Nutrition

Can controlling your blood sugar and preventing diabetes complications be as simple as eating the right foods? Yes. Certain foods are packed with nutrients that stabilize blood sugar levels, protect your heart, and even save your vision from the damaging effects of diabetes. These 12 foods can give you an extra edge against diabetes and its complications.

1. Apples
In a Finnish study, men who ate the most apples and other foods high in quercetin had 20 percent less diabetes and heart disease deaths. Other good sources of quercetin are onions, tomatoes, leafy green vegetables, and berries.

2. Cinnamon
A study at the Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland, found that if you use ½ teaspoon of cinnamon daily, it can make cells more sensitive to insulin. Therefore, the study says, the cells convert blood sugar to energy.

After 40 days of taking various amount of cinnamon extract, diabetics experienced not only lower blood sugar spikes after eating, but major improvements in signs of heart health. And you can sprinkle cinnamon on just about anything.

3. Citrus Fruit
Studies show that people with diabetes tend to have lower levels of vitamin C in their bodies, so antioxidant-packed citrus fruit is a great snack choice. It may seem quicker to get your C from a pill, but since fruit is low in fat, high in fiber, and delivers lots of other healthy nutrients, it’s a better choice.

4. Cold-Water Fish
Heart disease strikes people with diabetes twice as often as it does people without the illness, according to the American Diabetes Association. Diets high in omega-3 fatty acids—the “good fat” in cold-water fish such as wild Alaskan salmon, sardines, and Atlantic mackerel—can help lower artery-clogging LDL cholesterol and triglycerides while raising levels of HDL (good) cholesterol.

5. Fiber-Rich Foods
A study at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that people who increased their fiber intake from 24 to 50 g daily had dramatic improvements in blood sugar levels. In fact, the high-fiber diet was as effective as some diabetes medications.

Rather than try to figure out exactly how much fiber is in different foods, focus on trying to get a total of 13 daily servings of a mixture of fruits, vegetables, beans, brown rice, and whole grain pastas, cereals, and breads.

6. Legumes
Legumes of all sorts—chickpeas, cannelloni beans, kidney beans, and lentils—are a great addition to soups, salads, and a variety of ethnic dishes. And this low-fat, low-calorie, high-fiber, high-protein food helps to reduce risk of diabetes and heart disease. The fiber slows the release of glucose into your bloodstream, which prevents the blood sugar spikes that worsen diabetes blood sugar control and make you feel hungry.

7. Green Tea
Studies show that chronic inflammation—caused by high-fat foods, lack of exercise, and eating too few fruits, vegetables, and good fats—can increase risk of hearts attacks and thwart the body’s ability to absorb blood sugar. A simple solution: Drink green tea and orange or cranberry juice. They’re all packed with flavonoids—powerful inflammation-fighters. Swap one in for one cup of coffee a day.

8. Nuts
Studies show that people who eat nuts regularly have lower rates of heart disease than people who don’t eat them. (People with diabetes are at increased risk of heart disease.) Even among the healthiest eaters, the ones who also eat nuts boast the best health record. Exactly why isn’t known yet, but one reason could be compounds called tocotrienols.

The key to eating nuts is not to eat too many; they’re so high in calories that you could easily see the aftermath pouring over your pants. Either measure 2 tablespoons of nuts, count how many it is, and limit yourself to that number, or keep a jar of chopped nuts on hand. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons a day on cereal, yogurt, veggies, salads, or wherever the flavor appeals to you.

9. Spinach, Kale, and Collard Greens
All of these green leafy vegetables are good sources of lutein, a carotenoid that’s good for the eyes. That’s especially important because people with diabetes may develop debilitating eye problems as complications of the disease. These foods are also great sources of fiber, B vitamins, iron, calcium, and vitamin C.

10. Chocolate
Researchers at Tufts University discovered that dark chocolate improves insulin sensitivity, a crucial improvement in preventing or treating type 2 diabetes. What’s more, dark—but not white—chocolate also produced a significant drop in blood pressure, reduced LDL (bad) cholesterol, and improved blood vessel function.

Just don’t overdo it. Dark chocolate is great for the occasional indulgence, but it still packs a lot of fat and calories.

11. Steak
There’s something in steak besides the protein, iron, and B vitamins that’s good for us. It’s a compound that’s part of beef’s fat profile called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). Doctors Michael Murray and Michael Lyon point out in their book Beat Diabetes Naturally that experiments have shown that CLA works to correct impaired blood sugar metabolism and also appears to have significant anti-cancer properties.

In the most recent research, scientists in Norway supplemented the diets of 180 people with a few grams of CLA and reported that they lost 9 percent of their body weight in one year. For a 200-pounder, that’s an 18-pound weight loss!

