Here's What to Eat When You Have
Type 2 Diabetes
Readers ask me: "What can I eat that won't unduely raise my blood glucose now that I have Type 2 Diabetes?"
Maury M. Breecher, PhD, MPH (Type 2 since 1995)
The answer for me has been low-glycemic, low-carb meals.
Sunday
Breakfast: Morning Glory Eggs!
They look like your old favorite -- two, sunny side up, but they aren't and they taste as good. In fact, in my opinion, they taste even better. That is real Glory! Here's how to make them:
PREPARATION:
1. Heat butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Gently pour in the cream.
2. Break the eggs into the cream.
3. Carefully baste the eggs with the cream until they are fully cooked.
4. Sprinkle the cheese over the eggs and let it melt slightly.
YIELD: Serves 1 (you may just want one egg, they are so rich)
Per portion:
Calories: 315; Carbohydrates: 1g; Protein: 17g; GI: 0
Fat: 27g; Saturated Fat: 0; Sodium: 0; GL: 0
INGREDIENTS:
* 2 eggs
* 1 teaspoon butter or butter substitute
* 1/8cup heavy cream
* 1 tablespoon shredded cheddar cheese
Toast a slice of low-carb wheat bread (you can find certain brands that only provide 15 grams of carbohydrate) and you will have a filling breakfast that isn't likely to unduly raise your blood sugar.
Bon appetit! How about the following for Lunch?
Lunch: Burly Barley and Bean Soup
Although most of the fiber has been removed from the barley in processing, it is still nutritious and a common ingredient in soups. Try to find Canadian pearled barley. It has a GI of only 22.
PREPARATION:
1. Heat the oil in a pot and cook the onion and garlic gently until soft but still colorless--about 10 minutes.
2. Add the barley, thyme, and bay leaf, stirring to combine them.
3. Add the chicken broth and heat to boiling. Reduce the heat and simmer for about an hour. Add the beans for the last 10 minutes.
4. Season to taste with black pepper. Add extra broth to thin as desired. Stir in the herbs just before serving.
5. Refrigerate unused portions.
YIELD: Serves 6
Per portion: (1 cup)
Calories: 274; Carbohydrates: 48g; Protein: 40g; GI: 22-28 (depends on type of barley).
Fat: 7g; Saturated Fats: 1g ;Sodium: 5mg; GL: 13
INGREDIENTS:
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1 large onion, chopped
* 2 garlic cloves, chopped
* 3/4 cup barley (pearl or whole-grain)
* 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
* 1 bay leaf
* 5 cups low sodium chicken broth
* One 15 ounce can black-eyed peas or kidney beans (canned in water, drained and rinsed).
* Ground black pepper
* 2 teaspoons chopped mint
* 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
* 1 teaspoon chopped chives
People with diabetes should eat five or six relatively small meals. So that means you need a:
Mid-afternoon Snack!
Fruit is nature's candy. It tastes sweet, satisfies your sweet tooth, and is full of important nutrients and antioxidants. Most fruit are low-glycemic. This afternoon, try blueberries, 3/4 cup, fresh or frozen (thawed). They are a great snack and they are low in calories (<62) and sodium (less than 8 mg).
If you need the additional taste, add a tablespoon of Vanilla soy milk over them. Usually you should choose the more common fruits for snacks, such as apples or pearspears, but you can also shop for more exotic fare, such as pomegranates and papayas. When eating fruit, savor the natural sweetness, texture, and juiciness, but don’t gorge. One serving can be handled by most Type 2’s whereas two servings can send blood sugars soaring. Let's go to:
Supper
Superbly Herbed, Browned and Boiled Pork Chops
Combine the right herbs, meat, and superb cooking -- and you have an entrée suitable for any occasion. What you really have is cuisine! Read on.
PREPARATION:
1. In a large skillet, brown the chop in oil on both sides.
2. Combine the remaining ingredients and pour over the pork.
3. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the meat is tender.
YIELD: Serves 1
Per portion:
Calories: 240; Carbohydrates: 3g; Protein: 28g; GI: [0] too low to be measured
Fat: 12g; Saturated Fats: 3g Sodium: 189mg GL 0
INGREDIENTS:
* 1 lovely 5-ounce boneless pork loin chop, 1 inch thick.
