Obesity and Diabetes Mellitus
Although the first mention of diabetes in human history happens to be almost 4000 years old, however, treatment for diabetes was not available for the major portion of this timeline. The real treatment for diabetes, as we know it today, was found less than 100 years back, and even then it took a few more decades for it to become mainstream.
Although today insulin treatment is available to one and all, and although external insulin doses have saved millions of diabetic patients during the past 75 years, it is not sufficient to reverse the disease or to get rid of it permanently. For that, we need lifestyle changes, and for that, we need to make different food choices.
The following pages try to answer a couple of questions related to the diet choices for people who want to have better blood glucose control or for the people who want to get rid of Type 2 Diabetes or obesity.
Are cucumbers OK for diabetics?
Cucumbers are one of the most refreshing and juiciest gift of nature to humankind. This lovely member of the gourd family is extremely popular in most countries, as well as in India, especially during the summer months, and that is because cucumber is mostly water.
That’s right, 96% weight of cucumber comes from water content. And that’s why they are extremely low in calories. A cucumber weighing 300 grams hits your body with no more than 45 calories.
Because of their excellent taste, they make a great munchable salad vegetable, and although cucumbers appeared to be sweeter in taste, they are low in carbohydrates, so they are not at all dangerous for diabetic or obese people.
Finally, they also contain some amount of beta carotene, vitamin K potassium, folate, zinc, magnesium, and choline. Although their quantities are minuscule, they are at least there. Something better than nothing sort of thing.
Besides, they are very reasonably priced for the better part of the year.
Goes without saying, they are totally safe for someone suffering from Type 1 Diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes or Gestational diabetes.
Snacks for diabetics
In fact, speaking on a personal note, apart from normal consumption, I often employ cucumbers in three very special situations: first, if I am in some place where potable water is not available then I’d rather try to munch on cucumbers, given that they’re 96% water.
The second situation arises when due to some social pressure, I am forced to consume some sweets or junk food, then I try to munch a couple of cucumbers before or after eating that junk food and this little tweak helps me avoid at least some pitfalls arising out of that junk food consumption.
And third when I feel like having a snack, or feel like munching something, just for the sake of chewing something. Often while working on some monotonous job on the computer, I am slightly bored and feel the urge to chew something. I do so only to keep the mind occupied, as I have no need of extra calories. Cucumbers provide that relief to me.
And I guess I am not alone in this game; there are many who like to munch on carrots or celery sticks. American neuroscientist Andrew Huberman says he likes to munch on celery sticks.
My go-to choice is cucumbers. They satisfy my chewing cravings and it goes without saying, they come without the risks that are associated with other junk food that we often employ for fulfilling that urge.
Cucumbers don’t contain a lot of fiber (a quarter kilo of them supplies about 2 grams of dietary fiber), yet it is meaningful. Besides, consuming them fills your stomach, so you are left with lesser space for junk food or some other calorie-dense foodstuff, which may be significant for those who are willing to lose weight.
Can diabetics eat tomatoes?
One of the most astonishing facts about Indian cuisine is that nobody ate tomatoes in India almost 600 years back. Tomato was not grown in India prior to that and it was essentially a colonial gift.
The word tomato has its origins in a Mexican dialect, and it is pronounced as tometi which simply means “swollen fruit” or “fat water” or “fat thing”. Yet another direct uses the similar word where it means “plump thing with navel” or “fat water with navel”.
Tomatoes were introduced to India by Portuguese explorers, and it is said that one of these meeting grounds was Bengal, where the Portuguese had a Colony in the port city of Bandel. Another was, of course, Goa.
When it was introduced in Bengal, people were surprised to see this new vegetable, and its size, shape and taste. And because it resembled the eggplant, even today many people in Bengal call it “Vilayati baingan”, which simply translates as imported or “foreign eggplant”.