To get CLA from steak, choose meat from range-fed beef. Eating natural pasturage give these animals far more healthful CLA than the usual grain-rich diet. And keep portions to 3 or 4 ounces.

12. Vinegar
Two tablespoons of vinegar taken before a meal can help your blood sugar go down. A study at Arizona State University East tested three different groups of people to see what the results would be in healthy people, those with prediabetes (they had signs diabetes was developing), and confirmed diabetics. Before each of two meals a day, the subjects were given 2 tablespoons of ordinary vinegar.

The results: An hour after the vinegar treatment, the diabetics had blood sugar levels that were 25 percent lower than without vinegar. The prediabetics had an even better result: Their levels were lower by about half.

Mango unchained.

Look beyond apples and

Look beyond apples and oranges: Obese adults who ate about half a mango a day for 12 weeks saw a significant reduction in blood sugar levels, according to research presented at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

The results likely translate to normal-weight men, too, says study author Edralin Lucas, Ph.D. Mango’s power could lie in active compounds like plant polyphenols, which may inhibit the development of fat cells and reduce their size, says Lucas. The fruit is also high in fiber, reducing the absorption of sugar, she adds.

Though the study is preliminary—read: no reason to fill your fridge with mangos just yet—one sliced cup of the fruit only contains 100 calories, and is a healthy add-on to any diet. But your best bet to keep blood sugar in check? Exercise and a diet generally rich in all sorts of fruits and vegetables, says Lucas. In fact, people who ate produce-packed diets had a decreased diabetes risk and lower blood sugar levels than those who didn’t, according to a 2012 meta-analysis.

I just discovered Kelsey Ale, from the Grain-Free
Cookbook , and I’m stoked.  Check out one of my
favorite recipes so far (I asked her if I could share
this with you):

****

Decadent Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Brownies

By Yuri Elkaim, BPHE, CK, RHN

If you’re like most people, you’re intimately familiar with the midafternoon energy slump. While it’s tempting to turn to caffeine or sugar in hope of a quick energy burst, there are better ways to stay awake and productive.

But before we get to those, let’s look at 3 foods that drain your energy. And, in order to understand how these 3 foods rob your energy, you need to remember the following cardinal rules of energy:

1. Because digestion is such an energy-dependent process, any food or process that compromises your digestion will drain your energy.
2. Since your blood carries oxygen to your cells for energy production, any food or process that thickens” your blood or ruins the health of your oxygen-carrying red blood cells will rob your energy.
3. Your adrenal glands help you deal with stress. Any food or process that weakens your adrenal glands will impair your ability to cope with stress and lower your energy.

With those rules in mind, do your body a favour and limit your intake of the following 3 energy-sucking foods.

Energy Draining Food #1:
Wheat and Gluten

For the purposes of this article, we’ll consider gluten and wheat one in the same.
However, the distinction is that gluten is a protein found in many grains like wheat, barley, and rye. And it has now been linked to more than 190 auto-immune diseases…

…most notably celiac disease – a condition where the immune system attacks your small intestines.

Although only about 1% of the population is diagnosed with celiac, the reality is that the human body has NOT evolved to digest wheat/gluten properly.

This poses a big threat to your energy levels because any food that compromises your digestive and intestinal (where most of your nutrients are absorbed) is bound to suck your energy

Continued irritation of the small intestines (by eating grains, for example) can lead to “leaky gut” – a condition in which large food particles are able to pass into the bloodstream via ever-widening pores in the intestinal wall.

When this happens, your body identifies the undigested proteins in these food particles as a threat and mounts an immune response to neutralize them. This is how food sensitivities develop and how your immune system becomes overworked.

You see, grains were only introduced into the human diet during the agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago. However, considering that we’d been on the planet for roughly 3.5 millions years WITHOUT them, grain consumption only represents 0.004% of our evolutionary timeline.

This tiny fragment of time hasn’t given the human body enough time to evolve to digest grains efficiently. That’s just one reason that so many of us have issues digesting wheat and other gluten-containing grains.

The second reason that wheat is hard to digest is that it is – by definition – a seed. And the biological role of a seed is to propagate the species. That’s how plants continue to flourish. They spread their seeds, which eventually end up in the soil where they germinate into full-grown plants or trees, which in turn bear more fruits and seeds. And the cycle continues.

However…

In order to survive in harsh environments (like the human digestive tract), seeds contain built-in protective mechanisms. Wheat contains gluten, which attacks the human intestinal tract – making us less able to digest it.

Theoretically, this would allow the seed to pass through our body, into our stool, and back into the earth…allowing the wheat “species” to carry on.

