Diabetes And Cooking

The cardinal rule: No white starch. Eating white starch will spike your blood glucose faster than eating plain sugar. So, brown rice instead of white rice, and wholegrain bread and crackers and stuff instead of white. The rice thing is easy even if you think brown rice is gross; get brown basmati rice which is delicious. The bread thing is not as easy as it sounds; most "wheat bread" has a small amount of whole wheat flour and the bulk of it is white, and they try to trick you by applying clever marketing names like "wheat flour" and "white whole wheat flour" to what is still white flour. What you want is whole wheat flour and/or other whole-grain flours, not cut with white ("wheat", "white whole wheat", "enriched") flour. Crackers are easy; get Triscuits (nothing but whole wheat, oil, and salt) instead of Ritz (white flour, butter, sugar...). Become a label reader!

Pasta seems like it would be forbidden, because it's made with flour, but all you have to do is make sure to cook it firm and not mushy and it's fine. The reason is because of how the starch is modified in the process of turning flour into pasta.

Also keep in mind that no matter what clever name they put on sugar, it's still sugar. "Cane syrup", "evaporated cane juice", "Agave syrup", "florida crystals", "corn syrup", "corn sugar", "invert syrup" -- all sugar. And no, artificial sweeteners do not give you an easy out, see here.

As for the American Diabetes Association: Much of its advice is suspiciously out of step with the advice from authorities in every other first-world country -- some think it is because the ADA is heavily funded by corporations and industries with a financial interest in particular advice being given. So by all means take a look at what the ADA says, but cross-check it with the Canadian, Australian, U.K., New Zealand, and South African authorities and go with the preponderance of evidence.

Beyond that? Portion control. A piece of chocolate is "yes", a bar of chocolate is "no". A handful of cherries is "yes", the entire bowlful is "no". Two chicken thighs is "yes", four is "no". Most of us, diabetic or not, eat way too much. It takes about 20 minutes for our brain to get the message that we've eaten enough, after we've eaten enough. We manage to eat a lot of food in those 20 minutes! Eat slower. You can always go get more if you're still hungry in half an hour. If you are just getting started, spend fifty bucks on a good digital kitchen scale and spend three months learning what 3 ounces of protein looks like, what 5 ounces of carbs looks like, etc. Once you have calibrated your mind that way, portion control is easy to do just by eye.