Ideal Diet to Avoid Diabetes

Mr_Pot

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On a recent post the OP asked about introducing more carbs into a low carb diet if they were in remission.

It made me wonder what diet members would say they could have safely eaten before they were diabetic, for the diabetes never to have developed. Assuming that we are talking about Type 2, and assuming diet is a cause of diabetes. Of course people’s requirements for food are different; a petite lady in her 70’s probably needs less than a professional rugby player, to use two stereotypes, but there must be a general principle.

Let’s call this an “Ideal” diet for want of a better word. This is the diet we should have been eating, to avoid becoming diabetic; this is the diet we would recommend to normal healthy people if only they would take notice. More controversially this would be the diet we could eat if we wanted to, if we were truly in remission, reversed or “cured”, rather than controlled. Obviously some people have adopted diets like keto, carnivore or very low calorie and intend to keep to them, but these diets are adopted as a remedy rather than prevention and are unlikely to work as a blanket recommendation for the as yet healthy general public.

Many posters have said that they were eating what they were told was a healthy diet before they became diabetic and/or obese and often the Eatwell Guide, Five a Day and “eat wholegrain and avoid saturated fat” are quoted. So if you were going to recommend this “Ideal” diet instead of the Eatwell guide to the general public, some of whom have limited budgets, what would it consist of and in particular how many carbs?
 

Listlad

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On a recent post the OP asked about introducing more carbs into a low carb diet if they were in remission.

It made me wonder what diet members would say they could have safely eaten before they were diabetic, for the diabetes never to have developed. Assuming that we are talking about Type 2, and assuming diet is a cause of diabetes. Of course people’s requirements for food are different; a petite lady in her 70’s probably needs less than a professional rugby player, to use two stereotypes, but there must be a general principle.

Let’s call this an “Ideal” diet for want of a better word. This is the diet we should have been eating, to avoid becoming diabetic; this is the diet we would recommend to normal healthy people if only they would take notice. More controversially this would be the diet we could eat if we wanted to, if we were truly in remission, reversed or “cured”, rather than controlled. Obviously some people have adopted diets like keto, carnivore or very low calorie and intend to keep to them, but these diets are adopted as a remedy rather than prevention and are unlikely to work as a blanket recommendation for the as yet healthy general public.

Many posters have said that they were eating what they were told was a healthy diet before they became diabetic and/or obese and often the Eatwell Guide, Five a Day and “eat wholegrain and avoid saturated fat” are quoted. So if you were going to recommend this “Ideal” diet instead of the Eatwell guide to the general public, some of whom have limited budgets, what would it consist of and in particular how many carbs?

Good question.

I just wonder that if the fit and well nation had stuck strictly to an Eatwell diet, that many may never have encountered Type 2 diabetes?
 
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bulkbiker

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I guess the obvious would be to say fresh food cooked from scratch with a minimum of starchy processed products like bread, cakes or pasta. Along with nothing from a factory and nothing cooked with seed oils or sugar would probably be quite sufficient to keep 90% of the population healthy. Eatwell's insistence on starchy carbs with every meal is probably its undoing.
 
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Guzzler

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The diet that preceded the epidemic? Before the advent of ultra processed foods that were devoid of seed oils and cooked at home from scratch and didn't include a snack or a meal every three hours.
 

sally and james

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When we were both working full time and our son was at school, every morning I would get up early and set out plates of prepared fruit (typically sliced banana, grapes, strawberries, slices of nectarine), a carton of orange juice or a fruit smoothie, a big container of muesli (specially chosen for no added salt), low fat milk and, of course, all the necessary bowls, glasses and spoons. I thought I was being a wonderful wife/mother.
I should have been making a big omelette or crustless quiche or serving up slices of cold meats or good quality sausages.
On the diet I used to provide, we were, of course, hungry by mid morning and biscuits (whole grain ones, naturally) kept us going.
I'm sure James wouldn't have become T2D if I had known to serve the meat/eggs breakfast. that breakfast was probably the worst meal of the day and, with a bit of advance cooking, it all could have been so much better.
sally
 

HSSS

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Good question.

I just wonder that if the fit and well nation had stuck strictly to an Eatwell diet, that many may never have encountered Type 2 diabetes?

according to the latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey published in 2018 by Public Health England the actual diet the UK population are eating is incredibly close to recommendations.

With total carbohydrates intake at 48.5% compared to the recommended 50%, and total fat intake at 34.2% compared to the recommendation of no more than 35%.

Our fruit and vegetable intake is just 1 portion shy of the recommended 5.

