David’s Diabetes Diet

The only grains I eat are barley and corn. The other grains, especially most varieties of rice and anything made from wheat flour – including almost all bread, crackers, cookies, and other pastries – are too high glycemic.

Nuts and seeds are also important in my diet. Almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, and hazelnuts are especially nutritious. Flax seeds, sesame seeds, and pumpkin seeds also offer a lot of the nutrients we need. Brazil nuts are the best source of selenium that we have, so good in fact that the “UC Berkeley Wellness Letter,” to which I subscribe, recommends eating no more that five a day. Walnuts and flax seeds are a good source of the essential Omega-3 fatty acids. Pumpkin seeds are high in zinc. And I remember to choose unsalted nuts when I shop.

I like to add a little fresh fruit or a few nuts to the yogurt that I often choose to lunch on. I make sure to shop only for plain, nonfat, organic yogurt. I sweeten it with a non-caloric sweetener.

My other favorite lunch is a salad of vegetables and beans. A salad has too many ingredients for me to prepare, so it is the usual meal that I have when I eat out. A large study in this month’s issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reported that people who eat salads have higher levels of vitamins C and E, folic acid, and carotenoids.

Eggs are a wonderful food too, especially if truly free range chickens produce them. I buy all my eggs from a local farmer’s market vendor, who I know I can trust. Michael Pollan has reported on the scam that goes by the name “free range”. I love my eggs poached or hard boiled.

I am not a vegetarian. For dinner I eat wild fatty fish – particularly salmon – about twice a week. That’s the recommended level, because no matter how good this fish is in providing Omega-3 fatty acids, it does also contain mercury. Besides salmon, I also eat canned sardines and herring, the two other most readily available fish that are high in Omega-3. I also eat ground bison, which is lower in saturated fat than beef, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

I cook all of these at low temperature in my oven on a cedar roasting plank. This is an easy, simple, and tasty way to cook.

I don’t fry anything any more. Too many AGEs.

Because I eat so little now that I am using Byetta, I make sure to get enough fiber. It’s generally better to get such nutrients from our food than from supplements, but few of us, myself included, can readily get enough fiber that way. So with each meal I take four psyllium husk caps.

At the time of my diabetes diagnosis the conventional wisdom was still that all fats were bad. Nobody woke me and the rest of the world up as much as Udo Erasmus did with his book, Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill.

In addition to the essential Omega-3 fats, for cooking the only oil I use is olive oil, which is high in monounsaturated fatty acids. I also eat avocados, which are also among the highest in this good fat. This fatty fruit is the basis of one of the three great appetizers.