We’ve now seen 2 substantial reasons why wheat/gluten is not fit for human consumption. In spite of all the claims by wheat-pushing lobbyists that we need its fiber for cardiovascular and intestinal health, I’ve never met a single person whose energy and health has not dramatically improved upon going wheat/gluten-free.

NOTE: if you want more fiber, there’s plenty to be had by eating more fruits, vegetables, and nuts. In fact, Paleolithic never ate grains and his reported fiber intake was between 100-150 grams per day by eating those aforementioned foods. Our current average intake 15 grams of fiber per day pales in comparison – even with all those grains in our food supply.

To recap…

Wheat robs your energy for a number of reasons, most notably because of its deleterious impact on human digestion and our eventual (and unwanted) immune reaction to it.

Oh… I didn’t even mention how grains (especially refined ones) wreak havoc on your blood sugar levels, which is a surefire way to drain your energy. But let’s discuss that in more detail as we cover the next energy-draining food…

Energy Draining Food #2 & #3:
Sugar (and Caffeine)

As you can see, I’ve coupled sugar and caffeine here – because they have almost identical effects on your energy levels – but we’ll still consider them energy-draining foods #2 and #3.

Let me explain…

The adrenal glands are your “fight or flight” organs – releasing cortisol and adrenaline during periods of stress.

Interestingly, these same hormones are secreted when STIMULANTS (like caffeine and sugar) enter your bloodstream.

When you become stressed (or ingest stimulants – sugar and/or caffeine), your adrenals start ramping up their activity. They release adrenaline and cortisol – two “catabolic” hormones, which break down your energy reserves for immediate use.

Remember, your body thinks it’s in a state where it needs to FIGHT or FLEE – so it needs that readily available energy.

Cortisol, when chronically present in your bloodstream, is a detrimental hormone leading to quick glycogen (stored carbohydrates) depletion, a rise in blood sugar, and eventually weight gain.

Adrenaline has similar energy-depleting effects. Initially, however, it gives you that feeling we often term the “rush”, as a result of an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and carbohydrate breakdown into blood sugar.

But that quick surge in energy is soon followed by a debilitating crash in which your body does its best to recover from the “stressful” situation, whether it be your morning coffee or a near fender-bender on your way to work.

Having these 2 hormones chronically circulating in your blood is not a desirable situation.

The other problem with having high levels of both cortisol and adrenaline is that since they breakdown your stored carbohydrates for energy, releasing glucose (sugar) into the blood for immediate use, your pancreas is then called into action and eventually into overproduction.

Your pancreas produces and secretes the hormone INSULIN to remove glucose out of the blood to be stored in your muscle, liver, and fat cells.

As blood sugar rises, so do your insulin levels. Over time, your body’s cells can become desensitized to too much insulin, leading to a condition you may have heard of called Type 2 Diabetes (insulin resistance).

But before that dreaded day, something more immediate happens that absolutely shatters your energy levels.

Since insulin removes excess sugar from your blood, high blood sugar levels lead to high levels of removal (via insulin), leading to low blood sugar (or hypoglycemia).

When your blood sugar crashes, all “normal” decision making is thrown out the window as all you can think about is “I need sugar. I need sugar.” This is when you start feeling jittery, anxious, and in desperate need of a quick sugar or caffeine fix.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, chronically high and low blood sugar levels also drain your adrenal glands – setting you up for all-day fatigue in the future.

Elevated blood sugar doesn’t just arise from adrenal stimulation either. Eating sugar (in its basic form) or refined carbohydrates (white bread, pastries, etc…) are TWO catalysts that skyrocket your blood sugar (and adrenal stress) almost immediately upon entering your mouth.

Chronic stimulation (ie. stress, sugar, coffee) of your adrenals wears them down and can eventually lead to adrenal fatigue. That’s one of the reasons many people feel “drained” almost instantly when dealing with stress. Their adrenals simply can’t handle it anymore.

Interestingly, sugar and salt cravings become more pronounced with adrenal fatigue as mineral deficiencies and “out of balance” hormones cause unwanted changes in your body.

As this happens, the health of your blood cells begins to weaken. Your oxygen-carrying red blood cells lose their integrity and begin to stick together instead of freely floating through your blood stream.

The result – you feel more lethargic. Heck, if your blood is sluggish, you will be too.

It’s amazing when you think about it…

Eating sugary foods and drinking caffeinated beverages – the very foods that you’ve been led to believe give you energy – on a daily basis are crippling you from the inside-out.

They are ROBBING YOU of energy because they are slowly and surely wearing away at your blood sugar levels, pancreas, adrenal glands, and most other systems in your body.

When the cells, organs, and sytems inside your body become sick and lethargic…
SO DO YOU.

Now that we’ve uncovered 3 energy-draining foods, are you ready to discover how to have MORE energy?