Diabetes Cookbook For Dummies, UK Edition

Alan L. Rubin, Dr. Sarah Brewer, Dr. Alison G. Acerra, Dr. Denise Scharf, Alison G. Acerra, Denise Scharf, Sarah Brewer

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN:
  9780470512197
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119998013
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Culinary Arts

Many of us, at the best of times, struggle for inspiration when it comes to cooking – and that's without a medical condition that may affect our eating habits and require careful management. The right diet is the foundation of a healthy lifestyle and all the more important for the successful management of diabetes.

Fully updated for a UK audience Diabetes Cookbook For Dummies will include the latest dietary recommendations and medical information on diabetes and its management. Packed with over 100 delicious and easy to prepare recipes - for everyday eating and entertaining - alongside a brand new section on packing healthy lunches and picnics, this book will help make mealtimes interesting and healthy. The book also offers guidance on the glycaemic index, nutritional information, diabetic exchanges for each recipe and lifestyle advice to help readers take control of their condition and live life to the full.

Diabetes Cookbook For Dummies will feature:

Part I: Thriving with Diabetes

• Living To Eat With Diabetes
• Eating To Live With Diabetes
• Planning Meals for Weight Loss Goals
• Eating What You Like (Within Reason)
• Stocking Up at the Supermarket

Part II: Healthy Recipes That Taste Great

• Enjoying the Benefits of Breakfast
• Starting Well: Hors d'Oeuvres and First Courses
• Sipping Simply Divine Soups
• Taking a Leaf From the Salad Bar
• Being Full of Beans (and Grains and Pasta)
• Adding Veg to Your Meals
• Boning Up on Fish Cookery
• Flocking to Poultry
• Creating Balanced Meals with Meats
• Nibbling on Snacks
• Drooling Over Mouth-Watering Desserts

Part III: Eating Away from Home

• Eating Out as a Nourishing Experience
• Packing a Picnic Lunch

Part IV: The Part of Tens

• Ten (or So) Simple Steps to Change Your Eating Habits
• Ten Easy Substitutions in Your Eating Plan
• Ten Strategies to Normalize Your Blood Glucose
• Ten Healthy Eating Habits for Children with Diabetes

Part V: Appendixes

• Appendix A: Investing in Food Supplements for Optimum Health
• Appendix B: Exchange Lists
• Appendix C: A Glossary of Key Cooking Terms
• Appendix D: Conversions of Weights, Measures, and Sugar Substitutes
• Appendix E: Other Recipe Sources for People with Diabetes

Part I

Thriving with Diabetes

In this part . . .

**IN a DROPCAP**

D iabetes is a disease with which you can live. In this part, we show you not only how to live with diabetes but also how to thrive with diabetes. Diabetes requires that you think about every aspect of your lifestyle, and we cover all the issues. But the part starts with the way you eat, because diet is central to a healthy lifestyle. We show you what to eat, how much to eat, and, especially, how to prepare your food so that the fact that you have diabetes doesn’t prevent you from enjoying a variety of delicious cuisine.

Chapter 1

Living to Eat with Diabetes

In This Chapter

Getting a grip on diabetes

Controlling kilocalories

Working exercise into your schedule

Keeping your blood pressure down

Making lifestyle changes that count

Many people with diabetes are surprised to find that, after receiving their diagnosis, they start to feel better than ever. You are likely to notice the same after you start eating a healthy diet; losing excess weight and becoming more active helps to improve your physical and mental wellbeing.

This chapter gives you the latest information about what diabetes means, how doctors diagnose it, and all the other things you need to know in order to thrive following a diagnosis of diabetes. Don’t waste another minute. Get stuck in right away so that you can feel as healthy as possible, as soon as possible.

Recognising Diabetes

With so much diabetes around these days, you may think that recognising it is easy. The truth is, however, that spotting diabetes is actually quite difficult, because its diagnosis depends on blood tests. You can’t just look at someone and know the level of glucose in his or her blood. In addition, symptoms are often quite general, and so the diagnosis of diabetes doesn’t just jump out and grab you (or your doctor).

Glucose is the name of the type of sugar found in your body that provides most of the energy that your cells and organs need to carry on all the chemical reactions that let you live, think, breathe, and move around.

Diabetes by the numbers

The level of glucose that means you have diabetes is as follows:

A random blood glucose test result (one not taken first thing in the morning after fasting) that is greater than, or equal to, 11.1 millimoles per litre (mmol/l), along with symptoms such as fatigue, frequent urination and thirst, slow healing of skin, urinary infections, and vaginal itching in women. A normal random blood glucose level is between 4 and 8 mmol/l.

