Preventing and Managing Diabetes on a Plant-Based Diet
Diabetes is a curse. Diabetes seems to be becoming more and more common with the rise and spread of fast food culture. We all know someone, a family member or friend who has diabetes, but still, I feel that this illness is not taken seriously. When not treated properly, it can ruin your life in too many ways. To begin with, you’ll have to spend a lot on medicines, all these costly medicines come with their own side effects, and most people with diabetes tend to develop other serious illnesses with time. Untreated diabetes is capable of affecting your body part by part. How many doctors will you then have to see? How many medicines will you then have to spend money on?
What we need to know, though, is that 1) diabetes can be prevented, and 2) for those who already have diabetes, it can be controlled.
Why do I care this much? My father and almost everyone else on my paternal side has diabetes, and I have seen how this one illness has been extremely cruel to them. In the long run, diabetes can very easily damage your heart, brain, kidneys, and more. In fact, this is one of the inspirations for this blog: I don’t want to see anymore people and families suffering.
I took several weekends to carefully collect information about common Indian foods (vegetables, pulses, fruits, spices, etc.) to see which foods are good for diabetics and which foods are not. To understand the data, I myself had to use data visualization because that list was too long to read and memorize. Based on this information, I have changed our food habits and meal plans. I hope this helps you as well!
The Good News:
While I have read this here and there, I had to see the numbers to fully believe it: a plant-based diet can be extremely helpful in preventing and managing diabetes! Again, by plant-based diet, I don’t mean having rice and pickle and paratha and some curry that’s more tasty than healthy. I mean, a healthy, well-balanced, plant-based diet. See for yourself: a vast majority of these commonly found foods fall on the “low Glycemic Index” range or “moderate Glycemic Index” range. A majority of these foods also have healthy Glycemic Load levels, thereby making most of these foods really healthy! 🙌💚
Note: By “foods”, I mean, not food items themselves, not idli, dosa, puri, roti, potato fry, and such. Because getting objective and finding accurate answers in such cases can be hard. The way you cook your roti and the way my aunt cooks roti can be quite different. That is why I have not included items like “multigrain atta”, vegan butter, vegan ghee, vegan ice cream, mock meat, and such. Because there are several ways to make all of these. Hope you understand!
Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load:
According to Wikipedia, “Foods with carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion and release glucose rapidly into the bloodstream tend to have a high GI; foods with carbohydrates that break down more slowly, releasing glucose more gradually into the bloodstream, tend to have a low GI. A lower glycemic index suggests slower rates of digestion and absorption of the foods’ carbohydrates and can also indicate greater extraction from the liver and periphery of the products of carbohydrate digestion. Glycemic load is based on the glycemic index (GI), and is calculated by multiplying the grams of available carbohydrate in the food by the food’s glycemic index, and then dividing by 100.”
“Low glycemic index range” refers to glycemic index values of 55 or less than 55. “Moderate glycemic index” ranges from 56 to 69. “High glycemic index foods” rank 70 and above on the glycemic index scale.
Based on these values, research, and the advice of professionals, different foods can be classified into different levels of “healthy” and “unhealthy” for prevention and management of diabetes.
Diabetes Superfoods: Foods that are highly friendly/healthy for diabetics or foods that rank very low in carbohydrates and sugars are called “diabetes superfoods”. Again, good news, a lot of these items are easily available in most Indian states. Affordability, though, is something you’d want to fight with the government about. In my ideal world, vegan, healthy foods should be available and affordable for all, and unhealthy foods must be totally banned, or at least come with strict warnings. Some commonly available veggies and fruits in this category include bitter gourd, bottle gourd, cabbage, ginger, garlic, chickpeas, peanuts, spinach, cucumber, jeera, etc. Other foods in this category might certainly not be available or affordable for a vast majority of the Indian population, items like avocado, blueberry, etc. Which government in Indian history has cared enough to resolve food- and health- related problems, anyway?
Foods that are “Ideal for Sugar Control”:
Good news, again! See how many commonly used Indian foods are ranked as ideal for sugar control! (At least, that’s what docs and subject matter experts say!) These foods include onions, tomatoes, split pigeon peas, green gram, kidney beans, mustard, mint, coriander, radish, apple, chillies, soya chunks, ridge gourd, ivy gourd, green beans, mushroom, almond milk, dates, and such.
Other “good choices” for diabetics include brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat, pearl millet, tamarind, chayote, yam, pomegranate, palmyra, sesame oil, soy milk, and coconut milk.
Foods to be Taken in Moderation:
These are foods that are not completely unhealthy, but are foods that could be taken in moderation and/or with other diabetic-friendly foods mentioned above for good health. As you can see, white rice, Basmati rice, jowar, finger millet, grapes, mango, beetroot, pumpkin, strawberry, green peas, jackfruit, etc. fall under these categories. This means that, since we cannot completely avoid staple foods like rice and wheat, it’s wise to take these foods in smaller quantities and club them with diabetic superfoods or other foods that are much healthier.
Foods that are best avoided:
Lastly, let’s discuss foods that are best avoided by those with diabetes. These foods can easily cause your sugar levels to rise, so if you consume them frequently, your diabetes would worsen, then you would have to take more medicines, and if you’d still not change your diet, then like mentioned earlier, diabetes would start affecting several parts of your body. These foods include jaggery, potato, amaranth seeds, oat milk (surprise! yes, oat milk is not recommended for those who have severe diabetes), all purpose flour, and long beans.
While there are several factors involved, a healthy diet plays a major role in safeguarding your body and mind in general, and in case of diabetes as well. You can use this list to make your shopping choices to pick vegetables and fruits that you think can suit your needs well.
Other tips:
If you already have diabetes or a parent has diabetes or if diabetes runs in the family, get yourself tested for diabetes regularly.
Resist the temptation to eat foods that are high in carbohydrates and sweet foods. Go for diabetes-friendly alternatives instead. For example, choose dates instead of jaggery as a natural sweetener. Use grains and flours that have lower levels of GI.
Select the quantity of the food you consume wisely as well. Don’t eat too much at a time. Try to limit your consumption to small quantities, and if you are hungry, instead of having 3 meals in big quantities, have 5 meals of smaller quantities a day. That’s something you would hear doctors uggesting often.
If you have diabetes, do not skip your medicines, and see your physician regularly!
Be active. The second most important factor in health, next to diet evidently, is physical fitness. Don’t remain idle or inactive. If your career makes you sit in front of a computer or on a desk most of the day, somehow make time for physical activities.
When you go out, carry foods or snacks or pack ingredients with you that would suit your meal plan. It’s okay to occasionally have outside food and enjoy life, yes, but if you’re already severely diabetic, well, well, you should know — you’d be risking it much if you don’t avoid unhealthy foods completely at this stage.
Note: These details were all taken from publicly available resources. If there is some information that you think of as wrong or inaccurate, please feel free to share the same. This is only supposed to be used as a guide. For more accurate, personal suggestions, you’d have to meet a doctor or dietitian.
Hope you found this useful! 🍻 Will share more such posts and information in the following weeks and months.
