THE CHALLENGE
All fats, good and bad, represent a very concentrated source of calories—approximately 100 to 125 calories per tablespoon. That doesn’t mean you should avoid the good fats. The main reason fats and oils occupy such a small rung of the Beat Diabetes Pyramid is not their calorie count; it’s because in general, fats and oils represent a smaller portion of the overall diet than other foods. Their primary role is really to flavor foods and enhance their appeal.
Fat is crucial to the functioning of the body—especially for skin, hair, blood and brain—and, as you remember from Chapter 1, it offers substantive benefits for weight loss and for beating diabetes. So we must take in fats; in fact, certain fatty acids are labeled essential because they are not made by the body and must therefore be obtained through food.
The challenge, therefore, is to balance your intake of fats so you get enough of the weight loss and diabetes-fighting benefits while avoiding a calorie intake that could jeopardize those very benefits.
Fortunately, by following the guidelines of the Beat Diabetes Pyramid, you should be able easily to achieve the right balance.
How? Guideline 1
Note the team players in the fats and oils rung of the Pyramid:
Canola, flax and olive oils
All nuts and seeds and their butters and oils
Olives
Avocado
All of these contain good fats. Basically, we’re talking about oils for cooking and for use in dressings and dips; about snack foods—nuts, seeds, olives; and about the basis of guacamole, avocado, also a salad food.
* * *
A NUTTY REPLACEMENT
A transatlantic study on almonds and cholesterol found not only that almonds helped maintain a healthy cholesterol level without weight gain but also that study participants found the nuts sufficiently filling that they used them to replace other foods. Over a period of ten weeks, study participants neither gained weight nor increased their body fat—nor did they increase the amount of food they were eating.
In addition, levels of vitamin E and magnesium were up in the study participants, a direct effect of the intake of almonds.
* * *
How Much? Guideline 2
The fact is that as a general rule, we usually don’t eat a huge volume of fat or oil. In that respect, the foods on the fats and oils rung are typical; none of them represents anything like high-volume eating. We might use a tablespoon or two of the oils at any one time, munch a handful of nuts, seeds or olives and enjoy avocado as an appetizer, side dish or light lunch. But that’s about it. The amount of these fats we take in tends to be basically modest relative to other food groups.
And that’s pretty much all that’s needed to get the benefits of the Beat Diabetes fats and oils. A good amount of omega-3s per day, for example, would be from 1 to 3 grams—especially if you have or are at risk for high blood pressure or high triglycerides. Where can you find 3 grams of omega-3s? A single tablespoon of flaxseeds provides just that amount; sprinkle it on a salad, fruit or pretty much anything else. One tablespoon of flax oil, by contrast, contains 7 grams of omega-3s, so a single teaspoon of flax oil on your salad would do the trick.
In fact, try this quick and easy recipe for sesame-flax dressing—worthy of a Good Fat award.
SESAME-FLAX DRESSING
1. Put the ingredients together in a jar.
2. Refrigerate, then shake again before using.
The recipe makes ten 2-tablespoon servings at 90 calories per serving.
¼ cup toasted sesame oil
¼ cup flax oil
¼ cup vinegar
¼ cup water
¼ cup prepared mustard
2 packets of Splenda
¼–½ teaspoon salt
Pepper to taste.
Don’t forget that every tablespoon of oil, no matter what kind, costs 100 to 125 calories. So while you might be using olive oil, for example, to replace a bad fat, the fact that it is a good fat should not be license to slather it extravagantly over everything.
* * *
OLIVE OIL PREMIUM
It’s called squalene, and a study has shown that it lowers LDL cholesterol. Patients participating in the study took squalene supplements for five months and enjoyed a 22 percent decline in their LDL cholesterol count. But olive oil contains squalene naturally, so just by substituting it for butter, you may be lowering your bad cholesterol.
Another study suggests that extra-virgin olive oil may even go one step further than refined olive oil, protecting against LDL cholesterol oxidation.
This cholesterol-lowering power makes olive oil a highly rewarding good fat.
* * *
How to split the difference? Follow the mantra used throughout this book: let your appetite and sense of satiety be your guide. Where the oils for cooking are concerned, use the amount you need to enhance the flavor of other foods on the Pyramid; in a salad or dressing, use enough to satisfy your taste. Enjoy that handful of nuts, seeds or olives, and if one avocado half isn’t enough, by all means have the other.
Here’s the bottom line: an eating plan that contains fairly liberal amounts of the good fats but is restricted in refined carbohydrates is good for both diabetes control and weight loss. The Beat Diabetes Pyramid is such an eating plan, so where the good fats are concerned, be a liberal, not a conservative.
DIPS AND DRESSINGS
Here are examples of appetizer dips, salad dressings and side dishes, lined up as bad fats versus good. Check out the calorie differences in these particular dips and dressings—with no sacrifice of taste.
