Regular gastronomic excesses, food violations on weekdays and on holidays do not pass without a trace for the health of any person. For some, they turn into serious diseases, one of which is type 2 diabetes.
Terrible diagnosis makes you reconsider the usual diet.
Briefly about type 2 diabetes
This pathology refers to metabolic. A key disorder for type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance, which causes chronic hyperglycemia.
However, there are still many problems in the work of various organs and systems, leading to permanent, health-threatening jumps in the level of sugar in human blood. Today, science already knows about eleven metabolic “errors.” Among others:
- excessive production of alpha-cells of the pancreas glucagon (peptide hormone);
- increased glucose absorption from primary urine in the kidney;
- imperfect neurotransmitter transmission, etc.
Hyperglycemia, acting like a snowball, creates a whole avalanche of health problems for a patient who develops type 2 diabetes. It:
- osmotic diuresis (excessive loss of fluid and electrolytes in the body);
- chronic dehydration;
- deficiency of important nutrients (potassium, magnesium, phosphates, calcium and other mineral substances);
- glycosylation of fats and proteins, against the background of which various disturbances in the work of many systems and organs (heart, kidney, brain, etc.) are formed.
The prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes include three main components:
- drug therapy;
- special nutrition;
- physiotherapy.
Let us dwell on the peculiarities of the diet recommended by modern dietetics for those who are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
General rules of diet
Composing the menu for a day, a week or longer, you should definitely check your own food preferences with medical recommendations.
- From the daily diet it is necessary to exclude many, before the hotly adorable products, containing in large quantities simple carbohydrates, animal fats, ready-to-cook foods and ready-made meals prepared in an industrial way.
- Introduce new, more useful sources of fiber, pectins and other complex carbohydrates, healthy fats and valuable proteins.
- It is important to consider the glycemic index (GI) of each product in the daily menu. diets or learn how to count “bread units” (HE).
- In addition, special cooking rules are established.
All these common points should be communicated to the patient by the attending physician or a specialist in treatment-and-prophylactic nutrition, helping to create an individual wellness diet taking into account:
- features of the clinical picture of the disease;
- objective health condition;
- possible contraindications due to other chronic pathologies;
- taste preferences, etc.
Secrets of clinical nutrition
Empirical experience gained by modern medicine, allows us to recommend some dietary “wisdom.” They help to optimize the nutrition of patients with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes in accordance with the general therapeutic and prophylactic recommendations, at the same time making their lives easier.
1. Home cooking – the best option
Dietary meals, prepared personally from functional foods that are approved for feeding patients with type 2 diabetes, are what helps keep glucose spikes under control and manage insulin levels.
2. Freezer – true friend
Modern dynamic life makes saving personal time, including cooking. Therefore, many are forced on weekends to engage in bulk purchases of food and prepare food for the week ahead. As a result, some homemade dishes have time to spoil before they are eaten, and culinary creations from the category of “hand-made” finish their existence in the trash can.
To prevent this from happening, you should freeze food prepared for future use. It is desirable unfolding in batch containers. So delicious homemade dish can be stored not for days, but for weeks, waiting for their turn on the menu.
3. Semi-finished products – to help!
Instead of cooking huge pans of borscht or stewed vegetables on weekends, we recommend that you restrict yourself to semi-finished products in the form of blanks that can be useful for quickly preparing a huge number of various dishes.
For example:
- wash, peel and chop various vegetables, spreading them into separate glass containers so that you can make salads, soups, main dishes with their participation very quickly during the week;
- boil a large portion of legumes (beans, lentils, green peas, etc.), stored in the refrigerator or in the freezer, using as an independent side dish or one of the ingredients;
- Steam a significant amount of buckwheat, quinoa, and any other cereal recommended for a healthy diet.
4. New items in the menu – welcome
The bored assortment of the refrigerator generates food disturbances, “urging on” the thirst for new taste sensations. In the search for the latter, patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes cannot resist numerous temptations in the form of industrially produced and very harmful products on the shelves of supermarkets, as well as fast food dishes.
Do not be afraid to experiment, constantly expanding the usual menu with the help of healthy foods that are included in the list of recommended for this disease, as well as trying still unexplored recipes, including those from national cuisines of different countries, allowed for diabetes.They are especially rich in cookbooks of the peoples of the Mediterranean, Japan, China, Latin America.
Special help sites and Internet forums for diabetics can become a great help for those who adhere to the treatment-and-prophylactic diet, where participants in the discussion share culinary recipes, small and big cooks tricks.
5. Natural Sweeteners vs. Synthetic
Instead of using synthetic sugar substitutes in preparing homemade dishes, we recommend replacing them in the recipe with functional products that are approved for feeding patients with type 2 diabetes.
For example, to give a sweet taste, you can use:
- stevia leaves;
- blueberries, raspberries and other fresh or frozen berries;
- rhubarb;
- apples, pineapple and other fruits with low sugar content.
6. Favorable exchange: in favor of low GI
When preparing a homemade meal for patients with diabetes, do not blindly follow the recipes. It is necessary to include imagination, not forgetting the list of permitted products, in order to replace some of the ingredients of dishes with more useful ones if necessary.
For example:
- instead of eggs in salads, you can use avocado;
- when cooking the main dishes, replace the pasta with zucchini strips;
- add to soups not potatoes, but zucchini.