Cooking for Someone with Diabetes: Easier Than You Might Imagine
How a Pharmacist/Diabetes Educator/Mom of two does it every day
Meal prepping for someone with diabetes (or pre-diabetes) is easier than you think. And when I say diabetes, I am technically referring to type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, not type 1 diabetes. (Btw, type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the pancreas isn’t able to produce any (or enough) insulin so you control the diabetes with exogenous insulin. In type 1 diabetes, your blood sugars are just going to spike no matter what you eat but that’s why you take insulin - so you can control the spike and try to mimic what your pancreas is supposed to do.)
I do agree though, that if you don’t know what you’re doing, preparing a diabetes-friendly meal may seem daunting, annoying and a lot of work. I actually went through that phase myself when I had gestational diabetes but now that I’ve gotten the hang of everything, it’s pretty straightforward and doesn’t take that much time. It does require some planning though. Gone are the days where I make a pot of pasta and call it a day.
Here’s my story - I am a Pharmacist and a Certified Diabetes Educator. I had gestational diabetes 1.5 years ago and while I have neither diabetes nor pre-diabetes, my blood sugar is trending higher than they used to. I do believe that with my current risk factors, I will have diabetes down the road if I make absolutely no changes to my lifestyle. It may not look like I have diabetes right now but that’s not the point. Did you know that insulin resistance often predates the diagnosis of diabetes by about 10-20 years? Insulin resistance is when your cells become less responsive to the hormone insulin, which is what helps your cells take in sugar from the bloodstream. As a result, blood sugars remain elevated because the cells can’t use up the sugar in your blood.
What are my risk factors you may ask?
I’m Asian (yes, I am genetically predisposed. I have theories about that by the way but that’s for another post)
I had Gestational Diabetes (lifetime risk of someone who had gestational diabetes is about 50-60% and as you age, your risk goes up)
I have a family history of type 2 diabetes
I gained a lot of body fat after my 2 pregnancies (how can you tell? use a body fat scanner). Pretty common after giving birth. Also, as you age, naturally, you lose muscle and gain fat, every year.
Body fat is really the source of a lot of dysfunction. Best to keep this percentage on the lower end if you can. You obviously need some fat to maintain normal body function but an excess amount will cause a lot of problems - chronic inflammation, cancer, elevated risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, strain on your heart, liver and lungs among other organs and systems, etc. Often times, when you lose body fat, you can usually reverse some of these problems too.
I cook for a family of four including myself and work a full-time job 5 days a week so there isn’t time to make diabetes-friendly meals for myself and other foods for the rest of the family. Believe me, I’ve tried that before and it’s exhausting, time-consuming and you will probably hate cooking after doing that a few times. Now a days, I eat the same things as the rest of my family but depending on what’s on the table, I may eat less of one dish and more of another.
What you need is some protein, some vegetables and some carbs, ideally a dish of each of those. A one-pot pasta won’t cut it because the ratio of vegetables and protein to carbs is just not high enough to slow down the digestion of carbohydrates. A simple rule if you’re not looking to count calories or carbs is to fill half your plate with green, leafy or non-starchy vegetables, a quarter with protein and a quarter with carbs. That’s actually what we call a balanced meal. Carbs spike your sugars which is why you want to eat less of them. Protein and leafy green or non-starchy vegetables, on the other hand, stabilize blood sugars by slowing down digestion and reducing the absorption rate of carbohydrates. The 1/2 plate vegetables, 1/4 plate protein and 1/4 plate carbs method is a great starting point and easy to follow. And if you want to count carbs or calories, the method still works. Unfortunately, most people in North America eat way too many carbs and not enough vegetables.
So my kids and my husband eat the same foods that I do, just that the distribution is different. I eat more vegetables and less carbs. My kids uhh…well they like their carbs so they eat a lot of carbs and maybe some vegetables. That’s okay. They are little growing humans afterall whose brains need a little more sugar than we do.
