DIET
The diet of a diabetic patient does not need to be restrictive. The diet should instead be healthy, rich in nutrients, low in fat, low in calories, and alkaline in nature. A diet that facilitates diabetes reversal is the best eating plan for anyone.
In the modern diet, many items are taking a toll on health. To name a few…
Refined sugar: It has been proven over several studies that refined sugar causes insulin resistance and fatty liver. It has also been proven to have close links to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. So whether you have diabetes or not, if you want a healthy life, you should avoid refined sugar.
Refined grains: Some studies similar to the one by Dr. Barnard have proven that refined grain leads to rapid spikes in blood sugar, insulin resistance, and weight gain. It would be best if you avoided having refined grains as the first meal of your day.
Refined Oils: Refined oils are considered high in inflammatory Omega-6 fatty acids; these oils increase inflammation and oxidative damage. A healthy body decreases inflammation and reduces oxidative damage by avoiding refined oils.
Trans Fats: The last but not least on the list is trans fat. Trans fat is extremely harmful; artificial fats are found in processed foods and are linked to many serious diseases, especially heart disease. Trans fat also contributes to diabetes. By eliminating processed food and trans fat in your body, you will achieve better insulin sensitivity.
A low-fat plant-based diet, also known as Vegan Diet, profoundly impacts metabolic conditions like Diabetes. Clinical researchers like Barnard, associate professor of medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Director of Research at the Nutritional Research Foundation, have studied vegan diet for decades. And based on the studies they’ve conducted over the past few decades, there is conclusive proof that a vegan diet is three times more effective in controlling our blood sugar than other diets usually recommended for people with diabetes by doctors.
For those new to the vegan diet, it is a vegetarian diet that excludes animal products like meat, eggs, dairy, and other animal-derived ingredients. To understand why a vegan diet is so crucial in reversing diabetes, we first need to understand the cause of diabetes and what effect animal products have on our bodies.
We all know diabetes is a type of malfunction when our body cannot use the sugar formed due to digestion. Our blood sugar levels are dependent on the production of the hormone insulin from the pancreas. People who have type 2 diabetes are insulin resistant. Insulin helps in transporting glucose. The hormone binds to a receptor on the cell wall, opening a passage that allows glucose to enter the cell. The cell then metabolizes this glucose to use it as fuel to perform its various tasks.
Dietary causes of diabetes are :
(1) Fat interfering with hormones,
(2) Acidic and inflamed system and
(3) Lack of micronutrients [vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, antioxidants, nutraceuticals, etc.].
If you can fix your diet to remove these three irritants, you will see significant improvement in your blood sugar levels. Based on clinical studies by Dr. Neal Barnard, by adopting a low-fat vegetarian diet free of all animal products and added vegetable oils, individuals can lower their cholesterol, reduce their blood pressure, lose weight and attain better control over blood sugar. The reason is simple. A low-fat vegetarian diet (vegan diet without added vegetable oils) reduces the fat interfering with your hormones which will allow insulin that you naturally produce to bind correctly to the cell wall opening passage to allow for glucose to enter the cell. A vegan diet is also naturally abundant in vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Now, if you focus on specific vegetables, you can also reduce the acidity in your body, reducing the inflammation in your system while providing antioxidants and nutraceuticals.
We typically start the day with a cup of tea or coffee in the morning. Usually, that is the first thing we consume on an empty stomach. Unfortunately, everyone, including healthy individuals, builds up acidity overnight. Both tea and coffee are acidic, so we increase our acidity by consuming tea or coffee first thing in the morning. Instead, the first thing you should do to start your day is to reduce the acidity buildup overnight with a nutrient-dense green smoothie that will help alkalize your body. A recipe for this stunningly nutrient-dense alkalizing green smoothie can be found here.
