Carb Guidelines on a Diabetic Diet

According to information from the medical website Medline Plus, diabetes is a condition in which the body loses its ability to manage blood sugar levels, forcing the individual to take over that responsibility through effective dietary manipulations. As carbohydrates are the number one source of dietary induced blood sugar swings, carb control is crucial to a diabetic diet. However, do not make the mistake of thinking that a diabetic diet needs to be a low-carb solution. Carb exclusion is not a necessity of diabetic dieting--but carb regulation is.

Carb Control

• Diabetic dieting revolves around control of carbohydrate intake, both in magnitude and quality. Consume five or six smaller meals throughout the day to keep your blood sugar normalized, focusing your food intake around relatively equal portions of slow-digesting natural carbs. This means limiting your carb intake to natural food sources like whole grains, fruits, and vegetables while avoiding refined flours, sugars, and alcohols--three major items that can trigger blood sugar swings and the possibility of hyperglycemia.

  Whenever possible, keep yourself limited to foods that are fairly low on the glycemic index. The glycemic index is a scale that ranks carbohydrates according to how greatly they increase blood sugar, with higher-scored items causing a correspondingly greater increase in blood sugar levels. Generally speaking, while fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are all fairly low on the GI scale, vegetables are the lowest-ranking items, with fruit coming in second, and whole grains coming in third. This means you should focus the majority of your carbs while on a diabetic diet around consumption of large amounts of vegetables, moderate amounts of fruit, and limited amounts of whole grains.

  Roughly speaking, low GI carbs should make up around 40 to 60 percent of your dietary intake. Note also that the way in which foods are prepared can have an effect on their GI index rating (e.g. the same item can have a different GI rating depending on whether it is consumed raw or cooked). Also note that beyond carb intake, you should also strive to eat high quality lean protein (low-fat meat, poultry and seafood), along with healthy unsaturated fat sources such as nuts, seeds and oils (such as olive, fish and flax).

Meal Suggestions

• Consider the following "diabetic-diet friendly" meals while attempting to regulate carbs on a diabetic approach. Breakfast can consist of several eggs (cooked to order), served with the breakfast meat of your choice, along with a fresh fruit salad containing low-GI fruits like apples, cherries, apricots, pears and strawberries. Lunch might be a turkey sandwich served on pumpernickel or sourdough bread along with a bowl of broccoli or another type of veggie. Dinner could consist of grilled chicken or a lean cut of steak served with brown rice and a spinach and tomato salad. This diet contains a fair amount of carbs, but none which would compromise the veracity of your diabetic lifestyle.