Diabetes Cookbook For Dummies
Overview
Easy-to-follow recipes for nourishing, satisfying, diabetes-friendly meals
Diabetes Cookbook For Dummies helps you maintain control of your health without giving up tasty, fulfilling meals. With 125 new recipes and an eight-page color insert, this cookbook combines fabulous flavors with proven health benefits. Award winning chef Amy Riolo and internationally renowned doctor Simon Poole provide a holistic understanding of diabetes and show you how to maximize nutrition at meals whether you’re living with diabetes, prediabetes, or simply want to gain better control of your health. Each recipe includes a breakdown of ingredients, explaining how various taste profiles affect health and giving you a glimpse of the powerful effects of micronutrients and bioactive compounds. Learn to boost your health and feel better with this trusted Dummies cookbook.
- Create diabetes-friendly meals that balance high-quality carbohydrates with healthy fats and sustainable proteins
- Enjoy delicious, chef-inspired recipes that everyone will love
- Learn how micronutrients and superfoods can enhance your health and life
- Follow meal plans that make sense, no matter where in the world you are located
- Get a clear summary of the latest scientific understanding of diabetes nutrition
Following the nutritional advice and recipes in this guide will prove that even with diabetes, living with both pleasure and health in mind is easy. Those newly diagnosed with diabetes or prediabetes, and their care givers will love the mouth-watering recipes in Diabetes Cookbook For Dummies.
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About The Author
Dr. Simon Poole is a medical doctor, author, speaker, and consultant. Simon cares for and treats patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes from diagnosis onwards. Amy Riolo is an award-winning author and chef. She’s the author of Mediterranean Lifestyle For Dummies and Italian Recipes For Dummies.
Sample Chapters
diabetes cookbook for dummies
CHEAT SHEET
Planning what you eat, your activity level, and the amount of food you eat are all powerful steps to improving your health. Managing diabetes means prioritizing your health and the way that you feel. Choosing the best foods and discovering how to combine them is key to achieving the best, most delicious, enjoyable, and sustainable diet.
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Doctors consider your blood glucose normal when it’s less than 100 mg/dl (5.5 mmol/L) if you’ve eaten nothing for 8 to 12 hours. If you’ve eaten, your blood glucose is normal if it’s less than 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/L) two hours after eating. If you never see a blood glucose level higher than 140, you’re doing very well, indeed.
As you go through life with diabetes, you'll be exposed to many "experts" and different ideas about the best way to manage your disease. Before you make a major change in your diabetes program, run the new ideas by your doctor or diabetes educator to make sure it will help and not hurt you.
Here are a few of the more common myths about diabetes — save yourself some grief and ignore them.
Diabetes Recipes
You may think that giving up the diet you’ve followed all your life in favor of the Mediterranean diet requires a major upheaval in your lifestyle. The process may not be simple, but you aren’t giving up good taste. You’ll enjoy the diet — and your blood glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight will all take a turn for the better.
Diabetes Recipes
Following a nutritional plan sometimes seems so complicated. But really, if you follow the few simple rules outlined here, you can make the process much easier. None of them cost anything other than time. Doing them one at a time makes a big difference in your calorie and fat intake. Adding one after another makes the results huge.
Diabetes Recipes
Children don’t hate vegetables any more than they hate ice cream. It is what you teach them that determines their feelings about food. If you show them that you love vegetables and consider them delicious, that’s how they will feel about vegetables. They love to follow your example. The best time to do this is at family meals.
To give your salsa a fruity twist, don’t bother with bottled lemon or lime juice. Fresh is definitely the way to go. Squeezing the juice out is easy to do, and the flavor is far superior.
Here’s how to get the most out of your citrus fruit.
Roll the fruit on a hard, flat surface, pressing down fairly hard to break up the juice sacs.
Diabetes Recipes
African-American food, sometimes called soul food, combines the food preferences and cooking methods of the African slaves with the available ingredients and available fuel found in the United States. Slow cooking with lots of vegetables and meats, eating lots of greens, combining fruits and meats in main dishes, and deep-frying meats and vegetables were cooking traditions brought to the United States.
