"The diabetic patient can stick on to his regular diet, there is no need for a South Indian to change his food habits from rice to chapatti or a North India from chapatti to rice. All cereals have the same amount of carbohydrates, maybe a little change in the carbohydrate amount and some fiber and proteins. What is important is to reduce the quantity of the content of the carbohydrates. Avoid deep frying, restrict to steaming. You should also take fruits, maybe one fruit at a time as snacks and not with meals. You should take fruits that are low in calories like guava, papaya, pomegranate, green apple or the Indian apple which is not so sweet. Such fruits are allowed preferably one portion at 11 AM in the morning or at bed time. Fruits like chikkoo, jack fruit or pineapple should be avoided because they are very very high in fructose content.You can take vegetables that grow above the ground because they have more of fiber content. Vegetables below the ground, the tubers are rich in starch and carbohydrate content, they have to be avoided like potato, tapioca or yam.Vegetables that grow above the ground need to be taken in plenty and every meal should have 200 grams of vegetables.
There are a lot of myths about diet in diabetes patients. Many people think they are restricted a lot of things or imposed a lot of things when they go for a diet counselling.Patients can still follow the same diet that they are eating, but with a knowledge of the carbohydrates in the diet and also about the calories. What to eat is more important than what not to eat. So they have to plan their calorie value and carbohydrate content in each mean, whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner and they can adopt some healthy cooking habits like steaming and shallow frying instead of deep frying and consuming refined foods. So, these things needs to be taken care.Please contact your dietitian if there is any doubt.
Diabetes is a chronic, non communicable disease, it is not curable but it can be controlled very well and the vascular complications can be prevented.The patient has to understand that diabetes is not curable even if there are people who state that they can and give false promises, research claims that diabetes is not curable."
