Salads: Tasty Options for Diabetics

Whether it’s a business meeting over lunch, dinner from a neighborhood carry out, or a fast-food meal with the kids, eating out is a part of our lives. We eat out because it’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s fun. But is it healthy?

Currently doctors know that high blood glucose levels accelerate aging thus damage to the eyes, kidneys and heart, leading up to complications with kidney’s, blindness and heart disease. Type 2 diabetics are especially prone to these complications with their elevated sugar levels. Prescribing insulin therapy to get a persons blood glucose levels down is the common practice. Problems occur when the extra insulin accelerates atherosclerosis, leading to heart attacks or weight gain. The weight gain then accelerates the diabetes even further.

The American Diabetes Association, nutritionist and physicians give scary advice to the diabetic patient. They speak of weight loss and lowering cholesterol levels. Diets they recommend are less than effective at accomplishing significant weight loss or sustaining an ideal weight, all in all these recommendations don’t work over the long run. Diabetes care should focus on blood glucose control, monitoring blood glucose levels to determine when a change in insulin level dosages are needed and when a glucose lowering med may be warranted.

The best diet for your health and long life oddly enough is the best diet for diabetics. A diet that has lots of nutrients per calorie is recommended as well as nutritional supplements. Eat a diet consisting of natural foods like green vegetables, onions, beans of any type, eggplant, mushrooms, garlic from cloves not in a jar, tomatoes (not canned), raw nuts preferably unsalted and seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame. etc,) and small amounts of fruit that’s fresh, you can eat almost as much as you want with still losing excess weight. According to most doctors their diabetes patients find the pounds melt away and symptoms of their diabetes are reduced.

Salads are a good option for diabetics.
Diabetics may eat a wide variety of salads that provide essential nutrients and do not increase blood sugar levels. The American Diabetic Association says you should make healthy choices each time you eat, including fruits, vegetables and healthy fats. Some foods may help you to reduce the risk of complications from diabetes, which include heart disease and stroke.

Fruit Salad
Fruit salads are refreshing and nutritious. Fresh, raw fruits are rich sources of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fructose, a type of sugar your body converts to energy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends you eat a colorful variety of fruits every day. As a diabetic, it is important you choose fruits hat have a low glycemic index, since this score indicates that sugar from
the fruit will be absorbed slowly into your bloodstream and prevent high blood sugar, rapid secretion of insulin and metabolic complications from diabetes.

Foods with a glycemic index score below 50 are considered to be low glycemic. Low glycemic fruits you may add to your fruit salads
include grapefruit, peaches, apples, pears and oranges. You may choose from a variety of types of apples that include Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, Rome and Granny Smith and pears, such as Bartlett, Anjou and Bosc.

Vegetable Salad
Vegetable salads are nutritious meals, appetizers and side dishes diabetics can include in the daily diet. Fresh raw vegetables, such as green leafy vegetables, carrots, celery, cucumbers and tomatoes contain vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. It is recommended that you eat plenty of vegetables every day, and that vegetables may reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and loss of vision. Add low glycemic nuts and legumes, such as lentils, peanuts, almonds and cashews, to your salad for protein and healthy fat. People who eat raw vegetable salads tend to have higher dietary intakes of vitamins C and E and folic acid and carotenoids compared with people who do not eat salads. Furthermore, each serving of salad consumed is associated with a 165 percent higher likelihood to meet the recommended Dietary Allowance for vitamin C in women and 119 percent greater likelihood in men.

Fish Salad
Fish salad made from cold-water, fatty fish, such as salmon, halibut, mackerel, tuna or sardines, is a delicious and nutritious meal that may provide you with protein, vitamin B-12, minerals and healthy fats that include omega-3 fatty acids, such as eicosapentaenoic acid and hexaenoic acid. Diets higher in fish and omega-3 fatty acids may reduce cardiovascular risk in diabetes, and that fish and omega-3 fatty acids may be included into a diabetes management program.

Eating out should not be a chore, you should be able to enjoy yourself. Salads are more than just lettuce, tomatoes and dressings. Try something new, the next time you meet a friend for lunch or dinner, visit Saladworks and discover the joy of eating nutrient dense health benefiting foods. Eating healthy never tasted so good!

Saladworks
2352 Pine Ridge Road, Naples, FL 34109
239-228-7815
saladworks.com