* 3/4 teaspoon canola oil
* 2 tablespoons beer (or near-beer)
* 1/2 tablespoon lime juice
* 1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
* 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1/4 teaspoon paprika
* 1/8 teaspoon onion powder
* 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
* Dash of Morton's Lite Salt
* Dash of ground black pepper
Evening Snack
I suggest a Quaker Chewy Granola Bar. They contain 110 calories or less, 80 or less milligrams of sodium, and can be quite tasty. Note: avoid those with peanut butter and/or chocolate -- they are higher in both calories and sodium. Enjoy your granola bar with a cup of 2% reduced-fat milk or some low-carb Vanilla soy milk. Both have low glycemic loads.
Low-glycemic meals meals can help you control blood sugar swings plus even help you lose excess weight if you need to do so. Even more importantly, low-glycemic foods cause slower increases in blood sugar, helping you control your overall blood sugar levels. The slower increase in blood sugar allows insulin in your body a longer time to work thereby helping you gain control over high blood sugar levels.
To receive free samples of other low-glycemic recipes plus inpirational and motivational advice on how to keep on track, please provide me with your first name and e-mail address. I hate spam like you do. I will never share you e-mail address with anyone.
A weber form
Foods like these will help prevent high blood sugar levels. Controlling high blood sugar levels provides you with protection against the adverse future complications of diabetes. (I explain more about that protection in several articles found on the Articles/News page. Just click on the navigation button on the left side of this page).
Choosing low-carbohydrate, low GI foods can help:
-- control blood glucose and cholesterol levels
-- reduce your appetite and help you lose weight
-- protect you from Cardiovascular Disease and other complications of Type 2 diabetes.
How would you like to receive a full week of low-glycemic recipes every week?
I have created a Diabetes Manager (DM), a publication that has, until now, been a labor of love. My goal was to create enough menus and recipes to be able to provide low-glycemic recipes and menus for a full seven-days worth of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks and deliver those recipes every week for a month -- month-after-month.
However, researching, developing, and testing low-glycemic recipes and developing weekly menus, PLUS keeping on top of diabetes research and reporting on that research to you in DM is a time-consuming process.
I am happy to send you weekly free samples, but I can't continue to provide the entire service -- the full seven days of recipes week after week simply as a labor of love.
Like you, I have to work to earn money to survive. This website and Diabetes Manager™ have turned into full-time jobs so I have to charge for the full weekly service. Sign up here to try these recipes free for a full month. If you don't agree they are worth $7.50, cancel your subscription and you won't owe me a cent. You will get several bonuses with your subscription. Often I will include news from the world of diabetes research and motivational advice to help you stay on your diabetic program. Plus, I will send you the weight-control book that I co-authored with a leading medical doctor: All you have to do is subcribe to the weekly service for a month!
You can receive four full weeks of these recipes four weeks at a time, month-after-month, for the ultra low price of only $7.50. That NOT $7.50 a week. Only $7.50 a month. The first month is free.
These recipes would be a bargain at $10.00 per week or even $25 per month. The cost to you is only $7.50 a month. That works out to only a quarter a day! What a bargain!
Now a note to those who can't afford even that low price. If you have out-of-control diabetes, you desperately need help. I'm not going to let you go without this valuable tool just because you can't afford it. Read on.
As you have seen from the sample menus and recipes that I have already shared, Diabetes Manager™ will come complete with calorie, carbohydrate, protein, and sodium contents of each food, plus their Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load factor scores. The Glycemic Load Factor score is information you'll find no where else. It's the score that indicates what that specific food is expected to do to your blood sugar.
Besides the recipes, I’ll also provide tips and advice on how to eat out safely and I’ll send you inspirational, motivational and informational messages to help keep you on track PLUS if you keep reading you are eligible for some important free bonuses that I will let you download in a moment.
All this for only $7.50 per month!
Back to those who can't afford even that small amount. I'll even let you name your price or send the recipes to you free.
If you can't afford even $7.50 a month and if you have out-of-control blood sugars, I'll put you on the membership list for a reduced fee (you name the price) OR, if you can't afford to pay anything ,I will send you the weekly menus free if you write and tell me you can't afford to pay anything. Write: drbreecher@diabetesreviews.com.
