If you have a condition like diabetes, planning your meals takes on a new importance. It’s not just about what tastes good, but about what will be best for your blood sugar. You may be wondering how organic foods can fit into a diabetes-friendly diet, so here’s what to consider.
There are two aspects to this. There’s the role of diet in preventing diabetes (particularly type 2) from developing, especially if you’re already at risk. Then there’s what you eat after you’re diagnosed to try to manage your condition and any symptoms.
Research has been carried out that suggests exposure to pesticides may be a risk factor in developing diabetes (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29374457/). Organic food is produced without any use of pesticides, so it’s an excellent way to reduce the chances of these chemicals ending up in your system. That’s one way that adding organic food to your diet may help not just manage diabetes, but reduce the likelihood of it developing in the first place (https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-020-01038-y).
If you do develop diabetes, you’re going to have to think more about what you eat. Many of the same rules apply to people with diabetes as those without it. You still need fruit and vegetables full of vitamins and minerals. You still need protein for growth and healing. You still need some carbs to give you energy. These kinds of food can all come in organic versions.
A balanced diet also means avoiding certain things, like too much alcohol or red meat. Where diabetics need to be particularly careful, however, is with carbs. These can cause the glucose in your blood to increase much too quickly, which is clearly a problem if you’re diabetic. One way to reduce this risk is to focus on whole grain starches (which can also be organic). Products like bread, pasta and rice can be white, brown or whole grain, and the healthiest option is the brown or whole grain one. They have more fiber, and they’ll release glucose more slowly so your blood sugar is less likely to spike.
If you want more control over your diet to ensure you’re only receiving the nutrients you want, we generally recommend cooking more from scratch than purchasing ready meals. Another option is to buy organic food because you can be a lot more sure about what’s in it and how it’s made.