Bad Fats
Good Fats
So the first guideline for making sure you get the benefits of needed fats and oils without the high-calorie impact is to use these foods as replacements for others. In other words, sauté your vegetables with canola oil, not butter. Snack on nuts and olives rather than cheese and crackers. Toss some slices of avocado in your salad along with other ingredients to get the benefits of good fats along with the vegetable benefits—and maybe save some calories by using a light or reduced-fat dressing.
GOOD FAT/BAD FAT
Here’s the good fat vs. bad fat story in a nutshell—to be specific, a peanut shell:
On the left, 2 tablespoons of butter. It’s not a huge amount, yet the butter contains 220 calories and 24 grams of fat—indicated as 5 pats of butter. And butter is mainly saturated fat; it raises your cholesterol and has no redeeming health benefits.
On the right, an equivalent amount of peanut butter: 2 tablespoons. The peanut butter contains fewer calories (190) and less fat (16 grams, represented as 3 teaspoons of oil) than the butter. But this fat is mainly monounsaturated, so it may actually lower your cholesterol. Moreover, it contains such vitamin and mineral nutrients as vitamin E, niacin, phosphorus and magnesium.
End of story.
2 tablespoons butter
220 calories
24 grams fat
5 pats butter
vs.
2 tablespoons peanut butter
190 calories
16 grams fat
3 teaspoons oil
CHAPTER 8
Sweets
On most food pyramids, the peak rung comes with what amounts to a warning sign: eat very little of these foods! That’s why the top rung is so small. Proportionately, you’re supposed to have only a small taste.
Not on the Beat Diabetes Pyramid. The sweets that made it onto the top rung here—fruit, no-added-sugar frozen fudge pops and ice pops, many no-added-sugar candies, other sugar-free desserts, even chocolate—all qualify as fighters for weight loss and against diabetes, and you can eat generous amounts of them.
In fact, the only reason these foods occupy such a small rung is that sweets tend to be a small part of eating in general. After all, the word dessert comes from a French verb meaning “to clear away the dishes,” and sweets are indeed the incidental food—an elegant final flourish after the meal or a quick taste you crav
e in an afternoon snack. These aren’t foods that take up a large space on the plate or carry out a large role in any eating plan.
But there’s no denying that the so-called sweet tooth is a universal human characteristic. From time to time, everyone craves the rich pleasures of sweet tastes, and it would be foolish—and ineffectual—to deny that appetite or set limits on it.
And as the sweets at the top of the Beat Diabetes Pyramid prove, you don’t have to. Like all the foods on the Pyramid, the sweets at the top are there for good reasons, should be eaten and should be enjoyed generously.
To many people, of course, the idea that diabetics or those trying to prevent diabetes should eat sweets sounds not just weird but downright heretical. After all, these people ask, aren’t sweets the very first group of foods diabetics are told to abandon? Not these sweets. There are sweets on the Beat Diabetes Pyramid that literally fight diabetes and its complications and help weight loss. Others are there because they offer the promise of sweetness without some of the burdens that some sweet foods do indeed carry: bad fats, for example, or refined carbohydrates. The latter therefore satisfy the sweet tooth that every human has but do so in a completely neutral way. That’s why they play an important role in any overall eating plan.
Let’s take the sweets one at a time.
FRUITS
Like vegetables, fruits present a wide-ranging and multicolored variety of tastes and textures. And, like vegetables, to those seeking to lose weight and prevent or manage diabetes, they offer the powerful pluses of fiber and phytonutrients with a low calorie content.
What often makes people hesitate about fruit is that it contains sugar. And it is true enough that the sugar it contains is no different from the sugar in the richest-tasting candy bar or the most elaborate pastry. After all, sugar is sugar.
But the amount of sugar in fruit is far less than the amount in even a small portion of candy or pastry, as you’ll see in the demonstrations that follow. And whereas the candy and pastry are made with refined carbohydrates and thus lack any nutritional value, the fruit is packed with the phytonutrients and fiber that help you lose weight and fight diabetes.
* * *
NO “GOOD” OR “BAD” FRUIT
Remember back in Chapter 4 when we talked about glycemic index and glycemic load vis-à-vis vegetables? You’ll recall that the index measures how quickly the sugars in food enter the bloodstream, and that glycemic load refines that measure by factoring in the amount of carbohydrates in an average serving of the food. We concluded that what really makes sense is to take into consideration all the factors in the diet and thereby look at overall glycemic impact. The same is true of fruits.
For example, the glycemic index of watermelon is 72, a high measure that might put you off eating it. Its glycemic load is 4, which is low and would encourage you to eat it. But in addition, nutrients in the rest of the meal you’ve eaten or in the diet as a whole need to be taken into consideration to get a sense of overall impact. For example, healthy protein, fiber and good fats all influence the rate of sugar entry into the blood. Bottom line: if you’re eating the Pyramid way, which is high in protein and fiber, no food—and that means watermelon and all other fruits—should be considered off-limits.