Please though, if you CAN afford $7.50 a month please honor that price. I'm depending on the Law of Numbers to help us all out. The more people who order Diabetes Manager™ and pay for it, the more people I can afford to help by providing it at a reduced fee or for free.
Medical authorities from all over the world agree that the complications of diabetes are preventable. Many also agree that one of the best ways to control blood sugar levels is to eat low-glycemic foods. That's wonderful news. The most important thing to understand about preventing future diabetic complications is the crucial importance of controlling blood sugar levels.
If we are honest with ourselves, whenever we have high blood sugars we can almost always trace those high blood sugar levels to what we ate just a few short hours before. Unfortunately, by the time most people with Type 2 reach the understanding that they MUST control blood sugar levels they often feel overwhelmed about everything they have been told that they must do: Pills to take, decisions about whether they should go on insulin -- and, the root of it all -- what they can, and cannot eat.
Does that describe You?
That description fit a friend of mine named Martha who heard about my diabetic recipes and ask to try them.
Here's what Martha later wrote me:
Dear Dr. Breecher: I was completely out-of-control and scared out of my mind after my physician told me I had blood sugar readings above 300 and that I was officially a person with Type 2 Diabetes.
I thought, "Oh my God, I am going to go blind or have my legs amputated or both." Your calming, informational and inspirational messages helped me learn what to do to control my diabetic condition and motivated me to take actions designed to lower my blood sugar levels. Your Diabetes Manager recipes were a Godsent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will be a reader and subscriber of yours for life.
Medical authorities from all over the world agree that the complications of diabetes are preventable. Many also agree that one of the best ways to control blood sugar levels is to eat low-glycemic foods. If you control your blood sugar levels, you can: It was for people like you and Martha that I created Diabetes Manager ™-- it cuts through the confusion and help you learn what to do and what to eat to help you eliminate your feelings of being overwhelmed and out-of-control. You don't have to be a victim.
I repeat, you don't have to be a victim. There are actions you can take and foods that you can eat to lower unhealthy daily high blood sugar levels .
Diabetes Manager™ will provide you with the information you need (in an easy-to-understand format) to choose the best foods to eat to control your diabetes. Best of all, you can now sample it free. Please join our group of curious seekers -- people who are determined to find ways to better control their Type 2 diabetes. Don't worry about the security of your e-mail address. I'll never even see it, just my mailing service will and I and they pledge not to share your e-mail address with anyone. Sign up here:
The GI is a new way to look at carbohydrates. It is a system that ranks carbohydrate foods based on the rate at which they increase blood sugar levels. Each food is assigned a number from one to one hundred. The higher the number, the faster the carbohydrate digests rapidly sending glucose (sugar) into the bloodstream. That's called a sugar spike. However, what goes up must come down. Such fluctuations are hard on your body at the cellular level and tend to fuel hunger.
On the other hand, foods with a low GI rankings increase blood sugar on a slower basis. Low-glycemic foods generally do not cause rapid upward spikes in sugar levels.
It’s my own deeply held belief that we can't depend on drugs alone to protect us from heart attacks and strokes and the other ugly complications of diabetes. I am not saying throw away your medications. They are helpful. I still take Metformin myself.
However, in my opinion -- and in the educated opinion of top medical experts -- you can achieve even better control of your blood sugars by watching what you eat and by increasing your activity levels. Studies show that simply eating the right foods, combined with 20 minutes of increased physical activity at least 3 times a week, can lower blood sugar levels more effectively than taking Metformin alone. Combine smart acting and increased activity levels with the right oral medication and you double your chances of maintaining better blood glucose levels.
Visualize yourself aglow with life and health, energized by healthy foods, and confident in your ability to control diabetes because you will have a step-by-step plan, menus and recipes that you can mix and match and switch between weeks so you'll never get taste fatigue again. Order now and tell a friend so I can keep the price down. Again, are you worth 25 cents per day? Of course you are!
Discouraged about exercise and are your losing motivation to monitor your blood sugar levels?Diabetes Manager™ can help you
Isn't your life worth 25 cents a day?