Since then tomatoes have colonized entire India, and today there is hardly an Indian kitchen where it doesn’t rule the roost. If today India is known for its curries, then most curries are known for their tomato content.
Beyond curries, tomatoes are also a major part of most salads. And although in our country we don’t have a super big tradition of tomato soup, however, we compensate for that by smashing a couple of them in virtually every dal, curry, and vegetable.
And this has profound benefits for our health because tomatoes are one of the best sources of lycopene.
In addition to that, they are also rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, and potassium. Besides, in spite of being great in taste, they are low in carbohydrates. They are also full of water and hence they are not fed with too many calories and that’s why they make a great choice for people with diabetes.
The good thing is that they don’t lose many nutrients even when cooked.
All these nutrients make tomatoes a great vegetable for human beings. They not only provide great nutrition but also help us avoid certain health risks.
In fact, lycopene has been found to be helpful even in cancer treatment.
According to William Li, the author of EAT TO BEAT DISEASE: “More than thirty studies have shown the protective effect of tomato consumption on prostate cancer. The Harvard Health Professionals Follow-Up Study examined 46,719 men for lycopene intake and found that consuming two to three cups of tomato sauce per week is associated with a 30 percent decreased risk of prostate cancer, which is consistent with the antiangiogenic effect of lycopene on cancer. In the men who did develop prostate cancer, those who ate more tomato sauce were found to have less angiogenic and less aggressive cancers.”
He also advises consuming different varieties for a better nutritional mix.
“More than one thousand cultivars of tomatoes exist, and the amount of lycopene in each varies greatly.”
Which Indian vegetables are good for diabetes?
Most Indian vegetables are good for diabetes. My personal favourites are cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli. Not only do these vegetables provide extremely important anti-aging molecules like Sulforaphane, but they are also extremely rich in fiber.
Fiber supports gut health and that results in an improved immune system.
According to Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, the author of New York Times bestseller Fiber Fuelled… 70 percent of the immune system lives in the gut, separated from our microbiota by a single layer of cells that is a fraction of the diameter of a hair and undetectable by the human eye. That’s why a healthy gut microbiota translates into an empowered, strong immune system and that’s why you can’t separate one from another. If you hurt one, you will hurt the other.
As can be understood most Indian vegetables support a health gut.
Tomato good for diabetes?
To be honest tomatoes do contain some amount of fructose, the reason why they appear so sweet. However if some diabetic patient consumes them in moderation, then there should not be much of an issue. The caveat here is the condition of the diabetic person or the obese person, and the quantity of tomatoes. If someone with random blood glucose of 350 wants to consume a large quantity of tomatoes, the red flags may be raised. However a small quantity consumed by someone who is borderline diabetic should not be troublesome.
We must also weigh in the pros and cons. Tomatoes do bring in a lot of nutrition to the table, so they cannot be chucked out so easily simply because they have a little sugar.
Although lemons and amla are famous for vitamin C but tomatoes are also champion vitamin providers. Just a hundred grams of them provides 22% of RDA. And then we have the benefit of potassium, a mineral that an average adult needs to the tune of 4700 mg, and most people fail to get sufficient amount.
The beauty of tomatoes is that they can very easily be assimilated in any recipe. In fact most recipes are incomplete without them. And what makes this gold shine even more is that tomatoes keep most of their nutrients even when cooked. In fact cooking them seems to improve the bioavailability of carotenoids like lycopene and lutein.
Foods that lower blood sugar
The first mention of Diabetes is almost 4000 years old, whereas its most substantial treatment has been found about 75 years back. Goes without saying, during the rest of the time, physicians and shamans have tried a whole lot of natural food products to treat diabetes. As a result there is a long list of such food products.
Karela or bitter gourd is extremely popular as a blood sugar-countering vegetable. It is top contender in the list of “foods that lower blood sugar”.
The other listings are: Lauki or Ash gourd and Methi seeds or fenugreek seeds.
