_ If you have diabetes, your body cannot make or properly use insulin. This leads to high blood glucose, or sugar, levels in your blood. Healthy eating helps to reduce your blood sugar. It is a critical part of managing your diabetes, because controlling your blood sugar can prevent the complications of diabetes. One complication of diabetes is fatty liver disease. Not controlling your sugar will cause further damage to your liver. Not getting enough sugar, on the other hand, damages your muscles—remember that your heart is really just a muscle!
Your body needs some sugars to provide energy for every bodily function. Sugars are provided to the body in the carbohydrates that make up our diet. Carbohydrates are found in a wide array of foods—bread, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies, spaghetti, soft drinks, corn, and cherry pie. They also come in a variety of forms. The most common and abundant forms are sugars, fibers, and starches.There are "good" carbohydrates, also known as "complex carbs" (whole grains from foods like whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole grain pasta, and other possibly unfamiliar grains like quinoa, whole oats, and bulgur) and "bad" carbohydrates, AKA "simple carbs". Complex carbs contain "complex strings" of sugar molecules whereas simple carbs are single sugar molecules. Simply put, complex carbs take longer for your body to digest, giving you longer periods of energy. Simple carbs are just that—simple, so your body easily digests them resulting in "empty" energy that is quickly used by your body.
Healthy diabetic eating includes:
Limiting sweets
Eating smaller meals, more often
Being careful about what type of, when and how many carbohydrates you eat
Eating lots of whole-grain foods, fruits and vegetables
Eating less fat
Limiting your use of alcohol
There are many web sites available that have low carbohydrate recipes. Please see the links section for some of our favorites.