Food - Eating healthy
You can make a difference in your blood glucose control through your food choices.
When you have diabetes, your body may have problems using the energy from the food you eat. This can cause high blood glucose levels. Balancing what, when and how much you eat will help manage your blood glucose levels.
Understanding how food affects your body
All food affects blood glucose levels. There are no good or bad foods. Eating a variety of foods can improve your health and keep mealtimes interesting.
The foods you eat fall into three main groups:
Tip
Choose carbohydrate foods that are high in fiber, such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes (navy, kidney and black beans, lentils, etc.). Fiber:
- slows digestion to make you feel fuller longer
- slows the rate carbohydrates are absorbed into your bloodstream
- helps reduce cholesterol by binding to the cholesterol in your digestive tract and getting rid of it.
- Protein: Protein helps build body cells for growth and healing. Some examples of protein include meat, poultry, fish and eggs.
- Fat: Fat helps the body absorb certain vitamins, lubricate joints and muscles, and adds flavor to food. Some examples of fat are mayonnaise, butter, margaring, oils, nuts and salad dressing.
- Carbohydrate: Carbohydrates are your best energy source.
Carbohydrate foods
All carbohydrate foods turn into glucose. Carbohydrate foods are breads, crackers, cereals, rice, pasta, fruit and fruit juice, milk, vegetables and sweets.
Do not avoid carbohydrate foods. They should make up 50 to 60 percent of your food plan.
Carbohydrate counting is a way to help you manage the amount of carbohydrate you eat during the day.
Tip
It is not healthy to leave out carbohydrate foods while you try to lose weight and control your blood glucose level.
A carbohydrate choice is a serving that contains about 15 grams of carbohydrate. For most people with diabetes, a healthy meal plan has three to five (45 to 75 grams) carbohydrate choices at a meal and one to two (15 to 30 grams) carbohydrate choices for snacks.
Eat your meals and snacks every 4 to 5 hours to help even out your blood glucose level. Do not skip meals or snacks.
If you do, your body will make up for the lack of glucose by "asking" your liver to make extra glucose. This can make controlling your blood glucose even harder.
Grams of carbohydrate |
Carbohydrate choices |
0 to 5 |
0 |
6 to 10 |
1/2 |
11 to 20 |
1 |
21 to 25 |
1 1/2 |
26 to 35 |
2 |
36 to 40 |
2 1/2 |
41 to 50 |
3 |
51 to 55 |
3 1/2 |
56 to 65 |
4 |
66 to 70 |
4 1/2 |
71 to 80 |
5 |
Examples of one carbohydrate choice (15 grams)
