You’ve been to your healthcare provider and been told that you’re pre-diabetic, or actually are diabetic. Or your spouse/partner/child/other significant individual is/are diabetic, and you want to know what is safe to feed yourself/them.
Your healthcare provider may have made arrangements for you to consult with a diabetic nutritionist/dietician. The problem is, that person will fill your head with important, necessary information about calorie and nutrient restrictions (carbs, protein, fats, fibers and sugars). These are things you will need to pay attention to for the rest of your diabetic life.
BUT....and this is a very big but, they are NOT, generally, going to hand you recipes/cookbooks, tell you how to set up a viable meal plan for you/your family for a day/week/month, they will not teach you how to pick the best grocery items to support your body and your health while diabetic, or where to get them. They will not do your comparison shopping for you. And they sure are not going to be your personal chef if you are at all intimidated by all of this, and most everyone is, at least a little.
As of today’s date, I am a 66 year old retired RN, insulin dependent for over five years. My mother was a Type 2 diabetic, her mother was one of the first to ever be placed on insulin therapy, and took five times daily injections for over sixty years. I am a Type 1.5 diabetic. I always knew that I would eventually be diabetic because of my strong family history. I’m not going to go into all of the details on type 1.5, because it’s a fairly recent discovery and it’s pretty technical. If you really want to know, ask Uncle Google...he’ll tell you more than you want to know.
If you’re lucky, your consulting nutritionist will give you a copy of the ADA’s (American Diabetes Association) Official Pocket Guide to Diabetic Exchanges, and Novo Nordisk’s (a Swedish insulin manufacturer) Guide to Carb Counting and Meal Planning, which are helpful, but not the be all and end all, because they are very basic. Novo Nordisk’s reference just mentioned really doesn’t teach you the ins and outs of long term meal planning, which is what you have to get under control. Again, there are no recipes in it, no instructions on how to shop or cook.
If you haven’t already noticed, the foods they EXPECT you to eat to get your diabetes under tight control are EXPENSIVE. I’m talking about organic, clean, mostly plant based eating. No added sugars, minimal processed foods, low cholesterol, and few or no ingredients that you can’t pronounce. In practice, it’s almost impossible to afford the foods they want you to eat 365 days a year, particularly if you’re on a fixed income like I am.
What I’m going to do here, in one or two posts a week, is start you at the ground floor and lead you on slowly enough to absorb what you’re learning, until you feel comfortable doing what I do, which is have initial meal plans for three months at a time, how to revise them when necessary, how to prepare the most effective shopping lists, comparison shopping, and recipes to meet your goals.
Questions? I’m always available to answer them and, if I don’t have the answer for you immediately, I’ll get it for you.
Enjoy.
Your healthcare provider may have made arrangements for you to consult with a diabetic nutritionist/dietician. The problem is, that person will fill your head with important, necessary information about calorie and nutrient restrictions (carbs, protein, fats, fibers and sugars). These are things you will need to pay attention to for the rest of your diabetic life.
BUT....and this is a very big but, they are NOT, generally, going to hand you recipes/cookbooks, tell you how to set up a viable meal plan for you/your family for a day/week/month, they will not teach you how to pick the best grocery items to support your body and your health while diabetic, or where to get them. They will not do your comparison shopping for you. And they sure are not going to be your personal chef if you are at all intimidated by all of this, and most everyone is, at least a little.
As of today’s date, I am a 66 year old retired RN, insulin dependent for over five years. My mother was a Type 2 diabetic, her mother was one of the first to ever be placed on insulin therapy, and took five times daily injections for over sixty years. I am a Type 1.5 diabetic. I always knew that I would eventually be diabetic because of my strong family history. I’m not going to go into all of the details on type 1.5, because it’s a fairly recent discovery and it’s pretty technical. If you really want to know, ask Uncle Google...he’ll tell you more than you want to know.
If you’re lucky, your consulting nutritionist will give you a copy of the ADA’s (American Diabetes Association) Official Pocket Guide to Diabetic Exchanges, and Novo Nordisk’s (a Swedish insulin manufacturer) Guide to Carb Counting and Meal Planning, which are helpful, but not the be all and end all, because they are very basic. Novo Nordisk’s reference just mentioned really doesn’t teach you the ins and outs of long term meal planning, which is what you have to get under control. Again, there are no recipes in it, no instructions on how to shop or cook.
If you haven’t already noticed, the foods they EXPECT you to eat to get your diabetes under tight control are EXPENSIVE. I’m talking about organic, clean, mostly plant based eating. No added sugars, minimal processed foods, low cholesterol, and few or no ingredients that you can’t pronounce. In practice, it’s almost impossible to afford the foods they want you to eat 365 days a year, particularly if you’re on a fixed income like I am.
What I’m going to do here, in one or two posts a week, is start you at the ground floor and lead you on slowly enough to absorb what you’re learning, until you feel comfortable doing what I do, which is have initial meal plans for three months at a time, how to revise them when necessary, how to prepare the most effective shopping lists, comparison shopping, and recipes to meet your goals.
Questions? I’m always available to answer them and, if I don’t have the answer for you immediately, I’ll get it for you.
Enjoy.
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