A fasting blood glucose level (taken after consuming nothing but water for at least eight hours) that is greater than, or equal to, 7 mmol/l. A normal fasting blood glucose level is less than 5.6 mmol/l.

A blood glucose level that is greater than, or equal to, 11.1 mmol/l two hours after consuming 75 grams of glucose during an oral glucose tolerance test.

Although an oral glucose tolerance test is the gold standard for diabetes, this test isn’t always practical, and is expensive. Diabetes UK, the leading charity for people with diabetes, recommends using a fasting glucose level, which is more convenient. Taking a random blood glucose test isn’t as sensitive for diagnosing diabetes.

The United Kingdom and most of the rest of the world uses the International System (SI) of units – millimole per litre (mmol/l) – to measure the concentration of something in a liquid, such as glucose in blood. For some reason, the United States is different and uses milligrams/decilitre (mg/dl) as the unit of measurement. You may come across mg/dl values on some Web sites or in American books. To convert mg/dl to mmol/l, simply divide the value of mg/dl by 18. For example, 126 mg/dl becomes 7 mmol/l.

Some people have blood glucose levels that are not (yet) high enough to diagnose diabetes, but aren’t as low as normal. Such people have impaired glucose tolerance, or pre-diabetes. Pre-diabetes is diagnosed when a fasting blood glucose level is between 5.6 and 7 mmol/l and a blood level taken two hours after drinking a sugar solution in an oral glucose tolerance test is between 7.8 and 11 mmol/l. Without changing their diet and lifestyle, between 29 and 55 per cent of people with pre-diabetes develop type 2 diabetes over the course of three years, and most people with pre-diabetes go on to develop diabetes within ten years. Although people with pre-diabetes don’t usually develop small blood vessel complications of diabetes like blindness, kidney failure, and nerve damage, they’re more prone to large vessel disease like heart attacks and strokes. Therefore, you want to get that glucose level down. An estimated 388 million people are currently living with pre-diabetes worldwide, although most are unaware that they are affected.

Types of diabetes

Three main types of diabetes exist:

Type 1 diabetes: Previously known as juvenile diabetes or insulin- dependent diabetes, this type mostly begins in childhood and results from the body’s self-destruction of its own pancreas cells. The pancreas is an organ of the body that sits behind the stomach and makes insulin, the chemical or hormone that is needed to get glucose into cells for use as a fuel. You can’t live without insulin, and so people with type 1 diabetes take insulin shots (injected or, most recently, inhaled). Of the kno...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Thriving with Diabetes
• Chapter 1: Living to Eat with Diabetes
• Chapter 2: Eating to Live with Diabetes
• Chapter 3: Planning Meals for Weight Loss Goals
• Chapter 4: Eating What You Like (Within Reason)
• Chapter 5: Stocking Up at the Supermarket
• Part II : Healthy Recipes That Taste Great
• Chapter 6: Enjoying the Benefits of Breakfast
• Chapter 7: Starting Well: Hors d’Oeuvres and First Courses
• Chapter 8: Sipping Simply Divine Soups
• Chapter 9: Taking a Leaf from the Salad Bar
• Chapter 10: Being Full of Beans (and Grains and Pasta)
• Chapter 11: Adding Veg to Your Meals
• Chapter 12: Boning Up on Fish Cookery
• Chapter 13: Flocking to Poultry
• Chapter 14: Creating Balanced Meals with Meats
• Chapter 15: Nibbling on Snacks
• Chapter 16: Drooling over Mouth-Watering Desserts
• Part III : Eating Away from Home
• Chapter 17: Eating Out as a Nourishing Experience
• Chapter 18: Packing a Picnic Lunch
• Part IV : The Part of Tens
• Chapter 19: Ten (or So) Simple Steps to Change Your Eating Habits
• Chapter 20: Ten Easy Substitutions in Your Eating Plan
• Chapter 21: Ten Strategies to Normalise Your Blood Glucose
• Chapter 22: Ten Healthy Eating Habits for Children with Diabetes
• Part V : Appendixes
• Appendix A: Investing in Food Supplements for Optimum Health
• Appendix B: Exchange Lists
• Appendix C: A Glossary of Key Cooking Terms
• Appendix D: Conversions of Weights, Measures, and Sugar Substitutes
• Appendix E: Other Recipe Sources for People with Diabetes
• : Further Reading