How to cook diabetes-friendly dinners
Preparing diabetes-friendly meals can be simple with our WeightWatchers® recipes. Even if you don't have diabetes, these recipes make for healthy and flavourful mid-week meals that the whole family can enjoy. Try these tasty recipes include Lebanese brown rice and lamb stuffed eggplants, the all-time family classic; chicken schnitzel and vegetarian lasagne.
Why is a healthy weight important for managing diabetes?
Diabetes continues to be a growing epidemic in Australia and worldwide. One of the most positive steps you can take towards managing your diabetes and reducing your risk of complications is to attain and maintain a healthy weight. The reason for this is that when you carry excess weight (especially around your middle) it changes the way your body reacts to hormones like insulin. In the case of insulin, it has to work much harder to move glucose into your cells and doesn't work as efficiently. As a result, glucose backs up in the bloodstream (just like boxes on a conveyor belt) causing your blood glucose leaves (BGLs) to rise too high. Lose some of that excess weight and insulin has a better chance of keeping up!
WeightWatchers science and diabetes
The science behind WeightWatchers, allows members to lose weight steadily and sensibly and most importantly keep it off which in turn helps manage diabetes.
Here at WeightWatchers, our team of dietitians and recipe developers have created a series of delicious diabetes-friendly recipes for people with diabetes to help manage their condition and support a healthy lifestyle.
Include foods from different food groups
Your health and blood sugar levels (BGLs) aren't only related to what you eat, but how much you eat. Even healthy food can make you gain weight or raise blood glucose if you eat too much of it. So what is your right amount? There is no need to calculate every gram or divide your plate. Simply consider how you feel when you eat and only eat until you are satisfied.
What does a healthy meal look like? Try to eat a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, grains (mostly wholegrains), lean meats and dairy products. It’s also important to make your food colourful. Eating all the colours of the rainbow in fresh produce on a daily basis will ensure you have a wide variety of essential vitamins and minerals. Try to limit adding salt to your meals. If you want to spice up your dishes, there are plenty of healthier flavour additions such as pepper, turmeric or coriander seeds.
Include a carbohydrate at dinner
It is important to include a source of carbohydrate in each meal to help regulate your BGLs if you have diabetes. Healthy sources of main meal carbohydrates include wholegrain bread, pasta and rice, legumes and starchy vegetables such as potato, sweet potato and corn.
Diabetes can be a complex condition to manage. One thing that shouldn’t be complicated? Deciding what to have for dinner. These delicious dinners are loaded with fibre-rich ingredients but are simple to whip together.