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Hands down, healthy eating day after day is the most difficult and challenging part of living with diabetes. Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy, 4th edition, by Hope. S. Warshaw and published by the American Diabetes Association, reveals the how-to’s of changing habits for a healthy lifestyle for people at risk for, or with, prediabetes or type 2 diabetes—from the basics of what to eat to the practical skills of shopping, planning nutritious meals, and even eating healthy restaurant meals. Now in its fourth edition, this popular guide has over 100,000 copies in print.

Hope Warshaw

Recent research indicates that slowing the progression of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes by healthy eating and trimming pounds is step number one. Eating healthy helps people hit their blood glucose, blood pressure, and lipid goals and can reduce the chances of heart and blood vessel complications, the most common killer of people with diabetes.

Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy provides easy-to-follow explanations of how food and nutrition affect blood glucose, blood pressure, and lipid levels, coupled with easy-to-implement advice on making wise food choices at home and on the go. Ms. Warshaw reveals the secrets for sensible weight control and even includes a discussion on weight loss surgery.

Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy is packed with charts and tips, including a step-by-step approach to help you select your ideal daily calorie level based on gender, age, and physical activity; which foods are excellent sources of needed vitamins and minerals; tips on reducing sodium to manage blood pressure; and choosing the right kinds and amounts of healthy oils.

Ms. Warshaw also helps readers identify and solve their diabetes-related issues by presenting more than a dozen scenarios that profile individuals dealing with the common struggles on the road toward healthier eating habits.

From Chapter 11: Fruit and Blood Glucose Levels

People with diabetes often have questions about eating fruit: Will fruit juice raise my blood glucose levels more quickly than a piece of fruit? Should I avoid fruit in the morning because my blood glucose might be higher than at other times in the day? Is it better to eat fruit with meals rather than with snacks?

Determine the fruit that is best for you to eat after considering your nutrition and your blood glucose goals.

Here’s how to figure out whether it’s best to have fruit at meals or at snacks. Use glucose monitoring to answer your questions about how fruit works in your body. Eat the fruit and check your glucose level about 1 to 2 hours after you eat it.

Another important key is to eat the proper servings of fruit. It’s easy to drink a few extra ounces of fruit juice or to call a huge piece of fruit one serving when it is really two or more.

Selected How-to-Tips for Buying, Preparing, and Eating More Fruits

• Take advantage of the pre-cut, ready-to-eat fruit available in today’s supermarkets. This makes it easy to have fruit at the ready.
• Add berries to cereal, plain yogurt, or light sour cream or use them to top pancakes, waffles, ice cream, or frozen yogurt.
• Add slices of banana or peaches to cold cereal.
• Keep a plastic container full of cut-up fruit, so you can have some at breakfast or for a snack topped with plain or fruited fat-free yogurt (for more calcium).
• Take one or two pieces of fruit from home each day to eat with lunch, as an afternoon snack, or on your way home to take the edge off your hunger.
• Keep frozen fruit with no added sugar around. Blend it into a breakfast shake or smoothie or use as a topping for ice cream or frozen yogurt.
• Serve fruit with the main course—applesauce with pork chops or roast, pineapple with ham, homemade cranberry sauce with chicken.

Hope S. Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE, BC-ADM, is a nationally recognized and respected expert on healthy eating and meal planning with diabetes. She is the author of many books, including the recently published Real-Life Guide to Diabetes, American Diabetes Association Guide to Healthy Restaurant Eating, and the Diabetes Food and Nutrition Bible.  Hope is regularly quoted by online, print, radio and TV media outlets such as CNN, Washington Post, USA Today, TIME, Flare, SHAPE, and Health. Hope is also the recipient of the American Diabetes Association’s Outstanding Community Service in Reaching People award.

The Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy 4th edition is available at http://store.diabetes.org, at bookstores nationwide, or by calling 1-800-ADA-6733 (1-800-232-6733).