If you’re looking to step it up a notch, start looking at carbs that have a lower glycemic index (basically, the higher the glycemic index, the faster it elevates blood sugar). White rice and potatoes for example, are very high in glycemic index. They’re not really in my regular diet but if I have no choice but to eat them, I just eat less. If you’re Asian, this must be a downer because us Asians love our white rice. (Honestly….it’s probably the reason we’re genetically pre-disposed to having diabetes…. thousands of years of consuming a food that spikes blood sugars skyrocketing high must have done something… )
Instead of white rice, I recommend brown rice, mixed blends of rice, wild rice, quinoa, barley, lentils, beans, sourdough, soba and pasta. What - why is pasta better than rice? White rice is actually very processed and easily broken down and subsequently absorbed. Pasta, on the other hand, contains fibre, resistant starch and gluten, all of which help to slow down its digestion and breakdown so the absorption of the carb is just a bit more steady. Also, cooking pasta al dente is best as overcooking it changes its structure and results in a higher glycemic index. By the way, I have worn a number of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) and used a number of traditional blood glucose testing devices and there is really nothing that spikes my blood sugars more than white rice or anything-related to rice. (well, aside from that awful 75g of glucose they make you consume when you need to do an oral glucose tolerance test). Yeah, not even chocolate, ice cream, or pizza. Of course, it depends on the portion as well but a reasonable amount of chocolate, ice cream or pizza I can eat in one sitting will still result in a lower blood sugar than if I consumed a bowl of white rice. So generally, I avoid rice and anything related to rice - rice noodles, rice cakes, vermicelli, etc.
And perhaps if you HAVE to have white rice, let it sit overnight first because once rice has cooled down over a number of hours, it becomes lower in glycemic index due to some structural changes resulting in more resistant starch that slows down digestion. The same applies to yams and potatoes. Remember to store your cooked rice in the fridge because improperly stored rice can cause Reheated Rice Syndrome, which is a type of food poisoning caused by the bacteria bacillus cereus which can germinate in rice if left to room/warm temperatures for extended periods of time. You might be able to kill the bacteria by cooking it but their spores and toxins for the most part are heat-resistant. The same can happen to yams and potatoes but there are a bunch of other bacteria that can cause food poisoning too.
You might be wondering why I haven’t listed yams as an alternative to rice and potatoes. Compared to potatoes, they are slightly lower in glycemic index and have a little more fibre but they are pretty much the same carb in my books. Don’t get me wrong though, they are both nutritious and have slightly different nutrition profiles. You can still enjoy them if you want to but just remember that moderation is key. For me, I don’t truly care for either and they spike my blood sugars roughly to the same degree anyway.
Contrary to what you might think, I don’t spend a lot of time cooking. I actually do not enjoy cooking and never have so the less time I spend here the better. I spend maybe 35-40 minutes tops preparing dinner and my kids and husband don’t like eating the same thing everyday so there’s gotta be variety. In the early days of marriage, I would make a large pot of chilli good for several days and my husband would tell me he just can’t handle more than 2 days a row of chilli so those days are gone too.
Here is a list of foods I like to keep in my fridge for the week so that I have options and variety:
lots of green-leafy vegetables like bok choi, gai lan, broccoli
lots of non-starchy vegetables like zucchinis, peppers, celery, shallots/onions, mushrooms
ground beef, ground pork, chicken breasts, chicken thighs
salmon or other fish
tofu, soy curls, soybean sheets, bean curd-related things
carrots
miso soup paste, Better Than Bouillon® Seasoned Vegetable Base
My dinner (and leftovers that become lunch) for the family might look something like this:
a very large pan of stir-fried vegetables that include bok choi, peppers, zucchinis and tofu.
baked salmon fillets
quinoa
The next day it might be:
a very large pan of stir-fried vegetables that include broccoli, peppers, mushrooms and carrots
baked chicken breasts
mixed rice blend
Here is my time-break down:
washing and cutting vegetables: 5-10 minutes
stir-frying vegetables: 15 minutes
preparing/seasoning meat, fish or poultry: 5 minutes
baking the meat/fish/poultry: 15-25 minutes (during this time I’m probably doing something else too like stir-frying, preparing other foods or cleaning)
preparing the rice/noodles/pasta: 5 minutes
See, it’s not that difficult but it does require some planning. As someone who started with 0 skills in the kitchen, I think the average person can probably pull off what I do. If you’re skilled, you can probably make your foods tastier with different flavours and seasonings. Remember - 1/2 plate non-starchy vegetables, 1/4 plate protein and 1/4 plate carbs. Nothing is truly off limits when it comes to diabetes but moderation is key. If you love rice then go eat it. I don’t so it’s not in my regular diet.
Are you even Chinese? Yes, 100%. I also speak decently fluent cantonese, I can manage with some mandarin, and I can read/write a decent amount of chinese. I’m just not big on white rice. Cheers!