Diabetic and Low Fat Cooking
Will Ultimately Lead
To Greater Diabetic Health

If you are wondering why diabetic and low fat cooking methods are not necessarily synonymous with each other, this is because most people believe diabetes means “hold the sugar”, not the fats.

But the reality is, when using a diabetic and low fat cooking program, this diet also helps you retain greater control over your blood sugar levels, reduces your intake of high calorie foods, and helps prevent many future complications such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, possible kidney disease, repairs the loss of flexibility from osteoarthritis, reduces your incidence of dry skin and eczema, affords greater hormonal balance during your menopausal years, reduces the inflammation in your body and ultimately helps reduce heart disease, strokes, some cancers and diabetes.

All of these troublesome symptoms can be relieved or reduced just by adding a consistent supply of good quality oils to your daily diet on a continuous basis.

The Three Main Types Of Fats Found In Our Diet

• Saturated Fats, Trans Fats and Hydrogenated Fats:
  The goal here is to avoid and eliminate as much of these as possible from your diet. This includes oils such as hydrogenated coconut and vegetable oils, cocoa butter, palm kernel oil and hydrogenated palm oil. This also includes high fat dairy products such as whole milk, butter, margarine, full-fat cheese, almost all baked goods, candies and snack foods. In this group, it also includes high fat content meats such as bacon, sausage or ground beef where fat is thrown in as a filler. Saturated fats have the distinct disadvantage that their melting point is higher than our normal body temperature so when we eat them the fats congeal and stay a waxy-like substance which hardens over time in our arteries. Remember though, even though virgin coconut oil is considered a saturated fat, it is not a member of this group.

• Polyunsaturated Fats:
  These are found mostly in cooking oils. This group of oils has a slight tendency to reduce our cholesterol levels but this advantage is so very slim it is almost nominal. A better choice is the monounsaturated varieties.

• Monounsaturated Fats:
  This group is normally called the “healthy fats” because with repeated use they can actually help in the prevention of heart disease. This group includes olive oils, avocado oil, peanut oil plus nuts such as almonds, pecans, cashews and walnuts. Although each of these are healthy fats, they are also high in calories when eaten in large portions. Therefore control must be maintained to prevent over-indulgence.

So to start your new diabetic and low fat cooking diet, your new healthy dietary plan should utilize reading ingredient labels and avoiding all saturated fats, hydrogenated fats, trans fats and use selections from the other two groups for all of your diabetic and low fat cooking needs.

Simple Ways To Lower The Fats In Your Meals

Being a diabetic and following a low fat cooking plan is actually not very difficult to incorporate into your diet.

Follow some simple guidelines and remember major changes are not necessary. By adding some small changes, the cumulative effect over time will lead to much better diabetic health.

So try adding a few of these and then keep adding a few more in the next few weeks to months and years to come.

• Always remove the skin from poultry (chicken or turkey) after cooking and before eating. Eating only the white meat is also a slight reduction in the overall fat content of this type of meat.

• Occasionally have a meatless meal, incorporate high protein beans and legumes into your meal instead

• Or you can just as easily reduce the normal portion of meat per each recipe and change it over to dried beans instead

• Add flax seed or flax seed oil to your diet. This form attracts toxins in your system and then helps flush them out of the body through normal digestive processes

• several kitchen food staples also help flush your system with a consistent addition of them to your diet. Try adding fresh garlic and onions, tumeric, cayenne peppers, steel-cut oatmeal or fresh cinnamon to help reduce fat storage and blood sugar levels

• Switch to and use olive oils or avocado oils as much as possible

• Use low-fat or nonfat dairy products or varieties of cheese as much as possible. Also limit your use of butter, margarine and mayonnaise. Another neat trick, soften a stick of butter until room temperature and then add an equal amount of olive oil to the dish as you have soft butter. Mix well and use this as a replacement any time you want butter. You have doubled your volume and reduced the fats and calories just by adding the olive oil to your standard butter.

• Use lean beef or pork cuts such as flank steak, round or loin cuts of beef and pork.

• Add three meals per week of cool water fish such as albacore tuna, sardines, herring, salmon or mackerel

• Instead of using oils, occasionally use homemade broths, (refrigerated and then defatted) - beef, chicken or vegetable broths - these all make an excellent base for sauteing in a skillet. Lemon juice can also be used for a light citrus flavor for some meals.

• In a casserole that calls for the use of whole milk, substitute skim milk instead and in most cases no one is going to figure out the difference anyway.

• Evaporated skim milk is a better substitution than standard cream in a recipe. The evaporation process thickens the texture of milk products so you have a similar texture as cream in your recipe.

• Sour cream can be replaced by plain nonfat yogurt. Because the flavor is just a little different, start by substituting a small amount at first and changing over to larger quantities with time. Eventually the family is never even going to figure out the difference.

• Prepare your sandwich with roll-ups and wraps instead of regular sliced bread. Each of these are lower in calories, salt and fats but make just as good (or better) sandwiches.

• Spray your skillet with non-stick cooking spray first to prepare your meal and then drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet within the last 5 minutes of cooking for flavor. You have automatically reduced calories because of the lower amount of oil being used.

• Learn to use fresh or dried herbs, citrus zest or balsamic vinegars for added flavors to any dish you prepare

But remember, as with full-fat foods, this is not an invitation to start consuming all the low-fat and nonfat varieties you see in a grocery store with no end in sight. All of these products still have calories. Many people consider them safer now, but exceeding the recommended serving sizes leads to an ever-increasing amount of weight from all of those extra calories.

So although diabetic and low fat cooking may not immediately be your first choice of meal preparation methods, with a little time and practice you will find that you actually have become an even better cook than before.

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