This is the reason why nowadays Ash gourd juice can generally be found outside the corners of popular jogger parks in many cities.
Similarly Methi seeds are also believed to counter rising blood glucose levels. Some people crush fenugreek seeds and take a spoonful right in the morning on an empty stomach, whereas many people soak them in water overnight and then drink that bitter water first thing in the morning.
High blood sugar: counter it with bitter vegetables
Methi leaves (fenugreek greens) and gwar fali (cluster beans) are also believed to have diabetes-friendly elements, given that both have some bitter taste in their constitution.
Among the berries, amla (Indian gooseberry) and Jamun are extremely popular among the Indian diabetes patients’ community.
In addition to these, leafy green vegetables also score very high on the suitability chart for Indian diabetic patients, and luckily there is a wide variety to choose from.
While on one hand leafy vegetables like Methi leaves and Palak or spinach and dozens of local varieties of leafy green vegetables are available throughout the year, on the other we have stuff like mustard greens, radish greens, beet greens, chawli (amaranth greens), bathua or “cheel bhaji” (lamb’s quarter), and ambati (Indian sorrel) available according to seasonal patterns.
This list is by no means complete. There are hundreds of local and regional vegetable varieties that are beyond the scope of the limited space here.
Goes without saying, the inclusion of these vegetables on a daily basis is definitely likely to contribute to much better blood glucose management in a person suffering from Type 1 Diabetes or type 2 diabetes, or gestational Diabetes.
Is bitter gourd good for diabetes patients?
Although in our country there are thousands of websites and millions of “experts” who keep talking about the benefits of Karela or bitter gourd (Momordica charantia) on diabetes, however, there are not many clinical studies to substantiate this claim.
It is described as a versatile plant worthy of treating almost any disease inflicted on mankind.
According to a research report on Karela…More than 1 000 herbal products have been used by diverse cultures of the world to treat hyperglycemia and among them bitter melon (M. charantia) is one of the most popular herbal resource.
Consequently, there are lots of people who keep recommending it to lower blood glucose levels, but again there are not sufficient scientific studies to back up these claims.
There are many websites that claim that consuming a glass of karela juice is sufficient to make diabetes patients reduce the dosage of their medicines, but again these are not backed by any data.
The most common theory behind all such claims is rather simplistic in nature. The people who tom-tom the benefits of Karela or bitter melon think that its bitterness will somehow neutralize the sugar floating in the bloodstream, however, the mechanisms inside the body are not that simplistic.
So the thinking goes that if you consume some cupcakes or doughnuts or a gulab jamun, and back it up with Karela, the bitterness of the Karela will simply neutralize the sweetness of the sweets or cupcakes doughnuts. However, anybody who understands human biology and physiology knows that if sugar molecules inside the body could be sequestered that simplistically then nobody will be obese in this world.
Having said that, it must be mentioned that Karela should definitely be consumed because it’s a fantastic vegetable. The plant possesses over 225 different medicinal constituents. These different compounds may act either separately or together to exert their medicinal effects. Due to these properties some scientists think it is one of the most promising plants for diabetes today. However, the jury is still out.
On a personal note, I love this bitter vegetable. I grew up in a household where it was a common recipe. One was onion Karela sabzi. Another was Khatta Meetha Karela, which literally means sweet and sour bitter gourd, where karela was cooked in a curry of raw mango, tamarind paste, and even jaggery. Then there was a most special recipe of bharwan karela or stuffed bitter gourd. In this bitter gourd was slit along its length, deseeded, and then stuffed with garnished onions. It was special because my mom wrapped it with cotton thread to prevent the filling from tumbling out. And the use of thread was totally exclusive to this recipe.
I continue to eat it even today, but every time I eat it I eat it for its taste, and not because it is going to turn the glucose molecules floating in my body into water.
And I believe such an expectation would be disappointing in the end.
Exercise is essential for good health. But we can’t exercise our way out of the obesity epidemic.
Laurie David