Our average daily red meat intake is 4g under recommended amounts.

And our total calorie intake is, on average, 394 calories below recommended amounts

edit to add sources
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey
[URL]https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/ndns-results-from-years-7-and-8-combined
[/URL]
Specifically Data extracted from data tables for adults 19-64 for calorie intake.
 
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Listlad

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according to the latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey published in 2018 by Public Health England the actual diet the UK population are eating is incredibly close to recommendations.

With total carbohydrates intake at 48.5% compared to the recommended 50%, and total fat intake at 34.2% compared to the recommendation of no more than 35%.

Our fruit and vegetable intake is just 1 portion shy of the recommended 5.

Our average daily red meat intake is 4g under recommended amounts.

And our total calorie intake is, on average, 394 calories below recommended amounts

Do you believe those figures? Not based on what we see on the supermarket shelves, what one sees in people’s shopping trolleys, what is being consumed in restaurants, fast food outlets and cafes...
 

bulkbiker

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according to the latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey published in 2018 by Public Health England the actual diet the UK population are eating is incredibly close to recommendations.

With total carbohydrates intake at 48.5% compared to the recommended 50%, and total fat intake at 34.2% compared to the recommendation of no more than 35%.

Our fruit and vegetable intake is just 1 portion shy of the recommended 5.

Our average daily red meat intake is 4g under recommended amounts.

And our total calorie intake is, on average, 394 calories below recommended amounts

As processed foods have probably been designed around the "what we should be eating" guide then that doesn't really surprise me at all.
Just such a shame they are making people sick.
 

millenium

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Not just diet. But staying physically active is as important or more important.

Diet wise will be not excessive on anything.
 

HSSS

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Do you believe those figures? Not based on what we see on the supermarket shelves, what one sees in people’s shopping trolleys, what is being consumed in restaurants, fast food outlets and cafes...
Draw your own conclusions but they are the official figures! Obtained by the same methods many studies use (self reporting) to assess the efficacy of various ways of eating and deciding what’s harm and helpful. If it’s good enough for one purpose.......

Perhaps the problem isn’t that as a nation we fail to follow guidelines (on the whole) but that for the nation they are wrong, unhealthy and are a significant factor in the obesity and diabetes epidemic.

The supermarket shelves are obsessed with low fat, we are bombarded with anti (red) meat propaganda all the while stuffing away the “safe and filling” fibre filled carbs. Restaurant eating isn’t a widespread daily occurrence. Fast food outlets are highly processed and the much criticised saturated fats pretty much come wrapped in a huge amount of carbs so which part does the damage? We are a nation of constant grazers too, never allowing our bodies to rest, which isn’t accounted for at all in the eatpoorly plate. Look where these messages have got us in the last 40 years.
 
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Listlad

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Draw your own conclusions but they are the official figures! Obtained by the same methods many studies use (self reporting) to assess the efficacy of various ways of eating and deciding what’s harm and helpful. If it’s good enough for one purpose.......

Perhaps the problem isn’t that as a nation we fail to follow guidelines (on the whole) but that for the nation they are wrong, unhealthy and are a significant factor in the obesity and diabetes epidemic.

The supermarket shelves are obsessed with low fat, we are bombarded with anti (red) meat propaganda all the while stuffing away the “safe and filling” fibre filled carbs. Restaurant eating isn’t a widespread daily occurrence. Fast food outlets are highly processed and the much criticised saturated fats pretty much come wrapped in a huge amount of carbs so which part does the damage? We are a nation of constant grazers too, never allowing our bodies to rest, which isn’t accounted for at all in the eatpoorly plate. Look where these messages have got us in the last 40 years.
I don’t know this to be true but I am surmising that the original Eatwell design didn’t have in mind the processed variants on the shelves/ freezers or the fast food variants etc designed around it. I am assuming it had the old home cooked meat and two vedge of my childhood in mind, followed by a home made pudding of yesteryear such as homemade rhubarb crumble and custard and all that good stuff of old. * That being the case I tend to think it was a good enough meal plan for a healthy population and a meal plan that I wish the schools would actually aim for instead of what the kids get now.

Getting back to Mr Pots question. I tend to think that if we as a nation had continued the diet that I ate as a child, late 50’s and then into the 60’s and even the 70’s (with not sweets or snacks between mealtimes) , then Type 2 diabetes would be far less prevalent than it is now.

