The Role Of Fibre In A Diabetic Diet
Posted by Owen Jones in Uncategorized, tags: beverages, cooking, diabetes, diet, disease, drink, food, gourmet, health, illness, lifestyle, other, recipes, self help, UncategorizedWe are all encouraged to eat foodstuffs with more fibre, because dietary fibre is a vital ingredient for keeping our bodies healthy. It is especially useful for the colon.
Since attention to detail in diet is even more vital to diabetics, it stands to reason that fibre is even more vital to diabetics too. And, indeed, diabetics are advised to consume plenty of fibre.
Fibre will also defer the on-set of diabetes in those people who are in a pre-diabetic condition. Fibre assists reduce the blood-sugar levels naturally, so it will help everyone in their quest to maintain healthy blood.
The manner in which it does this is fairly easy to understand. Fibre is more difficult to digest than the remainder of the sugars and starches that surround it, so it has the impact of remaining in your digestive system for longer, thus helping you feel ‘full’ longer, and it is burned very slowly thereby decreasing spikes in your blood sugar level.
Blood-sugar spikes are bad news for anyone who does not want a spike in order to achieve a task, like a weight-lifter or a sprinter. Spikes in children may lead to instances of hyperactivity in children.
The best sort of fibre is soluble fibre. This type of fibre is to be found in:
grain that has not been overly processed to get rid of the husk, so brown rice, whole wheat bread, cereals and pasta.
‘dry’ fresh fruits, not necessarily dried fruits, like bananas, mangoes, pineapple and apples
beans, lentils, legumes and pulses are stuffed almost full of dietary fibre and are easily added to soups and stews.
Another way of feeling ‘full’ so that you are able to reduce the craving for a substantial meal is drinking water. Substitute plain tap water or bottled water for fizzy drinks. Your body might need the extra water to help it digest the extra soluble fibre that you are eating.
Fibre assists in all dietary situations, but is incorporated into the calculations that some diets use. For example, if you are counting carbohydrates as opposed to calories, you will have a limit or target number of carbs you may consume in a day.
This is 20 carbs a day in the initial phase of the Atkins diet. Some diets will permit you to subtract the amount of fibre from the total number of carbs for the purpose of your calculations.
So, for example, you can eat 25 carbs, and, as long as the food contains at least five grammes of fibre, you have not broken the rules of the diet. You will have to look whether your particular diet permits for this variation.
It sounds like another burden to have to count fibre too as everything else you have to take into account before you may eat anything, but it will become second nature after a few weeks or months.
The best manner in which to get started is to get a small guide that will fit in your pocket or bag so that you can look into it often.
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Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of subjects, but is now involved with Diabetes Cook Books. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Cookbooks For Diabetics.
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