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Your diet should include vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Your meal plan should be naturally rich in nutrients and low in fat and calories. Too much fat can be harmful for you because it increases the risk of heart disease and hardening of the arteries. You should avoid "hidden" fat, fried foods, creamy pasta sauces, gravies, , and high-fat salad dressings. You should eat more fish and skinned poultry, always choose lean meats. You should drink low fat or nonfat milk and use diet margarine instead of butter. Limit intake of eggs to 2 or 3 a week.
If you have diabetes you should eat less sugar. Depending on your individualized meal plan, you should eat some fruits. Fruits provide fiber and carbohydrates for energy. Some patient with diabetes uses the glycemic index to select foods, especially carbohydrates. If foods have high glycemic index that is associated with greater increases in blood sugar than foods with a low glycemic index. You should know that doesn’t mean that food with low glycemic index is healthier. Foods rich in fat have lower glycemic index values than do some healthy foods.
You may need to restrict your intake of salt too. You should avoid most cakes, candy, jam, sweet pickles, syrup, pies and pastries, condensed milk regular soda, and candy.
If you and some member of your family have diabetes you should learn more about food, what contains and how some food affect on sugar level in blood. You must learn to read and understand food labels. Labels list food ingredients in the order of relative quantity. A dietetic label does not necessarily mean that the product is intended for diabetics. Always check food labels of all products. The hidden sugars are: sucrose, mannitol, glucose, sorbitol, fructose, dextrose, corn syrup, invert sugar, and lactose. Those hidden sugars can raise your blood sugar level. Consult your doctor or nutritionist before buying foods that are labeled fat free. Ask your doctor for advices to help you change your eating habits.
If you have diabetes that doesn’t mean that you can’t eat in restaurant. You should only choose the healthiest foods in the right amounts at each meal.
There are a few ideas to keep your blood sugar under control, even when you in restaurant. Make sure your meat or fish course is broiled, baked, and roasted. You shouldn’t eat fried meat. Ask for your salad dressing on the side. Don’t order foods that may have unknown ingredients. Ask how your food will be prepared. It is all right to cook with alcohol. When alcohol is heated, most of the alcohol evaporates. This leaves few calories but adds flavor to the food in which it is cooked.
Talk to your doctor before drinking alcohol. If your doctor says you may drink some alcohol, you will most likely only be able to have one or two alcoholic drinks, 1 or 2 times a week. If you have type I diabetes you should eat before you drink any alcohol. On this way you will avoid low blood sugar and hypoglycemia. Even if you eat, hypoglycemia can still occur several hours later, so follow your meal plan and check your blood sugar. Alcohol interferes with glucose production in the liver, which is the glucose used by the body during an episode of hypoglycemia. You should know that alcohol does have calories.
If you drink you should avoid drinks containing sugars or starches, such as beer and sweet wines.
Before you start drinking, decide how much you will eat and drink. You should put less alcohol in your mixed drinks. Drink slowly, but best for you if you don’t drink alcohol at all.
Conclusion
Dietary control and maintain stable body weight. People with diabetes should also eat about the same amount of food at the same time each day to keep blood sugar levels stable. You should avoid highfat, high-sugar foods. You should have regular monitoring of blood sugar. You need to have education about disease, complications, medications and diet. The counseling, support for adaptation to long-term disease is also important.