Diabetic-Friendly Snack Options

When you are choosing snacks for a diabetic individual, you will definitely ask yourself, which snacks should I pick? Are fruits okay? 

Don’t they have too much sugar in them?

With your goal being to keep the blood sugar level under control as much as possible and prevent the effects of uncontrolled diabetes, you not only need to worry about which snacks to but also what is the best way to prepare or even preserve these snacks.

A diabetic individual is always advised to eat small frequent meals, three main meals, and a healthy snack in between these main meals. 

This is what will help keep the blood sugar level in check by preventing sudden spikes of the sugar level, hyperglycemia, or glucose level going too low hypoglycemia.

The most important things to consider when choosing snacks
include

1. Fibre
2. The protein contents
3. Which fat

To have good control of your blood glucose level, you may need to choose snacks that are;

• High in fibre, the fibre helps as it increases satiety, therefore the uptake of glucose happens slowly.
• Snacks that are high in healthy proteins and not high in carbohydrates.
• Snacks with healthy fats, especially unsaturated fats and less saturated fats.

Here are some of the snacks that are highly recommended;

Groundnuts

First of all, roasted groundnuts are quite a delicacy, we use them as a breakfast item. So why should you prefer ground nuts over items like biscuits, or cookies they are;

• High in fibre, for satiety and moderation of glucose spikes
• High in protein
• Have sufficient amounts of healthy fats
• The cooking method is friendly as it doesn’t introduce more fat/sugar or unnecessary fats into your body

This means that ground nuts are not only good for your blood glucose but also heart-friendly. Besides they are also easy to prepare and carry along.

 Eggs

How do you cook your eggs? As a diabetic individual, you may need to choose your method of cooking eggs very carefully. Boiling eggs
can be so much better than frying them because again we are still talking about saturated fats. Boiling your eggs means you are not introducing more fat but you will still get the proteins in sufficient amounts.

• You get less saturated fats
• You get satiety and eventually good control of your blood
  glucose level.

But still, you won’t be eating eggs every day because too many of them can be poisonous.

 Porridge

A cup of porridge can get you going, when we are talking about a cup, we mean 250ml cup. Because moderation is key.

• A cup of porridge will give you instant satiety.
• You can also enrich it with groundnuts or soya beans for
  better nourishment.

This is so much better than soda or these other sweetened drinks.

Fruits

What fruits have you stopped eating ever since you got diagnosed with diabetes? The question here should be, which fruits and how much of these fruits are you taking?

There are numerous reasons why you should never neglect fruits, talk about;

1. Fibre
2. Vitamins
3. Minerals
4. Powerful phytochemicals

However, the reason why this question about fruits keeps coming up is that most fruits like bananas, oranges, watermelons, and
pineapples may contain lots of sugar and then which brings confusion about whether to eat them or not.

Now, talking about fruits and their glycemic index, the glycemic index is (how quickly your body absorbs the glucose from the foods that you eat).

Definitely, fruits with a lower glycemic index like apples, avocados, and berries will get digested slowly and therefore will not raise your
blood glucose fast. On the other hand, fruit with a higher glycemic index will get absorbed faster hence the risk of hyperglycemia.

Understand that once you get diagnosed with diabetes, you do have not to stop taking fruits, it’s important to make informed choices on
portion controls and understand the glycemic index aspect.

Therefore while you are looking to cut off foods rich in sugar, before you cut off fruits, start by removing all these over-processed
foods that are high in sugar like cakes, biscuits, and soda because they are also less nutrient-dense.

Guidelines for healthy eating when diabetic already recommend that half your plate should contain vegetables and fruits.

Important to note also is that we are talking about whole fruits and not fruit juices because fruit juices can quickly raise your blood
glucose levels, unlike whole fruits that contain fibre which slows down the absorption of sugar in the body.

This means that you don’t need to stop eating fruits what you need to master portion control.

Portion control involves;

• 5 servings of fruits the whole day
• 1 serving is a medium-sized fruit, the size of your fist.
• For larger fruits, you will need to divide them into smaller
  pieces and eat them over time.
• You can still enjoy fruits even when diabetes.

 Why not bread?

Once you master all the nutrition information you need, you will realize that the diet for diabetes does not need to be extremely
restrictive and complicated to follow. The question about whether or not to eat white bread still focuses on the glycemic index aspect.

Talking about bread is touching on a very important breakfast item. One thing that is clear here is that bread comes from wheat
which is naturally brown and therefore without much processing, brown bread is made with the wheat outer covering still intact making it more nutritious. 

However white bread has undergone so much processing eventually snatching off the good dietary fibre and most minerals destroyed as well.

However, don’t get confused with some manufacturers who would only want to add brown colour to the white bread to deceive buyers.
For the brown bread that has fibre, you will need to feel for some texture when chewing. Be vigilant and stay healthy at all times.

This only tells you that we have so many foods that can be used as snacks for a diabetic individual, and you have the power to choose which ones are good for you.