5 Foods to Eat (and Avoid) with Diabetes

A diagnosis of diabetes often requires you to make changes to your diet. Eating the right foods in the ideal portion sizes makes it easier to manage your diabetes symptoms and live a better life.

After a diabetes diagnosis, you might need to avoid foods you previously enjoyed, but many other delicious foods help improve your blood sugar levels. Diabetes expert Thomas Nguyen, MD, of Nguyen Medical Group in Boynton Beach, Florida, recommends fivefive foods to eat and fivefive foods to avoid with diabetes.

The link between diabetes and food choices

The type of food you eat impacts your blood sugar levels. Usually, your body can balance out occasional spikes in your blood sugar levels by making insulin.

However, diabetes impairs the body’s insulin-producing process, which means it has trouble lowering high blood sugar levels. Long-term high blood sugar can result in serious health complications.

Eating the proper diet is extremely important to keeping your blood sugar in the right place as a diabetic.

5 foods to eat with diabetes

Luckily, many delicious foods are part of a diabetes-healthy diet. Try eating:

1. Sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes have a naturally sweet taste and are filled with nutrients. They can be served with your main meal or sweetened with a spice like nutmeg for dessert.

2. Nuts

In reasonable quantities, nuts satisfy hunger with healthy protein and fats without spiking blood sugar. Add them to a salad or breakfast cereal, or eat them alone as a snack.

3. Fruit

The naturally occurring sugars in fruit don’t cause blood sugar to spike. Be sure to choose fruit served naturally without any added sugars.

4. Whole grains

Brown rice, whole grain pasta, oatmeal, quinoa, barley, and whole grain bread are healthy carbohydrates that don’t cause blood sugar increases. You can enjoy them in reasonable portions as part of your meal.

5. Low-fat dairy products

Dairy is filled with healthy calcium and protein and can even help regulate insulin in type 2 diabetics. Try low or no-fat yogurt, cottage cheese, and nonfat milk.

5 foods to avoid with diabetes

You’ll need to eliminate, or eat sparingly, other foods you previously enjoyed before your diabetes diagnosis. To ensure safe blood sugar levels, eliminate or significantly reduce:

1. Refined carbohydrates

Foods with added or simple processed sugars are the worst offenders toward causing your blood sugar to spike. These include baked goods, white rice, pasta, snacks like chips, cereals with sugar added, and desserts.

2. Fried foods

French fries, fried chicken, and tempura are examples of fried foods that are like kryptonite for anyone with diabetes. These foods are high in unhealthy fats and cholesterol that cause numerous problems for your heart and overall health.

3. Saturated fat

Eating saturated fats makes it harder for your body to maintain regular insulin levels and more challenging to maintain a healthy weight. Avoid fatty foods like butter, whole-fat dairy, red meat, and tropical oils.

4. Processed meats

Processed meat, including lunch meat and hot dogs, contains high salt and saturated fat levels. This is true even if you buy processed meat that’s less fatty, such as turkey. 

5. Sugary drinks

Drinks filled with simple sugars are just as bad for your blood sugar as processed food. Avoid or limit sodas, sugar coffee drinks, beer, cocktails, and fruit juice with added sugar.

Our team can assist you in learning the types and quantities of food to eat to help you thrive with diabetes. Contact us to get started.