Best Foods For Managing Diabetes
Best foods for managing diabetes
Diabetes is difficult to manage but not impossible. With the right medication, regular exercise, and the right diabetes diet plan, the health issues brought on by diabetes and even diabetes itself can be kept in check. There are several types of diabetes diet food, ranging from drinks for diabetics to healthy snack for diabetics, which make for a natural recovery diabetic diet plan.
The six best diabetes diet foods to help reverse diabetes, which also make excellent diabetic snack ideas that you need to add to your diabetic diet menu are listed below:
Fatty Fish
Fatty fish is rich in Omega-3 fats.
It’s important, and in some cases mandatory, to have a regular intake of Omega-3 fatty acids in diabetes. Anchovies, herring, mackerel, salmon, and sardines are some of the best sources of Omega-3 fatty acids.
Leafy Green Vegetables
Being high on desirable nutrition and low on calories make vegetables an opportune diabetic food you can add to your regular diet plan. Carbs are the most important nutrient responsible for hiked blood sugar levels in most diabetic cases. Fortunately, leafy green vegetables are very low in carbs, making them an apt food choice. In addition to being good for the heart, leafy green vegetables are high in antioxidants, primarily lutein, and zeaxanthin, which are excellent for the health of eyes.
Diabetes can lead to a number of eye-related complications, such as cataract and macular degeneration. Antioxidants in leafy green vegetables help in minimizing the effect of diabetes on your eyes. Spinach and kale are two excellent leafy green vegetables to consume when suffering from diabetes.
Eggs
There are several benefits of adding eggs to your diabetes diet plan. They reduce various heart-related risk factors, promote eye health, and assist in controlling good blood sugar. Regular consumption of eggs improves insulin sensitivity, increases the HDL cholesterol, which by the way is good for health despite being a type of cholesterol, and decreases inflammation.
Certain studies now confirm that having two eggs daily can improve both blood sugar levels and cholesterol. Because perks of eating eggs are due to the yolk and not the white, whole eggs should be added to your diabetic breakfast ideas.
Turmeric
Another healthy spice, most notably used in Indian cuisine, is turmeric with several health benefits. The spice is rich in an active ingredient known as curcumin. It is amazingly beneficial for diabetic patients. In addition to minimizing the risk of heart disease, curcumin lowers inflammation rate and blood sugar levels.
Kidney diseases are caused, at times, by diabetes. Curcumin seems (as demonstrated by some researches) to improve kidney health too. In order to improve curcumin absorption, it needs to be consumed with piperine (like that in black pepper). It can drastically improve the absorption to about 2,000%.
Nuts
Yes, nuts are delicious and nutritional. Fiber is an important nutrient available in nuts. All types of nuts are high in fiber and low in digestible carbs. The amount of carbohydrates in a nut depends on its type. Different nuts, therefore, have different amounts of carb nutrients.
To give a brief about the nutritional (carbs) information about nuts, here is the amount of digestible carbs in a serving of 28 grams (1 oz) of distinct types of nuts:
Carbs Amount in Different Nuts | |
Nuts | Carbs Amount |
| 2.6 gms |
| 1.4 gms |
| 7.7 gms |
| 2 gms |
| 1.5 gms |
| 1.2 gms |
| 5 gms |
| 2 gms |
Table Info – Nutritional chart for total amount of carbohydrates in nuts
Adding nuts regularly to any diabetes meal plans helps in lower blood sugar, HbA1c, and LDL levels while reducing inflammation. Adding nuts to your diet plan needs to be thoroughly checked and confirmed by a doctor because it can increase the risk of fatal diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and even cancer.
Broccoli
Vegetables are rich in nutrients we all know, right? Well, broccoli is the one leading the nutritional charge in a vegetable diet. In addition to being high in the much-required nutrients such as magnesium and Vitamin-C, a 1/2-cup of cooked broccoli contains at max just 27 calories and a mere 3 gms of digestible carbs. Blood cells are prone to be attacked by harmful free radicals produced during metabolism. Studies suggest that adding broccoli to a diabetes diet plan results in increasing diabetic recovery without medication.