Remember when doctors said to avoid sugar-rich foods like candy? The thought was that sugar in food affects your blood glucose levels and the risk of heart disease.
An estimated 463 million people worldwide live with diabetes as of 2019, based on the result from the International Diabetes Federation. While there are medications and treatments recommended for managing it, you can make life more comfortable when, as someone with diabetes, you avoid some particular foods.
The main challenge while living with diabetes is knowing what food to eat, how much food to eat, and which foods should be limited.
A healthy diet can help you control or even put a stop to diabetes. However, an imbalance in your diet could give rise to hypoglycemia, which could put you in a coma.
Diabetes comes with so many side effects, such as continuous pain, tiredness, eye damage, hearing impairment, and bouts of depression.
Knowing exactly what foods to avoid with diabetes is still one of the best ways to control the disease.
We’ve listed in this article ten foods to avoid if you have diabetes. Based on suggestions by health and nutrition experts. You will not only reduce symptoms but improve your overall health condition, increase energy, and live a better life if you avoid eating most of the foods on this list.
Here are foods you should avoid if you have diabetes.
1. White Bread And Pasta
A few decades ago, wheat for making bread was healthy, natural, and very nutritious. However, due to profit reasons, the wheat has been stripped of its nutrients, which is why it is called white flour.
White bread and pasta come from modern wheat, which has little or no nutrients, making it bad for your liver and blood.
So, if you have diabetes, it is good to avoid anything made from white flour. Go for whole grains like brown rice, millet, and oatmeals instead.
2. Sugar
No one should tell you that sugar is one of the main foods to avoid if you’re living with diabetes. By sugar, we mean processed sugar that you add to your tea, coffee, and drinks. Overeating sugar will make your diabetes worse by increasing the amount of sugar in your blood.
Avoiding sugar will make it easier for you to not only manage your diabetes but overcome sugar cravings. Research shows that people who eat less or no processed sugars get more energy, sleep better, and reduce anxiety and depression.
3. Sweetened Cereals
On the surface, cereals look very innocent, and they should. Many kinds of cereal today have so much sugar in them that they will make life miserable for a person living with diabetes.
Before eating your cereal, try to know the amount of sugar it contains. The American Diabetes Association recommends taking cereals that contain under 6 grams of sugar, with 3 grams of fiber per serving.
When it comes to cereals, sugar has many aliases, and nutritional experts have noticed they come up multiple times in the same product. Do your research and choose which cereal will be best for you.
4. Dried Fruit
In the past few years, dried fruits have become popular. They are less work to consume, store for a more extended period, and are very tasty. There is no water in dried fruit, which concentrates every ingredient, including nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and sugar.
Instead of dried fruits, take natural fruits. You’ll get a good supply of quality fibre and the right amount of nutrients and enjoy the delicious taste.
5. Packaged Food
Due to an active lifestyle, many people now eat packaged food. For people without diabetes, moderate consumption of such food may be okay. If you have diabetes, the chemicals used in some of those foods might make things worse for you.
Besides blood sugar, people with diabetes also have to be mindful of the stress they put on organs like the kidney and liver. Packaged food contains plenty of artificial enzymes and chemicals that put pressure on your liver and make your diabetes worse.
6. French Fries
While packaged food contains chemicals, French Fries have plenty of unhealthy fat. French fries are created from carb-heavy starchy ingredients that tend to spike your blood sugar levels.
The unhealthy oils in French fries are also associated with the production of toxic compounds like aldehydes which are known to cause inflammation, heart diseases, and cancers.
7. Fruit Juice
Many people believe that fruit juice is perfectly okay because it is natural. The truth is that fruit juice contains as much sugar as soda, making it one of the foods to stay clear from.
Instead of fruit juice, you can take water with lemon, which delivers fewer carbs and sugar to your blood. Some people also try to take tea with added sugar to replace fruit juice.
8. Soft Drinks And Sodas
There are at least 12 cubes of sugar in one bottle of soft drink soda. People with diabetes should never go near soft beverages for any reason. When you take a soft drink, it spikes your blood sugar levels, and the results are a catastrophic attack of symptoms and painful reactions.
An alternative to sugary soft drinks and sodas for people with diabetes is water. To spice things up, you can try green tea, which has a positive effect on the general health condition.
Furthermore, coffee and low-fat milk are also excellent choices. Some people even try Karela juice, made from the grinding of rough-skinned bitter melon.
It contains Charantin, which helps to normalize blood sugar levels and control diabetes naturally.
9. Canned Food With Added Sugar
A large percentage of the food available at grocery stores is either canned or packaged. For people without diabetes, there are no issues. If you’re dealing with blood sugar issues, you need to be careful.
Avoiding canned food is the best choice for diabetes. However, if you must eat canned food, make sure it hasn’t stayed long on the shelves. You should also look out for canned food with added sugar and avoid them altogether.
Every diabetes patient should educate themselves on all the aliases for sugar used by manufacturers, so they can identify them on the food labeling and avoid it.
10. Poultry With Skin
Medical experts advise that red meats are foods to avoid with diabetes. As a replacement, they should take poultry meat and white meat.
However, when taking poultry meat, avoid consuming the skin. The skin is full of fat, which can severely negatively affect your blood sugar levels.
Learn to eat poultry without the skin, no matter the temptation. There are several recipes online you can download and use for free to prepare delicious and tasty poultry dishes while excluding the skin.
Your health is critical, and taking note of your eating habit and what you put in your body is one of the most important steps to living a healthy life as a person with diabetes.
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