Fortunately, produce manufacturers are taking convenience foods to a healthy level for a change. Look in your produce section for prewashed, ready-to-use salad greens and blends. You can open a bag and have a delicious meal in a matter of minutes. For super easy and quick salads, pick up prewashed salad blends like these:
American blend: This familiar blend usually includes iceberg lettuce, carrot shreds, radish slices, and red cabbage.
Chilled soups are great appetizers, light lunches, or even desserts. You can choose any taste (sweet, spicy, savory) or ethnic flavor profile (Latin, Polish, French, you name it), and there’s probably a chilled soup to match. Because you serve them cold, they’re great to serve all summer long.
Don’t feel like you need to wait for a special occasion to serve these chilled soups.
When you think of Chinese food, you think rice. But China is such a huge place, and rice can’t be grown everywhere. In the north, millet is used to make cereal. About 1500 b.c., wheat was introduced from West Asia.
Vegetables such as soybeans and cucumbers were added to the rice, and occasionally a little bit of chicken or beef was added.
Breakfast is a critical meal for a diabetic. Getting your day off to a steady, balanced start sets you up for success the rest of the day. The following information can help you make the right breakfast choices.
Figuring out which fruit is right for you
Fruit doesn’t have to be a dirty word for a diabetic. While it’s true that fruit is full of natural sugars and your body processes them quickly, you don’t have to (and shouldn’t) mark them off your list completely.
Diabetes Recipes
The three most important factors in diet for people with diabetes are moderation, moderation, moderation. If you’re overweight or obese, which is true of most people with type 2 diabetes and a lot of people with type 1 diabetes who are on intensive insulin treatment (four shots of insulin daily), weight loss will make a huge difference in your blood glucose levels.
Dips don’t have to be fat-laden creamy concoctions that add inches to your waistline and bags to your saddle. With a little creativity, you can create delicious dips that keep you eating healthy and your glucose levels normal.
Dips are among the quickest and easiest (not to mention tastiest!) appetizers around.
Planning what you eat, your activity level, and the amount of food you eat are all powerful steps to improving your health. Managing diabetes means prioritizing your health and the way that you feel. Choosing the best foods and discovering how to combine them is key to achieving the best, most delicious, enjoyable, and sustainable diet.
Diabetes Recipes
Having diabetes doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself of the ease (and deliciousness!) of grabbing a muffin, biscuit, or slice of quick bread. Plan ahead and keep some of these heart-healthy handfuls on hand for breakfast on the go.
You can ease into using whole grains by using a blend of all-purpose (white) flour and whole-wheat flour.
Diabetes Recipes
Choosing eggs gives you a protein power punch to start your day. These baked breakfast egg dishes are a great way to make delicious, healthy meals for a group. They’re a great choice for elegant brunch entertaining or a weekday when you have a little extra time. Alternately, you can make a pie or quiche, cool it completely, and then cut it into individual servings and freeze them for later.
Who doesn’t love a delicious creamy soup? But as you probably know, putting cream in soups adds calories and saturated fat, neither of which is very good for a diabetic diet. If you can’t get enough of creamy soups, there is some good news. You can have a great creamy texture — without the stuff you don’t need.
Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) is considered by some to be the most nutritious of all the whole grains. This ancient superfood is becoming more popular, showing up on the menus of gourmet restaurants nationwide.
Credit: Illustration by Elizabeth Kurtzman
Quinoa is high in protein and fiber, provides 25 percent of your daily iron needs, and is a tremendous source of magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus.
Diabetes Recipes
Omelets and frittatas (open-faced omelets) are among the best and easiest ways to get a burst of protein to start your day. Here are several flavorful recipes to keep your taste buds hopping.
Greek Omelet
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Yield: 2 servings
Nonstick cooking spray
1⁄2 cup diced green bell peppers
1⁄2 cup sliced mushrooms
1⁄8 teaspoon dried marjoram, crumbled
1 cup chopped spinach
2 whole eggs
4 egg whites
1⁄2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1 small plum tomato, seeded and chopped
Coat a large skillet with the cooking spray and place over medium heat.
