Food Menus for Diabetics

Once your doctor has given you a definitive diagnosis of diabetes and your dietician has told you what you can eat, your next task is to look for meals you can cook. Your menu selections must be nutritious and meet dietary standards for diabetic exchanges. However, you do not have to sacrifice flavor or variety, and eating should continue to be an enjoyable experience.

Breakfast Menus

• Menus for each meal of the day should provide you with a food selection from each food group so that you receive all the nutrients you need while keeping your blood glucose stable. For breakfast, you can enjoy a poached egg on whole-wheat toast (protein and grain), strawberries (fruit and fiber) and a beverage, which can include coffee, tea, water, diet soda, sugar-free drink mix or club soda. You can also meet your need for whole grain and fiber with a whole-grain cereal (ready to eat), a bran muffin, French toast, oatmeal, an applesauce-bran cereal muffin or a granola bar. You can also meet your fruit needs with a chocolate-banana yogurt shake, blueberries, orange juice, a peach smoothie or a banana. Include low-fat or fat-free milk in your beverage choices. You can enjoy crisp bacon with the fat drained off or low-fat mozzarella string cheese.

Lunch Menus

• At lunch, you can look forward to black-bean soup, pineapple bread, a tomato-and-cucumber salad and a beverage. You can also enjoy a veggie roll-up, apple and a beverage or a tuna-salad submarine sandwich, an orange, potato chips and a beverage. Other lunch options include mushroom-barley stew, raw vegetables, a Zippy dip, crackers or muffin and beverage. Consider a hamburger (on a whole-wheat bun) with lettuce and tomato and munch mix or a tuna salad on whole-wheat toast and a pear. With each meal, include low-fat milk, club soda, water, diet soda, tea or coffee.

Dinner Menus

• Your dinner menu options include sweet-and-sour chicken with rice, peas and carrots, and a serving of mocha snack cake or Polynesian turkey kabobs on buttered noodles, steamed broccoli and Berries Macedonia, which is a fruit compote. You can also look forward to spice-rubbed pork chops, parsley boiled potatoes, green beans, apple-mango chutney and a fruit surprise dessert or a serving of Cajun stir-fry, rice and a Root Beer Float cake. Think about making some chicken in fragrant spices, warm potato salad, green-been-and-tomato salad and cherry cobbler or savory garlic shrimp, lentil salad, stir-fried collards and double-chocolate cupcakes. Perhaps you'd enjoy a meal of grilled pork skewers with buttered noodles, garlic-sauteed spinach and onions, and a banana flambe with frozen yogurt.