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Diabetic Food Plan

Diabetes education focuses on ways to incorporate disease management principles into the individual's daily life and minimize dependence on the health care provider.Basic disease management includes knowledge and skills that a newly diagnosed diabetic must master prior to leaving the hospital or health care provider's office. These skills include:

learning how to recognize and treat low blood sugar ( hypoglycemia)
learning how to recognize and treat high blood sugar ( hyperglycemia )
learning how to select appropriate foods and when to eat them
learning how to administer insulin or how to take oral hypoglycemic agents
learning how to test and record blood glucose and urine ketones
learning where to buy diabetic supplies and how to store them

A food guide is a tool for planning a balanced diet. A healthful diet provides the nutrients your body needs and decreases your risk for heart disease and other conditions. Most people use the food guide pyramid to plan a balanced diet.

There is some must be kept in mind:

People with diabetes can use a modified version of the food guide pyramid to spread carbohydrate throughout the day. This helps prevent high blood sugar after meals.
A food guide contains the same foods your family eats. You do not have to eat special foods.
You can successfully follow this method by:

Planning your family meals ahead of time so you can enjoy the same foods as other family members.
Providing lots of variety in the foods you eat so it's easier to follow your plan.
Testing your blood sugar after meals to see what effect different foods have on your blood sugar level.

Women with diabetes who are pregnant or breast-feeding need the same nutrition as pregnant or breast-feeding women who do not have diabetes. Pregnant women need extra calcium, iron, protein, and folic acid. During the second and third trimester, you also need about 300 calories per day more than you did before pregnancy. Regular meals and snacks are important to prevent low blood sugar during pregnancy and breast-feeding. Talk to your registered dietitian or certified diabetes educator about changes you may need to make to your food plan.

A food guide is a way to plan a balanced, healthful diet.

Foods within each group have similar nutrient content. For example, the foods in the milk and milk products group have similar amounts of calcium, protein, and carbohydrate.
Each group has a recommended number of servings

A food guide for people with diabetes is used to record your daily food intake A food guide is a tool for meal planning for diabetes. It is slightly different from the food guide pyramid recommended for people who do not have diabetes. This is because people with diabetes need to pay close attention to the amount of carbohydrate in their diet.

Carbohydrate is the nutrient that most affects your blood sugar level. The more carbohydrate you eat at one time, the higher your blood sugar level will rise. Spreading carbohydrate intake throughout the day helps keep your blood sugar levels within a safe range. A food guide for diabetes can help you plan your diet accordingly.

Eating the recommended number of servings from each food group every day gives you the proper amount of nutrients to meet your needs and reduces your risk for heart disease and other conditions. Eating regular meals can help you spread carbohydrate intake throughout the day.

Here are some ways to start using a food guide for diabetes.

Eat regular meals
Eat at least three meals a day to spread your intake of food throughout the day.
Plan several meals at a time.
Plan to double some recipes and freeze the leftovers to use for other meals.
Reuse menu plans.

The food guide for diabetes can help you:

Become familiar with the different food groups. Post a copy of the food groups in a guide for diabetes in a convenient place, such as on your refrigerator door.
Plan meals to include food from all the groups. A registered dietitian can help you plan the food groups to include in each meal and snack.
Breakfast may not contain a meat or a vegetable serving. However, it usually includes foods from the remaining food groups (milk, fruit, and grains).
Lunch and dinner usually include foods from most or all food groups.
Snacks may include only 1 or 2 food groups (usually a fruit or bread).
Milk and dairy products are a separate group and if you don't like or can't drink milk, you will need to find a way to get more calcium in your diet. Talk with a registered dietitian about how to get enough calcium. If you are pregnant, you need extra calcium and may need to take calcium supplements.
Eat standard portions. Sometimes what you may consider a serving is much larger than the recommended serving size. For example, if you eat a plateful of spaghetti (about 2 cups), you have eaten 4 servings from the grain group in a food guide. It's easy to eat more servings from a food group than are recommended for a balanced diet. You don't always need to measure and weigh the food you eat; however, it may be helpful when you are first learning what makes a standard portion.

Other suggestions

Other suggestions for helping you be successful in using a food guide include:

Checking your blood sugar level before and 1 hour after a meal to see how food affects your blood sugar.
Recording what you eat on a food record form. Review your record with your diabetes educator at each visit and whenever you think your plan needs adjusting.
Getting more help. The American Diabetes Association has information and a poster on the food guide for people with diabetes. See the Where to Go From Here section below for the address, phone number, and Web site of the American Diabetes Association. However, you will still need to talk with a registered dietitian to set up a plan that fits your needs.
When choosing fats, your best options are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. These fats, if used in place of others, can lower your risk of heart disease by reducing the total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels in your blood. Cholesterol, which your body produces for building cells, is the main substance in fatty deposits (plaques) that can develop in your arteries. Plaques that build up can reduce blood flow through your vessels, increasing your risk of heart disease and stroke.

One type of polyunsaturated fat, omega-3 fatty acids, may be especially beneficial to your heart. Omega-3s appear to decrease the risk of coronary artery disease. They may also protect against irregular heartbeats and help lower blood pressure levels.

Here are the differences among these healthy fats as well as the best food sources for each type:

Monounsaturated fat remains liquid at room temperature but may start to solidify in the refrigerator. Foods high in monounsaturated fat include olive, peanut and canola oils. Avocados and most nuts also have high amounts of monounsaturated fat.
Polyunsaturated fat is usually liquid at room temperature and in the refrigerator. Foods high in polyunsaturated fats include vegetable oils, such as safflower, corn, sunflower, soy and cottonseed oils.
Omega-3 fatty acids are polyunsaturated fats found mostly in seafood. Good sources of omega 3s include fatty, cold-water fish, such as salmon, mackerel and herring. Flaxseeds, flax oil and walnuts also contain omega-3 fatty acids, and small amounts are found in soybean and canola oils.
With most recipes, you can reduce the amount of fat, sugar and sodium without losing the flavor. By cutting fat and sugar, you also cut calories. How much can you leave out without affecting the flavor and consistency of the food? Apply the following general guidelines:
Fat: Use half of the butter, shortening or oil and replace the other half with unsweetened applesauce, mashed banana or prune puree.
Sugar: Reduce the amount of sugar by one-third to one-half. When you use less sugar, add spices such as cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg or flavorings such as vanilla extract or almond flavoring to enhance the sweetness of the food.
Sodium: Reduce salt by one-half in baked goods that don't require yeast. For foods that require yeast, don't reduce the amount of salt, which is necessary for leavening. Without salt, the foods may become dense and flat. For most main dishes, salads, soups and other foods, however, you can reduce the salt by one-half or eliminate it completely.

Other ingredients may contain sugar, fat and sodium, and you can decrease them as well. For example, if the recipe calls for 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, use 1/2 cup instead. Or use less soy sauce than is indicated to decrease the amount of sodium in the food.

Having diabetes used to mean a lifetime of meals that lacked the most pleasant aspect of taste: sweetness. Today, the rules for avoiding sugar have been relaxed. New artificial sweeteners can give you sweetness that tastes as good as sugar, without sugar's effect on your weight.