Healthy cooking for a diabetes diet doesn’t have to be dull. Does this sound like boring meals to you: Garlicky pasta loaded with vegetables and grilled shrimp; steaming-hot soup served with crusty whole-grain bread; leafy salad topped with grilled chicken, nuts, and tangy balsamic dressing; yogurt and fresh fruit? These are all examples of tasty dishes that fit into a healthy type 2 diabetes diet. You can enjoy a variety of satisfying and flavorful foods — all while controlling your blood sugar and watching your weight.

When fixing your own plate and cooking at home make sure that your meals contain these key elements:

• Plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit in a bright array of colors
• Plenty of fiber — incorporate whole-grain cereals and breads
• Skinless poultry, fish, or lean meat

Additional considerations for smart diabetes meals include limiting foods made with white flour, sticking to small portion sizes— particularly for fruits, starches, and milk — and opting for healthy preparation methods such as grilling, broiling, steaming, and baking. Choosing the right foods and cooking techniques will not only provide you with the nutrients you need, it’ll help you avoid consuming unhealthy fats and excess calories.

People following a type 2 diabetes diet don’t have to eat “special” food, but making healthy, diabetes-friendly substitutions in unhealthy recipes is important. These substitutions can help control weight, promote heart health, and stabilize blood sugar levels. It’s also important for those with type 2 diabetes to limit saturated fat intake, since they are already at an increased risk for developing heart disease. Make easy substitutions to cut down on saturated fat — replace butter with canola oil, olive oil, or an olive-oil based spread. Coconut oil is also a substitution to consider.  One of the keys to creating healthy diabetes meals is to reduce sugar in recipes. “Use fruit purees or Stevia.

Making Easy Meals for a Diabetes Diet

Simple diabetes-friendly dishes with fresh ingredients are easy to make, nutritious, and delicious. Try these meal ideas:

• A grilled or baked chicken breast served with brown rice and a leafy green salad topped with more fresh veggies and a vinegar and oil-based dressing
• Whole-wheat linguini tossed with lots of fresh vegetables and sprinkled with a little Parmesan cheese
• A whole-wheat wrap stuffed with lean turkey breast, spinach, tomatoes, and a spoonful of hummus spread
• Homemade black bean soup with tomatoes, onions, and zesty seasonings
• Ground turkey and chopped veggie burgers served on a toasted whole-wheat bun with crisp, fresh veggies on the side

Another aspect of the diabetes epidemic is the growing number of people who have prediabetes — a condition where a person’s blood sugar level is higher than normal but not high enough to be diabetes. According to the ADA, 79 million people in the United States have prediabetes.

It’s important for people with prediabetes to make lifestyle changes to protect their health. Studies have shown that prediabetes is likely to develop into diabetes within 10 years. “Before people develop type 2 diabetes, they almost always have prediabetes,” says Zonszein. In addition, prediabetes may put you at risk for heart disease and stroke.

If you have diabetes, encourage your loved ones to get tested. Testing for prediabetes and making the lifestyle changes necessary to keep it from developing into full-blown diabetes are the best steps someone can take to protect their health.  I offer a health assessment and a weight management program with incorporates a low glycemic food plan.  Go to my contact page if you would like to know more about the program or my product tab for a short video.

No doubt you’ve heard of CoQ10’s health benefits, especially concerning the heart. In fact, many researchers believe that CoQ10 can help with heart-related conditions due to how it improves energy production in cells, prevents clot formation and acts as a powerful antioxidant. Studies have found CoQ10 particularly helpful in avoiding heart failure, swelling in the legs, labored breathing due to fluid in the lungs, subsequent heart attacks and chest pains as well as high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.  CoQ10 isn’t found only in the heart, though. It’s actually found everywhere—in every cell—in the body. In general, coenzymes such as CoQ10 assist enzymes in digesting food, performing other bodily processes and in protecting the heart and skeletal muscles.

The body produces CoQ10, and although your body requires it for cell growth and maintenance, CoQ10 levels decrease as you age, particularly in areas such as the heart and liver. By the time a person reaches 80 years of age, CoQ10 levels in the body are only about half of what they were decades earlier.  Age isn’t the only thing that lowers CoQ10 amounts in the body, however. Those who take certain medications, who have heart conditions, muscular dystrophies, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and a variety of other ailments come up short on CoQ10, according to the Mayo Clinic. Interestingly, medicines used for high cholesterol and diabetes can significantly decrease the amounts of bodily CoQ10 levels.  More and more doctors who are using alternative medicine are not recommending CoQ10 to their patients.

CoQ10 also assists in making an important molecule called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which is a cell’s major energy source and is responsible for many biological processes, including muscle contractions and protein production. CoQ10 is also present in the body’s mitochondria, which are frequently referred to as “cellular power plants,” since they create much of the body’s cellular energy. Mitochondria also serve to signal cellular differentiation, cellular growth, cellular respiration and cellular death, while controlling cell cycles and regulating cell metabolism. This is significant, too, because it is said that up to 95 percent of the human body’s energy is supplied via the mitochondria. The bodily organs, therefore, that require significant amounts of energy—such as the liver and the heart—may have the greatest concentrations of CoQ10.   Make sure you know what you are taking as CoQ10 is not the same from manufacturer to manufacturer.  Seek a nutritionist or holistic health practitioner.

Following a healthy diet for type 1 & 2 diabetes is about choosing foods that will help you control your blood glucose levels and manage your weight. For people who are overweight, losing weight is an important part of managing diabetes, and a healthy weight food management plan along with exercise can help you do it.  Going to a low glycemic food plan is the best choice.

• Reduce fat intake, particularly saturated fat
• Cut down on sugar use Stevia instead no artificial substitutes
• Reduce sodium intake
• Eat more fiber, which can help stabilize blood sugar levels
• Eat every 2-3 or 3-4 hours and drink lots of pure clean water

Keeping your goals in mind, you can alter many of your favorite recipes to meet the requirements of a type 2 diabetes weight loss plan:

• Only use one-third or one-half the sugar called for in a recipe, then add a teaspoon of cinnamon, nutmeg, almond extract, or vanilla to replace some of that sweetness, or substitute some or all of the sugar in a recipe with Stevia (made from the leaves of the Stevia plant).
• Cut back on the fat in a recipe by one-third or one-half. Substitute coconut or olive oil for some or all of the butter called for
• Replace the oil in a baking recipe with pureed fruit such as unsweetened applesauce or baby-food pureed prunes.
• When you’re making a recipe that calls for cheese, try using Vegan substitute
• Replace a whole egg in a recipe with 1/4 cup egg substitute or 2 egg whites.
• Substitute whole milk products with Almond or Coconut unsweetened milk
• Allow stock, soups, and meat drippings to cool, then skim off and throw out the congealed fat. Adding an ice cube or two will speed up the process. Use this method to strain out cooking juices for a low-fat gravy.
• Use whole wheat/rice/almond flour, whole-wheat/rice pasta, and brown rice in recipes that call for white flour or white rice.
• Add healthy ingredients like vegetables and beans into recipes when appropriate.
• When using meat, choose the leanest cuts possible for your recipes.
• Use low-sodium or sodium-free stocks and broths. Substitute fresh or frozen vegetables for canned veggies that contain sodium.
• Use lots of fresh herbs and spices to add flavor.