Healthy Eating Plate Method for Diabetes

Healthy eating plate method is one of the best and simple practical way of meal planning, especially when you are suffering from diabetes. Healthy eating plate method helps you understand and simplify the process of choosing the right food in the right amount.

Obtaining all 7 essential food nutrients is very important for everyone. And healthy eating plate method ensures that you get all the essential food nutrients from the plate.

Healthy eating plate method is not just for diabetics, everyone can get benefits from it. You must give this plate method a try, especially if you are one of the following people:

1.  You have Type 2 diabetes
2.  You are overweight
3.  You feel overwhelmed by a lot of information
4.  You don’t like complicated instructions and plans
5.  You have problems memorizing sometimes
6.  You are stressed and nervous by recent diagnosis
7.  You have a busy lifestyle
8.  You want to follow a simple and practical diet plan

So, if any of the above points matches your problems, then it’s time to take the right step and give a try to ‘healthy eating plate method’. As this method will help you solve these above mentioned problems in simple easier way.

Now, i am sure, you have a big question here. So, let’s find out the answer together of this question.
 
 

What is Healthy Eating Plate Method?

Healthy eating plate method is a very easy, simple to follow, practical way to plate up healthy balanced meals for you and your family. The best things about this method is you don’t need to carry all sorts of measuring tools nor you need expensive food ingredients to create healthy meals.

Your Healthy Eating Plate is a typically 9 inch plate with a cup and bowl of 180 ml or 6 oz.

Let’s understand how you should plate up your food.

Common Measurements:  1 oz = 28 grams,  1 oz = 30 ml,  3 oz = 1/2 cup

Now, let’s explore more about each portion on your plate.

Vegetables: Vegetables are an important part of healthy meal. It can be as delicious fresh salad or cooked vegetables. with cooked vegetables, it doesn’t mean you just have to eat boiled veggies, with right choice you can have beautifully caramelized glazing vegetables, delicious salad too. So, no need to be sad if eating more vegetables idea made you little less excited previously.

But you must make sure that in the vegetable portion you should only choose Non-starchy vegetables such as: broccoli, carrots, spinach, green beans etc.

Theses vegetable will balance your meals by adding fiber, vitamins and minerals, you normally miss when not eating healthy food. Eating fresh non-starchy vegetables helps you control your blood sugar levels significantly.

So, fill your 1/2 half plate with non-starchy vegetables as shown above. But remember, you should not fill your half plate with just a single vegetable only. Try 2 – 3 vegetables combination to make it healthy as well as interesting. For this, you can create a beautiful salad or cook mix vegetables too.

Macronutrients and Calories per serving:

Carbohydrates : 5 gm, Protein : up to 2 gm and 25 Calories.

Protein: Protein is an essential food nutrient for our body. It helps keeping it in good shape and repairs any damage to our body cells. So, 1/4th portion of your plate must be full of protein rich food.

For this, you can use meat, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts, tofu etc. But remember some meats and poultry can have huge amount of body fat with them which is not good at all especially if you have heart problems, overweight or obesity. So, it’s better to choose lean meats for the portion with less fat in cooking. You can choose different cooking methods such as boiled, broiled and baked to cut on fats in the food.

However, if you are vegetarian or prefer vegan diet, you can eat following options such as lentils, black beans, soybean, edamame (green young soybean), green peas, artichokes, spinach, black eyed peas, broccoli, asparagus, green beans, chickpeas are great source of protein.

Macronutrients and Calories per serving:

Carbohydrates : 0 gm, Protein : 7 gm, Fat :  upto 3 gm and 45 Calories.

Bread, Grains, Starchy Vegetables

Next 1/4th portion should contain grains which includes breads too and starchy vegetables. This portion helps you obtain fiber, vitamin and minerals as well. Rice, noodles, pasta, cereal, whole wheat breads, chapattis, tortillas fulfill grains portion. If you like having potato, sweet potato, corn, yams, you can add these in this portion too.

Macronutrients and Calories per serving:

Carbohydrates : 15 gm, Protein : upto 3 gm, Fat :  upto 1 gm and 80 Calories.

Fruits: Fruits are great source of carbohydrates, fiber, vitamin and minerals. And most ripe fruits contain a lot of sugar and starch. So fruits are very important in our healthy meal. But to maintain blood glucose levels in diabetes, we should have eat controlled serving of fruits. By controlled serving means, a small fruit of its size such as small apple, small banana, small orange etc. For plating fruits, use the bowl or the cup and fill it only half. So, it’s a half cup of fruits.

Eating whole fruit is much better than drinking only the juice of it. Because whole fruit will make you feel full easily as it has fiber as well rather than only juice. For example: eat a small orange rather than orange juice.

You can eat some non starchy fruits a little more but a little means only a little, such as berries, watermelon, pineapple etc.

Macronutrients and Calories per serving:

Carbohydrates : 15 gm, Protein : 0 gm, Fat :  0 gm and 60 Calories.

Dairy: Dairy is an important portion as well. it contains protein, vitamins and minerals which are essential for our body. The other cup or bowl can be used for dairy option for the meal.

Fill 1/2 cup of milk or yogurt for this section. It is imperative to use fat free milk, 1% milk and lite yogurt to cut on fat, especially if you are overweight.

Do not use added sugar in the milk or yogurt. Milk and yogurt have plenty of natural sugars already in them.

However, if you can’t drink milk due to lactose intolerance, ask your doctor or dietitian for a good substitute. Because, milk contains essential calcium and other minerals for our body and must be obtained through other food sources to prevent deficiency.

Macronutrients and Calories per serving:

Carbohydrates : 12 gm, Protein : 8 gm, Fat :  upto 3 gm and 100 Calories.

Now, there are a few points, you should always keep in mind for better digestion and health benefits.

So, that’s how you should follow this healthy eating plate method. Please, consult with your doctor or dietitian first for better results, based on your health condition. Do you like the article? Have any questions or thoughts? Feel free to drop a comment & let us know!