Whether greens are an important part of the salad you’re making or added just for garnish, using special and novel greens makes your salad stand out. Skip the pale green iceberg lettuce and buy some darker green lettuces like romaine and leaf lettuce instead. The greener the leaf, the more nutrients it contains, especially magnesium, a mineral important for heart and bone health.
Most store-bought salsas have too much sugar and vinegar, so they aren’t nearly as good for the diabetic as the homemade variety. Why bother with those versions when it’s so easy to create your own? Although salsa simply means “sauce,” you’ll agree that these salsa recipes taste anything but simple.
Add the standard salsa seasonings to any grain or legume for a tasty and nutritious treat anytime.
Most seafood is naturally delicious, so it really doesn’t take much effort to turn it into something special. A little bit of seasoning, a light dressing, and some tasty greens, and you have yourself a meal. Marinate sea scallops in a little olive oil and lemon juice and broil them. Or steam your favorite white fish with herbs and seasonings and then serve it on a bed of greens.
Diabetes Recipes
When you received your diagnosis of diabetes, maybe you thought your days of eating waffles and pancakes were over. Although starting the morning off with pancakes dripping with butter and maple syrup is probably not in your current eating plan, you can still enjoy relatively sweet treats in the morning, especially if you use whole grains.
Exercise is a key part of the foundation for the management of diabetes (the other parts of the foundation are diet and medication). Everyone with diabetes should exercise, but be sure to check with your doctor if any of the following apply to you:
You have complications of diabetes like eye disease, kidney disease, nerve disease, or heart disease.
Fresh herbs are an excellent addition to almost anything, especially salad. Their robust flavors can help you cut down the need for adding fat and salt to your foods. You can mince herbs, but some recipes, such as the one for Summer Tomato Salad, call for herbs to be chiffonade.
Chiffonade literally means “made of rags,” and it pretty well describes what the final product looks like.
French food is always associated with the term “haute cuisine,” which means fine food prepared by highly skilled chefs. This kind of cooking derives from Italy and was introduced to France by Catherine de Medici. The French added their own subtle techniques to the methods of the Italians from Florence, adopting their use of truffles and mushrooms and preparing lighter sauces.
Growing fresh baby greens is incredibly simple, no matter where you live. Their shallow root systems make them ideal for indoor gardening. All you need is a shallow bowl or planter, high-quality potting soil, lettuce seeds, and a nice sunny window.
Here’s how you do it:
Fill a shallow container that has good drainage with high-quality potting soil.
Diabetes Recipes
Before planning a nutritional program, you need to know how much you need to eat on a daily basis to maintain your current weight. Then you can figure how rapidly a deficit of calories will get you to your goal.
Finding your ideal weight range
The ideal weight for your height is a range and not a single weight at each height.
Diabetes Recipes
Vegetarian eating is an excellent way to prevent diabetes or to manage it if it occurs. Although a vegetarian diet remains an excellent diet for diabetes, most people prefer to have some animal protein in their diets — for taste, variety, and convenience. The Mediterranean diet fulfills all these criteria and more.
What’s a good dip without something to dip into it? Rather than ruining all your hard work of choosing healthy dips by dipping fried chips into them, the following alternatives offer more diabetic-friendly options to keep you moving in the right direction:
Bagel chips: Look for these chips in the specialty bread section of your grocery store, but read the label because some are high in fat and sodium.
Diabetes Recipes
Soups are part of every cuisine. And virtually any soup can get a little ethnic flavor by changing the spices and seasonings (all of which are found in most kitchens). In the next recipe, the garam masala, a traditional Indian spice blend, gives this chili a taste of India.
You can find this tasty spice blend in the spice section of most grocery stores now.
Diabetes Recipes
Although diet is an essential part of the Mediterranean lifestyle, there is much more to it than just the diet. Most of the way that people live their lives is consistent with prevention or amelioration of diabetes. Many other behaviors that make up the Mediterranean lifestyle contribute to the long, healthy lives of people who live in the Mediterranean region.
