The new diabetes diet: fill this powerful prescription at the grocery store.

The old approach to diabetes was focus on eliminating refined gars and foods that turned into sugar-starches--breads, fruits, etc.--from the diet. The rationale was based on the fact that diabetics' urine contains sugar. Unfortunately, with all of the complex carbohydrates eliminated, fat and protein are all that are left in the diet.

The new approach focuses more attention on fat. Fat is a problem for diabetics. The more fat there is in the diet, the harder time insulin has in getting sugar into the cell. Exactly why this occurs is not clear. But what is clear is that minimizing fat intake and reducing body fat help insulin do its job much better. Modern diabetic treatment programs drastically reduce meats, high-fat dairy products, and oils. At the same time, they increase grains, legumes, and vegetables.

One study found that 21 of 23 patients on oral medications and 13 of 17 patients on insulin were able to get off their medications after 26 days on a near-vegetarian diet and exercise program. During two- and three-year follow-ups, most diabetics treated with this regimen have retained their gains.

The dietary changes are simple, but profound, and they work. Low-fat, vegetarian diets are ideal for people with diabetes.

There's a second essential component to managing diabetes. Through regular exercise, the need for insulin injections can often be reduced, and oral medications often become unnecessary. This holds true not only for people with noninsulin-dependent diabetes, but also to some extent for those with insulin-dependent diabetes. Exercising muscles creates a voracious appetite for fuel. When an individual is engaged in regular aerobic exercise, the sugar is able to enter the cells without the need for as much--or perhaps any--insulin.

Managing Your Diabetes With Food

This new and effective approach to diabetes is remarkably simple. Here are three easT steps to managing your blood sugar with diet.

1. Build your diet from fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Choose foods that are high in complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains, vegetables, and legumes. They will also help reduce your blood glucose and your need for medication. Many plant foods also contain soluble fiber, which slows the passage of sugar into your blood stream. Because processing often removes fiber and adds sugar or oil, the closer the carbohydrate-rich food is to its natural state, the better.

2. Avoid the troublemakers: meats of all kinds, dairy products, and eggs. The best diet avoids meats and other animal products. These foods can encourage insulin resistance, heart problems, and weight gain because they usually contain large amounts of fat, cholesterol, and calories. A better choice is to get your protein from plant foods, such as beans, vegetables, tofu, whole grains, nuts, and seeds, many of which are also high in healthy complex carbohydrates and fiber.

3. Keep added fats to a bare minimum. Diets high in fat can impair your insulin sensitivity. In other words, insulin will have a hard time doing its job. This is especially true for saturated fat (the kind found in meat, eggs, and dairy products) as opposed to monounsaturated fat (found in olive and canola oils). Plant foods generally tend to be much lower in fat (particularly saturated fat) compared to animal products; so beans, vegetables, and whole grains are good not just for their complex carbohydrates, but also for their lower fat content. Even nuts and seeds (which are fairly high in fat) contain more unsaturated fats and are much better choices than animal products such as butter, bacon fat, sour cream, and so on (which are high in saturated fat). Even so, don't overdo it. It's still good to limit the amount of any fatty foods.

Tropical
Freeze

ENJOY THIS DIABETES-SAFE TREAT
ALL YEAR 'ROUND.

Pureed frozen fruit makes a wonderful
dessert, without the fat or refined
sugar of ice cream. Look for frozen
mango pieces in your supermarket, or
you can make your own using fresh
mangoes. To freeze bananas, peel,
break into chunks, and place loosely in
a covered container in the freezer.

       1 orange (preferably navel), peeled
    1 C. frozen banana chunks
    1 C. frozen mango chunks
1/2-1 C. fortified soymilk or rice milk

Cut orange in half and remove any
seeds. Place in a blender with banana,
mango, and soy or rice milk. Blend until
thick and very smooth, 2 to 3 minutes.
Serve immediately. Makes three 1 -cup
servings. Per 1-cup serving: calories: 130;
protein: 3 grams; carbohydrate: 28
grams; fat: 2 grams; fiber: 4 grams; sodium:
12 milligrams; calories from protein:
10 percent; calories from carbohydrates:
78 percent; calories from fats:
12 percent.

Further Reading

For more information on diet and diabetes, please read Healthy Eating for Life to Prevent and Treat Diabetes by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine with Patricia Bertron, R.D.

Source: The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. For more information, visit www.pcrm.org.