Oh boy, people have been so misinformed about what to eat/ not to eat when diabetic.
One sad truth is that doctors and even diabetic nurses are not trained in nutrition, so they adhere to the medicinal principal.
For the love of God, carbs are NOT bad for you! After watching Kip Anderson's "What the health" documentary and "Food inc" I did more research and read that we have been so misinformed about the appropriate long term diet for diabetics.
After reading studies ("the China study", "proteinaholic", "how not to die" etc) I learned so much about real nutrition and also how detrimental zero/low carb and pale diets are for not just diabetics, but any person long term. You may find short term improvements, particularly in relation to weight loss, but the compounds in animal proteins take a very long time for our organs to break down and digest.
In my experience, I was never over weight but was told I had slightly high BP and cholesterol. Even though I ate about 100 carbs daily (occasionally more or less) and religiously ate eggs, fish and chicken every day and avoided fruits, thinking this would be good for me. Er, nope.
My doctor prescribed some Ramipril, which was giving me stomach pains and problems so I stopped taking it. At around this time I uncovered the documentaries and started reading into it (thinking "pfft must be vegan propaganda ****") and that's when I stopped eating meat and dairy.
Two weeks in I lost 6lbs/ 4kg, despite eating high levels of carbs from seeded bread and bananas to rice and quinoa. My gut was feeling much better as I was getting rid of all the excess fat and fluid, since I was taking in higher intake of fibre and nutrients from fruits veggies and grains.
Oh did I mention - my BG significantly dropped (I won't lie, I had a few hypos while adjusting...on a high carb diet) and so I reduced my insulin. It is now about halved. I imagine that if I went raw vegan I could drop it even more, but I do like tasting food so I probably wouldn't last long doing that.
So I would recommend for type 2 diabetes to try plant based diet, as all those books (and more) correlate on the evidence of reversing t2d on a plant diet. Only point on that is to be careful of some substitute products "free from" animal proteins as some can be very high in sat fat and have plenty added sugars so check for that. But eat lots of veg, fruits and grains. Especially things like freekah, quinoa, etc and protein subs like lentils, legumes and even peanut butter.
If you want recipes or tips on adjusting then I can recommend some for you which I've found to help. Don't hesitate to get in touch, thanks
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