Diabetes Recipes
Food contains a lot more than just carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Most of the other components are micronutrients (present in tiny or micro quantities), which are essential for maintaining the health of human beings. Examples of micronutrients include vitamins (such as vitamin C and vitamin K) and minerals (such as calcium, magnesium, and iron).
Pairing salads and protein is a natural fit for a diabetic diet. Most of the meal is actually made up of the healthy veggies, accented by a small but satisfying portion of protein, the ideal ratio in a diabetic diet.
Canned legumes, like chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans) and kidney beans, are an excellent and inexpensive way to make sure you’re getting enough protein.
Soups might be the ultimate comfort food. Who doesn’t feel better (even with a cold) with a bowl of warm chicken soup? And you can choose a soup for every occasion. No matter what the weather, the state of your health, or who’s coming for dinner, there's a soup for you.
Heirloom Tomato Soup with Fresh Basil
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
5 large fresh heirloom tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped into 1⁄2-inch dice
5 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 quart good quality low-sodium or vegetable stock, heated
1 teaspoon coarse salt
Freshly ground black pepper
30 fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
1⁄4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Heat olive oil in a heavy bottomed skillet over medium heat.
Diabetes Recipes
Until very recently, bottled salad dressings didn’t offer much in the way of flavor unless they were full of fat, salt, sugar, and other no-nos for a diabetic diet. Some of the newer light dressings have improved flavor, are less detrimental to your health, and are convenient. But there’s really no substitute for making dressings yourself.
Diabetes Recipes
One of the best innovations of the last decade has been the proliferation of farmer’s markets, which bring together produce from local farmers with extremely fresh fish and poultry. There is nothing tastier than an heirloom tomato just picked by the farmer and sold to you that day.
Many of the farmers have made their farms organic, which means their produce is free from harmful pesticides.
Diabetes Recipes
Appetizers are meant to stimulate your appetite and prepare you for the meal to come. But for a diabetic, they can also help you squeeze in a quick nutritious bite, helping to keep your blood glucose levels stable until the main event. Healthy appetizers are the best way to get you started on a great eating path for the evening.
In many soup recipes, the first few steps ask you to sauté some vegetables to bring out their flavor and soften them. Typically, you start by cooking a combination of vegetables, such as onions, carrots, and celery, along with herbs and spices, in a small amount of fat.
You may sauté your veggies in a small amount of low-fat cooking spray oil or butter, or even a bit of fatty smoked meat such as bacon.
Although people with diabetes are allowed to have some sugar in their diet, sugar is more appropriate for a diabetic who is at normal weight than an obese diabetic. Preventing obesity may be a matter of avoiding as little as 50 extra calories a day. If this can be accomplished by using artificial sweeteners, which provide sweetening power but no calories, so much the better.
Thai food is a good choice for people with diabetes. It is cooked with little fat because stir-frying is the method of choice. Thai cooking keeps the meat, fish, and poultry to small quantities, thus providing taste rather than bulk, as in a Western diet.
The dipping sauces have strong tastes, so they’re used in very small quantities, minimizing the salt and sugar in the diet.
Exercise is just as important as diet in controlling your blood glucose. A group of people who were expected to develop diabetes because their parents both had diabetes was asked to walk 30 minutes a day. Eighty percent of those who did walk did not develop the disease. These people didn’t necessarily lose weight, but they did exercise.
Diabetes Recipes
If you take insulin, the peak of your insulin activity should correspond with the greatest availability of glucose in your blood. To accomplish this, you need to know the time when your insulin is most active, how long it lasts, and when it is no longer active.
Regular insulin, which has been around for decades, takes 30 minutes to start to lower the glucose level, peaks at three hours, and is gone by six to eight hours.
Most markets carry various brands of chicken and beef broth that offer good flavor. These products are adequate for making everyday soups and are well worth keeping on hand. Always choose the low-sodium versions to use as stock and then add more salt to your soup as necessary.
If your physician or dietitian has given you any instructions at all about watching your salt, you’ve probably been told about the high sodium content of canned soup.
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