Of course, it is. Get Your Credit Card Out and order Diabetes Manager™ right now. Your taste buds and your A1C levels will thank you all year that you did!
What? You don't know what an A1C level is? It's the "gold standard" to determine how well you are controlling your diabetes over a 3 month period My own A1C has been 6.5 for 9 months in a row! The American Diabetes Association recommends keeping one's A1C under 7.0.
Order now and I'll send you a free report explaining all about the A1C test and why you should have one every three months.
But that's not all. Besides the recipes, I’ll also provide tips and advice on how to eat out safely and I’ll send you inspirational, motivational and informational messages to help keep you on track. Here's a list of the kinds of topics I'll be writing about, but you are not going to have to wait. What follow are the other bonuses I told you about a few paragraphs ago.
I think the information in these articles are so important that I enourage you to read and download them immediately even if you don't subscribe to DM. (You see, I'm not really trying to make a fortune selling DM, just trying to make a living. I get my satisfaction by helping others like you, so please at least, sign up for my free e-mailings. You will get a full day's worth of recipes plus diabetes tips and news. And here's a promise. II value the idea of privacy. I won't share your e-mail address with others. That's my promise. Sign up for the free mailings now
Here are the free Download Bonuses I told you about a few paragraphs ago:
INSPIRATION and MOTIVATION
Lesson 1: Make the Decision to Control Diabetes
Lesson 2: Are You Ready? Fire Up Your Motivation
Lesson 3: Maury's Mirror Therapy for Depression
Life Lesson 5: Learn to Not Beat Yourself Up When You Wake Up to an Occasional High Blood Sugar Reading
More Download Bonuses: INFORMATIONAL LIFE LESSONS
1) Triple Therapy Most Effective in Lowering Blood Sugar
2) Longevity Tips for Diabetics
3) What's the Scoop on High-Fiber for Diabetes?
4) How to Avoid the Vision-Robbing Complications of Diabetes
Even More from the upcoming
DIABETES REVIEWS Newsletter
Charter Issue Sample Articles (a $39 value):
Page 1: Which Oral Drug Is Right for Type 2 Diabetes?
Page 2: New Lab Tests Reveal Your Risk of Heart Attack
Page 3: New Drug Therapy for the Pain of Neuropathy
Page 4: Avoid Soaring Blood Sugar Levels to Prevent Life-Threatening Complications
These are great articles. You can download them now even if you decide not to subscribe to Diabetes Manager™
Besides containing delicious recipes, Diabetes Manager,™, which will be delivered weekly to your e-mail inbox, will help keep you on top of what you need to know from the world of medicine about diabetes control.
Yes, you CAN control your diabetes and be a role model for others and I will share with you weekly tips and expert advice. Furthermore, if you don’t find the low-glycemic recipes I send you to be delicious and easy-to-prepare -- and if you don’t find my motivational stories, tips and information both interesting and inspirational -- simply ask for your money back (drbreecher@diabetesreviews.com) within 60 days
I believe I am uniquely qualified to help others with Type 2 diabetes (See the "About Me" navigation button on the left side of this page) because, as a person who has had Type 2 diabetes for more than a dozen years, I've experienced blood sugar highs and lows, and as a medical journalist I have researched and written about Type 2 extensively. Like you, as a person with diabetes, I've felt the anxiety and fear that goes with feeling out-of-control of my blood sugar levels. I too, have worried about possible future complications such as vision, kidney, leg, or foot problems.
What are "low-glycemic" meals? They are also tasty as well as healthy.
See for yourself. Here are some sample Delicious Daily Menus:
Tap this link to learn more about The Permanent Weight-Control Solution. You will see that it sells for $15.95. You can buy it for that price OR you can come back here and get it free by subscribing to Diabetes Manager. You will enjoy the benefit of low-glycemic recipes e-mailed to you every week plus have a doable weight-control plan you can start at any time. (Scroll up to the PayPal button).
Here's another Freebie:
An Incredible Benefit
If you are really ready to shed your unhealthy excess blubber AND if you are willing to go on the same program that I am on, you will get my services as your own personal Health Advisor/Weight Coach!
As you can see by looking at my "Diabetes Coach" page, that's a $90 per hour value.