subject: Living with Diabetes - The Correct Diet and Cooking whats Right [print this page] Living with Diabetes - The Correct Diet and Cooking whats Right
The Diet
Frequently dieters are told not to say that they're on a diet, but rather that they have changed their lifestyle. For the person with diabetes, especially one who is experiencing complications, diet is not an optional lifestyle. The quality of your life depends on what you eat. Which food plan you should be following is a decision for you and your doctor and/or dietitian, not one you should be making on your own. Further, there is no one plan that is right for every person with diabetes. If you have heart disease or kidney disease or other complications in addition to your diabetes, you may find yourself trying to figure out how to coordinate two (or more) seemingly incompatible diets. Say, for example, your renal (kidney) doctor wants you to limit your protein and sodium, potassium, and/or phosphorus intakes; your cardiologist wants you to limit your fat intake; and your endocrinologist wants you to limit your carbohydrate intake. What does that leave!? It leaves you with a lot of stress. The best way to deal with the situation is to visit a dietitian or nutritionist who will help you coordinate your various diets and find foods that are acceptable to you. It would be foolish and even dangerous for me to prescribe which diet is right for you in an introduction to a cookbook. The purpose of this book is to help you find and prepare flavorful foods that fit into the diet your health professionals have already prescribed. To this end I have provided nutritional information for each recipe (more about that later). It is your job to choose the recipes compatible with your needs. It is my deepest hope that these recipes will help you realize there is still pleasure to be found in eating and that limitations do not need to mean liabilities or deficits. You are now a member of that group of people who are eating healthfully, and, as you will see from these recipes, it can be a joyful experience if you allow it to be.
What Is Diabetes?
Diabetes is a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism characterized by elevated blood glucose and defective insulin secretion or utilization. Translated into English: The blood sugar (glucose) level is the concentration of glucose in the blood. It is measured in milligrams per deciliter (a value of 70 to 110 is considered normal). While blood sugar in a healthy person does vary according to the time of day and especially after meals, insulin regulates the sugar and keeps it at a pretty even level. In a person with diabetes this mechanism does not function correctly and blood sugar levels can rise to dangerous highs of 600 or more in people who have not treated their diabetes (though most do not rise that high).
It is easy to go into denial about diabetes, especially if you have just been diagnosed, because in many cases there are no "real" symptoms. You can feel perfectly "normal" with diabetes. You can have diabetes and not even know it (there are estimates of as many as 8 million people with undiagnosed diabetes). So, if you don't feel bad, why should you have to give up french fries, brownies, ice cream, and other desserts or foods that you really love? The answers is, ofcourse, to stay alive.
