How to Cook for a Diabetic

Video Transcript

"My name is Christine Marquette and I'm a registered dietitian with the Austin Regional Clinic and I'm going to talk to you about how to cook for a diabetic. Cooking for a diabetic is actually just healthy cooking; it's good cooking for everybody. The main thing to keep in mind is that you need to control the intake of carbohydrates. Theoretically a person who has diabetes can still eat any form of carbohydrate it's just a matter of controlling the portion size so depending on the person's current level of blood sugar control. Say for example they're monitoring their blood sugars, they're meeting their goals, their in a good area. If it's a man they can typically have four servings of carbohydrate per meal. That would be a maximum of 60 grams and for women it would be three servings of carbohydrate per meal or 45 grams. Technically you can go up to 50 grams for women, 65 for men because 5 grams, 0 to 5 is considered free so that maximum will be 50 for women and 65 for men per meal. The best sources of carbohydrate are going to be high fiber carbs so that will be things like brown rice, whole wheat pastas, wheat breads or any type of multi-grain bread that is a whole grain. Also vegetables such as potatoes with the skin on or corn. Now these again are starchy vegetables that most people think they have to avoid when they're diabetic but as long as they're controlling the potion size it's still o.k. to include these foods. The other part of the meal that needs to be included is lean protein and healthy fat. Lean protein is going to be any source of meat that doesn't have a lot of fat such as chicken breast's or fish or steak such as sirloin that has very very little fat on it. Pork tenderloins that work as well, they also have very little fat. Healthy fats would be things in plant foods such as avocado, nuts or seed or cooking with an oil such as canola oil. And then you also want to make sure you're including some non-starchy vegetables, things like your salad vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, tomato, zucchini, squash any of those types of vegetables have very little carbohydrate and they have so much fiber and other nutrient that they're a very good way to balance out a meal. So those are just some tips to keep in mind when cooking for a diabetic."