* * *
There’s another consideration as well. As small incidental snacks, candies tend to be consumed almost mindlessly; they thus tempt us to eat more—more, certainly, than is shown in the demonstration. Eating more and more of these sugar-filled, nutrition-free items eventually mitigates against weight loss and diabetes prevention, while the fruit, with fiber, phytonutrients and a low calorie count, advances both those goals.
WHICH SNACK?
We’ve paired relatively small candy servings—and in one case a tart—with pretty good-sized servings of fruit. The calorie differences speak for themselves. That’s true whether the fruit is raw, like the cherries, banana and cantaloupe, or cooked, as in the baked apple.
Bottom line? The sugar in fruit is great for satisfying your sweet craving without adding the calories that stymie weight loss and the fight against diabetes. In fact, the fiber and phytonutrients you’ll take in with these fruit snacks will help you achieve both aims—weight loss and diabetes prevention or management.
And don’t forget to check out the recipe for Tutti-Frutti Baked Apples.
3 sticks red licorice
120 calories
vs.
1 cup cherries
50 calories
2 ounces gummy bears
200 calories
vs.
banana
100 calories
1½ ounces jelly beans
150 calories
vs.
½ cantaloupe
60 calories
apple tart
390 calories
vs.
Tutti-Frutti Baked Apple
130 calories
SWEETS ON A STICK
No one is claiming that no-sugar-added frozen fudge pops, ice pops or fruit-and-cream pops contain any particular nutrients that will help you battle diabetes and lose weight. It’s what these sweets don’t contain that make them such important building blocks of the Beat Diabetes Pyramid: they don’t have sugar, and they don’t have fat.
And then, of course, they do contain one exceptionally important ingredient for any eating plan: their taste.
That makes these particular sweets extremely important in an overall eating plan aimed at weight loss and diabetes prevention or management: they satisfy that universal human sweet tooth without adding to either your waistline or your risk of this killer disease. Bottom line? These no-added-sugar frozen treats can be enjoyed anytime, for any reason, in any quantity.
Really? Really. Our nutritionist is adamant on this point. To those who object to buying these treats because they come in packages of a dozen and they’re afraid they’ll eat “more than one,” she responds: “Feel free!” In fact, she says, even if you are diabetic, you can eat as many as you need to feel satisfied and still be ahead in the fight for weight loss and against diabetes. Those who indulge freely in these low-calorie treats tend to eat less of their high-calorie counterparts over time.
As you can see in the photograph, there is a very substantial range of these products. And if you still doubt that you can enjoy these products in an eating plan that advances weight loss and fights diabetes, check out the following food demonstrations.
GENEROUS SERVING
Remember we said that the sweets on the top rung of the Beat Diabetes Pyramid should be eaten generously? Here’s an example:
Between a bare mouthful of chocolate taste or one, two, three, even four Tofutti Chocolate Fudge Treats for the same calorie count, you can afford to be generous.
Rounded tablespoon rich chocolate ice cream
120 calories
=
4 Tofutti Chocolate Fudge Treats
120 calories
NO-ADDED-SUGAR CANDIES
There are times when you just need a quick hit of something sweet, and there is no dearth of no-added-sugar candies to meet that need—lollipops, gummy bears, sourballs, jelly beans, candy canes…you name it. For the most part, the candies on the Beat Diabetes Pyramid are hard candies or chewy fruit candies; these are lower in fat and calories than the nuggets or cream candies.
As with all the foods on the Pyramid, the watchword about how much to eat is “till satisfied.” At least as far as weight loss and diabetes prevention are concerned, these candies are no exception. The sweeteners used in these candies are mostly sugar alcohols, which are both lower in calories than regular sugar and are much more slowly absorbed into the bloodstream. Bottom line: they simply don’t affect blood sugar levels in any appreciable way.
There is one caveat about eating a lot of these candies, however, and it’s often stated on the packaging: “excessive consumption may have a laxative effect.” So if you’re not used to eating these candies, go easy—at least at first.
&n
bsp; OTHER SUGAR-FREE DESSERTS: ONE CAUTION
When buying—or baking—such other sugar-free desserts as cakes, pies, cookies, tarts and the like, there’s one issue to keep in mind. Although the food may lack sugar, it may well contain refined carbohydrates in the form of flour, and it might also have a fair amount of bad fat—neither of which helps you lose weight or prevent or control diabetes, as the picture about sugar-free cookies makes clear.
One reason is that the human body processes flour and other starches much the same way it processes sugar. After all, refined carbohydrate is refined carbohydrate—and the result for weight control and diabetes prevention is equivalent.
So it’s important not to be taken in by the labeling; the “sugar-free” claim is true, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact, we sometimes refer to these foods as “saboteurs,” because in the guise of doing good things for weight loss and your health, they actually subvert those goals.
Beware!
STRAWBERRY DRAMA
Check out the representations of fat and sugar content along with the calorie counts in these strawberry desserts. They tell a pretty dramatic story.
Note that to eat the calorie count of the scoop of ice cream, you would have to eat twenty-two of the frozen pops.
Eat & Beat Diabetes with Picture Perfect Weight Loss Page 10
