A diabetic diet that will help you get your symptoms under control!

There are 3 basic food groups in the Diabetic Diet Plan: fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. The carbohydrates are the foods that can be broken down into sugar. It is essential to have all 3 food groups in your diet to have good nutrition.

To make things easy, many people begin carbohydrate counting by rounding the carbohydrate value of milk up to 15.

Why Count Carbohydrates In Diabetic Diet?

Carbohydrates make your blood glucose level go up. If you know how much carbohydrates you’ve eaten, you have a good idea what your blood glucose level is going to do. The more carbohydrates you eat, the higher your blood sugar will go up.

Which Foods Contain Carbohydrates?

Most of the carbohydrate we eat comes from 3 food groups: starch, fruit, and milk.

Vegetables also contain some carbohydrates, but foods in the meat and fat groups contain very little carbohydrates. Sugars may be added or may be naturally present (such as in fruits).

The nutrient term for sugars can also be identified by looking for -ose at the end of a word ( ie, glucose, fructose, and sucrose are all sugars). Look for these on food labels to help identify foods that contain sugar.

In other words, one serving of starch, fruit, or milk contains 15 grams carbohydrate or one carbohydrate serving. Three servings of vegetables also contain 15 grams. Each meal and snack will contain a specific total number of grams of carbohydrate.

For example: Each gram of carbohydrate provides 4 calories. A person with diabetes on a 1,600 calorie diet should get 50% of these calories from carbohydrates. This would be a total of 800 calories of carbohydrates (at 4 calories per gram) spread out over the day. At 15 grams per exchange, this would be about 13 exchanges of carbohydrates per day.

The amount of food you eat is closely related to blood sugar control. If you eat more food than is recommended on your meal plan, your blood sugar goes up. Although foods containing carbohydrates (carbs) have the most impact on blood sugars, the calories from all foods will affect blood sugar.

The only way you can tell if you are eating the right amount is to measure your foods carefully. Also, it is important to space your carbohydrates out throughout the day to avoid sugar “loading.” Measuring your blood sugar regularly also provides important feedback on how high your sugar went based on what you ate and your level of activity.

Where Do You Get Carbohydrate Information?
The “Nutrition Facts” label on most foods is the best way to get carbohydrate information, but not all foods have labels. Your local bookstore and library have books that list the carbohydrate in restaurant foods, fast foods, convenience foods and fresh foods. You will still need to weigh or measure the foods to know the amount of grams of carbohydrates present.

How Do You Count Carbohydrates?
Carbohydrates can be counted in number of grams or can be counted as exchanges. One carbohydrate exchange equals 15 grams of carbohydrates.

Free Foods
These are foods that you can eat without counting. A free food or drink is one that contains less than 20 calories and 5 grams or less of carbohydrates per serving. If your serving of a food contains more than 5 grams of carbohydrates, you should count it in your meal plan.

Examples of free foods:

• Bouillon or broth
• Carbonated or mineral water
• Club soda
• Coffee or tea
• Diet soft drinks
• Drink mixes, sugar-free
• Tonic water, sugar free
• Sugar-free hard candy
• Sugar-free Jell-O
• Sugar-free gum
• Jam or jelly, light or low-sugar, 2 tsp
• Sugar free syrup, 2 tsp