Yes! Today’s eating guidelines for people with diabetes make the point-carbohydrate from sugars and sweets don’t make blood glucose rise any higher or quicker than other carbohydrate-containing foods. Quite a change! This guideline is based on 20 years of research showing that the “don’t eat sugar and sweets” advice was not justified. Does that mean ready yourself for a daily sugar free-for-all? Absolutely not! People with diabetes should, like all Americans, just sprinkle foods with sugars and sweets here and there. After all, foods with lots of sugar don’t come packed with nutrition.
Time to define
Sugars: sweeteners in the pantry-table sugar, confectioner’s sugar, molasses, or pancake syrup and sweeteners in foods-high-fructose corn syrup and corn sweeteners. Sugary foods: regular soda, hard candy, and jam. Sweets: cake, chocolate candy, and pie. The calories in sugars and sugary foods are mainly from carbohydrates at 4 calories per gram. Sweets are most commonly a mixture of sugars and fat. And it’s the fats that get the calories soaring to 9 calories per gram, not the sugars.
Keep in mind...
Limit sugary and sweet foods until blood glucose and hemoglobin A1c are within your target range. If your goal is to lose weight, then just eat sugars and sweets, say once a week. If your blood fats-total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides-are abnormal, limit sweets to a minimum.
Bottom line:
Enjoy sweets in reasonable portions on occasion. Base how often you enjoy sweets on your weight, your blood glucose and blood lipid results and goals, and your desire for sweets. It’s the total amount of carbohydrate you eat that most impacts blood glucose, not the type or source of carbohydrate. Eat similar amounts of carbohydrate each day to keep blood glucose in control.
A few strategies:
Choose a few of your favorite desserts and satisfy your sweet tooth with small portions. Split desserts in restaurants. Take advantage of smaller portions-kiddie, small, or regular at ice cream shops. Check your blood glucose from time to time about 1 to 2 hours after eating sweets to see how high it rises.
Eat meat on the side
In America today, meat continues to be the focus of far too many meals. We ask the question: What’s for dinner? And expect the answer to begin with a type of meat, poultry or seafood. Meals at fast food restaurants accent meat - a hamburger or grilled chicken sandwich, or a sub sandwich stuffed with cold cuts.
Even in the supermarket aisles, frozen entrees promote the meat-glazed chicken with rice and carrots, or the chopped beef steak with potatoes and green beans. Because these eating practices promote a higher than necessary consumption of meat, it takes perseverance to break out of this mold and move the meat from main course to the side dish.
Meat has nutrition
Meat, which is the general term for a group of protein containing foods - beef, lamb, pork, and veal, poultry, seafood, cheese and eggs - do contain their share of nutrients. Protein is necessary for good health. However, the downside to a number of these protein-containing foods is that they contain fat, saturated fat and cholesterol.
How much to eat?
Today, most Americans eat more meat than the minimum amount you need to be healthy. For people with diabetes, the amount of protein recommended by the American Diabetes Association is about 10% to 20% of daily calories. The US adult Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.4 grams per pound of body weight. That’s about 60 to 65 grams of protein for the average male and about 50 to 55 grams of protein for the average female. Translation: that’s about two-three, 3 ounce servings of cooked meat per day.
How to move meat to the side?
Buy smaller amounts: If you usually buy a 12 to 13 ounce London Broil, now buy a 10 ounce piece.
Eat Smaller Portions: If your usual portions of meat have been upwards of 6, 8, or 10 ounces, then 3 ounces will seem like just a few bites. To be successful in the long run - downsize your portions slowly. Compensate by increasing the size and number of your servings of starches and vegetables.
S-T-R-E-T-C-H the meat: Incorporate small servings of protein into sauces, soups or casseroles. For ideas look to the dishes from cultures practicing this eating style-Chinese stir-fry, Mexican burritos, or Japanese sukiyaki.
At a sit down restaurant: Restaurants serve too much protein. Split, share or wrap up food and take it home.
In a fast food restaurant: Order single, regular, or junior size sandwiches. Steer clear of the double, triple, extra cheese or any other word that means more meat.
