How Should the Diabetics Eat?

There are two types of diabetes, first diabetes type 1 which develops during childhood and diabetes type 2 which develops in adulthood. Factors which increase the predisposition to diabetes are, bad eating habits, infectious diseases, sedentary life and genetic predisposition.

It is crucial to make a correct eating plan to combat diabetes. Let's take a look at the core elements of meal planning for diabetics.

• It is extremely important that you don't skip meals. Each day, eat three main mails and three snacks, eat every 3 to 4 hours.
• Prefer whole wheat grains with bran.
• Do not use sugar and do not eat foods with basic sugar (honey, jam, cake, muffings, cookies, marmalade, foods with syrups).
• Do not drink packaged fruit juice. Do not prefer fruit juice since it will rapidly increase your blood sugar even though its fresh. Don't forget that when made into a puree, fruits and vegetables will increase your blood sugar rapidly.
• Prefer foods with fibres. For example, instead of rice pilav, eat bulgur pilav.
• It is stated that light physical activity in type 2 diabetics with glycemic control, decreases the risk elements of insuline resistance, enhances cardiac and vascular health. After consulting with your doctor, exercise lightly for 150 minutes per week, divide this duration into at least three days.
• Prefer foods with low glycemic index values. These are: bulgur, beans, lentils legumes, pasta, whole wheat flour, bread, apple, orange, milk and yoghurt.
• Instead of using artificial sweeteners, use dried fruits with your desserts.
• Eat fish at least twice per week. It will be beneficial for you to eat the fish grilled or cooked in an oven.
• Eat a dairy product with every snack. Especially, prefer homemade yoghurt, kefir and ayrans prepared with mineral water. Do not drink more than 2 bottles of mineral water in a day.
• Ensure that your daily sodium intake does not exceed 2 grams. Which means, dont eat more salt than 1 dessert spoon a day.
• Monitor your blood sugar levels. If your fasting glucose exceeds 100 and if your normal sugar exceeds 140, you might be doing something wrong, watch out for it.
• Drink a lot of liquids in acute ilness periods such as flu.
• In conducted studies, it is observed that uncontrolled diabetes is often associated with micro nutritient (vitamins and mineral) deficiencies. In this regard, I would like to remind you abou the importance of eating sufficiently and balanced.

Today we prepare you a recipe with semolina: Semolina Dessert with Mandarin. Click here to watch the preparation of this delicious meal.

Semolina Dessert with Mandarin is for 9 people. Preparation duration is 5 minutes and cooking duration is 50 minutes. It has a durability rating of 3 stars.

Benefits of the Ingredients of Semolina Dessert with Mandarin

Mandarin which is a core ingredient of our recipe, is a fruit quite rich in Vitamin C, potassium, calcium, magnesium and flavonoids.

• Mandarin enhances immune system with its rich Vitamin C contents.
• Citrus fruits, including mandarin, are quite rich in soluble pulps. Soluble puls creates a gel in your digestive systems. This gel absorbs water to soften the contents of your intestines and potentially, enhances bowel movements.
• Mandarin which is quite rich in citric acid, decreases the creation of kidney stones.
• Mandarin, with its structure rich in Vitamin C, increases collagene synthesis and expedites wound healing.
• Mandarin contains magnesium and calcium alongside with potassium. Bone structure of the people who have sufficient levels of these minerals, are stronger.
• Mandarin is quite rich in healthy vegetable contents such as flavonoids.  Flavonoids supresses the genes which causes the growth of cancer cells and provides protection by eliminating components that promoto cancer.

Vanilla which is one of the ingredients of the recipe, is more beneficial than its thought to be.

• Some components of the vanilla extracts have antioxidant features. Therefore, vanilla helps protect our cells agains the cellular damage caused by emotional and environmental strees factors.
• Some studies suggest that some components of vanilla including vanillin and vanillic acid, enhance brain health.
• Vanillic acid of the vanilla, protects neural cells from infections reactions and therefore, decreases the risk of Alzheimer's disease, enhances memory.
• Using vanilla extract in foods and beverages may decrease your intake of additional sugar.
• It is stated that vanillin of the vanilla has protective features against cancer. 
• Another positive effect of vanillin is that it improves the symptoms of psora.

Semolina which is an important ingredient of our recipe, is quite rich in protein, thymine, folic acid and pulp.

• Semolina, with its structure rich in protein and pulp, slows down the digestion and increases the feeling of fulness between meals.
• Semolina with its structure rch in thiamine, in other words Vitamin B1 and folate, in other words folic acid, supports the energy metabolism and helps transform the food in our body into energy.
• Semolina is a good source of magnesium and pulp. Therefore it may balance the blood sugar levels and decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes.
• High pulp contents of the semolina, stimulates the growth of beneficial bacteria and supports the bowel movements, thus enhances the digestive system.

Let's take a look at the nutritional values of Semolina Dessert with Mandarin recipe

When you consume Semolina Dessert with Mandarin, you meet:

• 81% of your daily carbohydrate requirement
• 7% of your daily protein requirement
• 12% of your daily fat requirement.

If you eat our semolina dessert with mandarin recipe with a cup of milk coffee, it will increase your blood sugar slowly.

If you are a diabetic, you can prepare our recipe by using persimmon instead of sugar. For that, place 8 big persimmon into a cup. Add water to submerge them, cook them until they absorb the water. When they start to cool down after you take them from the stowe, peel them remove their seeds and thinly slice them with a knife. Instead of the sugar in our recipe, use these persimmons. Eat the semolina dessert with mandarin which you prepare without sugar, with a glass of milk.

Dr. Tuba Gunebak
Nutrition and Dietetics Specialist