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?
From what I can tell, not snacking or overeating is as important as what to eat or not to eat.
I know my own downfall has come mostly this past 5 years since I started having kids. Big change to my lifestyle, less active, very sleep deprived and snacking on sweet things all day long to keep myself awake. (My teeth have suffered too.) But I've always had a sweet tooth and a biscuit or cake or chocolate with every cup of tea or coffee. I've only been overeating more in this past 5 years mostly though. When I was younger, I never had time to eat - I had better things to do. Sitting in front of a screen is one of the worst times for snacking for me. (I'm even doing it now as I type this
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My father has made it to 81 years old and doesn't have diabetes. He may have some insulin resistance by this age though and is not without a few health problems, including being on meds for high blood pressure. But his diet has been an interesting one and he must be doing something right as far as not ending up diabetic by this age.
The main patterns to his diet that I think have got him this far is that in his early years, he often skipped breakfast and sometimes also lunch (fasting and even just what would now be called OMAD (one meal a day) but not because he was needing to lose weight - he was always very slim - he instead used to smoke cigarettes and drink a shot of brandy for lunch! Bad habits for a period of years in his earlier life.
His main meal of the day always consisted of big salads or vegetables with meat, chicken or fish, and always bread. His main snack in the late afternoon was an apple or pear. He swears bread and apples helped him survive sea sickness during the one month voyage as a refugee to Australia back in the 1950s.
Later in his life when he was eating 3 meals a day again it was still tonnes of salads, sometimes only salads and not always with oil or vinegar. He would just take a cucumber, tomato, capsicum and raw carrot into work and munch on them like you would an apple. He regularly would also eat an entire iceberg lettuce as a salad on its own but with oil and vinegar. He also ate cheeses, like cottage cheese.
The early part of this life he was eating what his Croatian mother was cooking - and she was a great cook! She was definitely using seed oils like sunflower oil though and cooking in aluminium pans. My grandmother also lived to her 80s. She had a couple of strokes, the first one left her in a home for 2 years unable to walk or talk much.
My father has never liked to cook so nowadays he just uses a pressure cooker and pops in some kind of meat or chicken with 1/2 a mug of rice, potato and carrot, then makes a soup from all of the juice and fat and pops in the meat, rice and vegetables. (Add a bit of paprika and salt and it's pretty tasty!) He also makes roast pork quite often and always uses bread to soak up the lard and drippings. His generation were not fat phobic.
So the foods he eats are usually off the menu for a diabetic, but because he wasn't indulging a sweet tooth or overeating on those things, he's managed to get to his 80s and not be diabetic yet. I imagine if you keep your quantities of those carby vegetables fairly small and fill up on your salads, fish and meats (and dairy if you can tolerate it), you should be good.
He also ate nuts as snacks too. You gotta watch your quantity of those too though!
There are other foods that he ate regularly that I haven't mentioned I'm sure. I know he makes crepes (palacinke, we call them in Croatian) with jam, cream and cottage cheese, and he eats biscuits sometimes, so he was not without the odd dessert. But the last few years he's been complaining of the belly fat that has come from snacking while in front of the TV, so he's probably heading towards diabetes now if he's not careful.
A few years ago his doctor told him his cholesterol was a bit high, so he said "Leave it with me" and ate nothing but one boiled egg a day for 2 weeks. The next blood test, his cholesterol was back in the normal range. So he seems to be pretty good at not eating if he needs to be strict.