Edit : To add a full English breakfast in the morning. *
 
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Dark Horse

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our total calorie intake is, on average, 394 calories below recommended amounts
Thanks for that, could you supply a link to it, please? (Sorry, I've tried but I can't find it.) Interestingly, though, the project acknowledges that under-reporting of energy intake (EI) is a problem for all dietary surveys and has made an attempt to estimate the degree of under-reporting using doubly-labelled water (DLW) in sub-groups of the people surveyed. They found that, 'reported EI in children aged 4 to 10 years was on average 13% lower than TEE [total energy expenditure] measured by the DLW technique, 31% lower in children aged 11 to 15 years, 33% lower in adults aged 16 to 64 years and 28% lower in adults aged 65 years and over'. https://assets.publishing.service.g...ment_data/file/772434/NDNS_UK_Y1-9_report.pdf
However, the figures in the report are the unadjusted figures so to get a rough idea of actual calorie intake for those over the age of 10, divide by 2 and multiply by 3.

With total carbohydrates intake at 48.5% compared to the recommended 50%, and total fat intake at 34.2% compared to the recommendation of no more than 35%
Interesting, but if we look at the breakdown of those figures down, we see that
  • In all age groups, mean intake of free sugars exceeded the government recommendation of providing no more than 5% of daily total energy intake for those aged 2 years and over.
  • mean intake of saturated fatty acids exceeded the recommendation (no more than 11% food energy) in all older age/sex groups
  • mean AOAC fibre intakes fell below the recommendation of 30g per day for all older age/sex groups https://assets.publishing.service.g...ta/file/699241/NDNS_results_years_7_and_8.pdf
 

bulkbiker

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I don’t know this to be true but I am surmising that the original Eatwell design didn’t have in mind the processed variants on the shelves/ freezers or the fast food variants etc designed around it.
And you'd be wrong. Eatwell comes from Public Health England who rely for a lot of their info on SACN (Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition) whose board is stuffed with Processed Food Industry representatives/scientists. They rely on the food industry for their wages..as uncovered by Dr Harcombe

http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2015/07/sacn-report-carbohydrates-health/
 

Listlad

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Brunneria

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This thread is not about the Eatwell, so please take that discussion elsewhere.

This thread is about an ‘ideal’ diet for T2s.

My idea of the ‘best’ diet to avoid the onset of T2 is not, unfortunately, practical in today’s societies.

seasonal, unprocessed foods grown in nutrient rich souls. No farming techniques that deplete soils or use battery farms or similar. No fruit or veg (or animals) that have been so selectively bred or genetically modified away from their ancestral natures that they are pumped with sugar, flavour, incredible disease resistance or massive physical changes. No huge air mile count. No fertilisers that are damaging to the environment or that build up residues in plants, grazing animals or humans. Humane slaughter and transport.

obviously some of those conditions are a pipe dream nowadays, While other things I mentioned are only available to a privileged affluent elite. And yes, if you get to decide on organic v non-organic anything then I count you as being in that affluent elite.
 

Listlad

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My idea of the ‘best’ diet to avoid the onset of T2 is not, unfortunately, practical in today’s societies.

seasonal, unprocessed foods grown in nutrient rich souls. No farming techniques that deplete soils or use battery farms or similar. No fruit or veg (or animals) that have been so selectively bred or genetically modified away from their ancestral natures that they are pumped with sugar, flavour, incredible disease resistance or massive physical changes. No huge air mile count. No fertilisers that are damaging to the environment or that build up residues in plants, grazing animals or humans. Humane slaughter and transport.

obviously some of those conditions are a pipe dream nowadays, While other things I mentioned are only available to a privileged affluent elite. And yes, if you get to decide on organic v non-organic anything then I count you as being in that affluent elite.
Well I am inclined to agree with this which ties in to my earlier assertion that to eat a good diet or even low carb diet it incurs extra expense.

I do now buy produce from local farmers. But it is notably more expensive than if the produce is sourced at the supermarket. That goes for meat, poultry, milk, cheese cream etc.
 
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Listlad

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So to get back on track the question was :

“So if you were going to recommend this “Ideal” diet instead of the Eatwell guide to the general public, some of whom have limited budgets, what would it consist of and in particular how many carbs
?”

How many carbs. Does anyone have a realistic idea?
 

Guzzler

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Not just diet. But staying physically active is as important or more important.

Diet wise will be not excessive on anything.
I disagree with you that being active is more important than diet. Diet is key to prevention as well as maintenance. In terms of T2 Diet is key and exercise is secondary.
 

Guzzler

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There is no diet that would suit whole populations, a more holistic approach is needed when you take into consideration budget, culture and physical differences etc.