WHAT IS A SERVING?

  No matter which method you use for meal planning, you must pay attention to serving sizes in order to help with blood glucose levels, calorie intake, and heart health. If you’re eating a packaged food with a label, the serving size is listed on the label with the nutrition information given for the serving. If you eat more or less of the food, account for the carbs and other nutrients accordingly.

  Use books, websites, or apps to look up the nutrition information for foods without labels and enjoy the serving size given, or account for a larger or smaller portion in your meal plan. A typical diabetes-friendly serving of starchy foods such as brown rice, whole-wheat pasta, or stuffing is ⅓ cup, which has about 15 grams of carbohydrate. Examples of typical serving sizes of fruit are 1 cup of diced honeydew, a small banana (4 ounces), or ½ of a large pear (4 ounces). You can have a larger serving, but you have to count the total number of carbs in all the foods in your meal.

  A heart-healthy serving of cooked meat, poultry, or fish is 3 ounces, about the size of a deck of cards. A serving of salad dressing or mayonnaise is 1 tablespoon; for an avocado, it’s 2 tablespoons; and for olive oil, it’s 1 teaspoon. These are much smaller servings than you are probably used to, especially when eating out.