If you ask a doctor whether a diabetic can eat processed food, you may end up confusing the doctor. These days , processed food is so common. Unless you go to a farmer’s market or limit yourself to the fruit and veg aisle in the supermarket, you mostly end up with processed food. So instead of asking the doctor if a diabetic can eat processed food, a better question is how to safely eat processed food. It is almost impossible to avoid eating processed food.
Can a diabetic eat processed food?
As a diabetic, I am always wary about my blood sugar levels. When I see processed food, I wonder if it would raise my blood sugar levels. Worse, a processed food can also put me in risk of hypertension, cardiac problems etc. You can monitor your blood sugar levels using a blood glucose meter but you need to go to doctors to discuss hypertension or cardiac problems.
Before figuring out if a diabetic can eat processed food, let us first look at why we end up with processed food in our shopping trolley or kitchen or dinner plate.
Why do people go after processed food?
Eating processed food is a great convenience for both diabetics and others too. Including processed food in your grocery shopping helps you sort your meals out much quicker. As a result, most of us try to squeeze in as much ready-made food (aka processed food) in our shopping lists.
Are processed foods healthful?
In general, processed foods are more harmful than natural foods as they contain harmful ingredients. Processed foods generally pump your body with too much glucose. Moreover, processed foods are generally eaten with condiments such as ketchup, mayonnaise etc. These condiments add extra calories, sugar and salt into yoru body. This can be harmful .Hence, it is a good idea to avoid eating processed foods as much as possible. But due to chaos in modern life, it makes sense to strike a balance between cooking time and convenience.
Why do they process food?
Food processing is a result of technological advance as well as a profitable business strategy. Big food businesses want to make as much food as possible as quickly as possible and sell it for great profits. As society modernized over years, people started looking for easier options to get on with chores. The most daunting chore for any household is cooking. To help with the top chore, we got processed foods that save in meal preparation time.
Can a diabetic eat processed food?
Experts say a diabetic can indeed eat processed food if careful. To begin with, you need to be careful in your choice of processed food. For example, there is no big deal if you go for can of cooked beans. You just need to make sure there is no added salt. You can eat whole grain bread which has less salt etc. If you look at processed food, you will learn that some foods are less processed than others. In general, we can say the more processed the food is worse it is for you. So boiled chick peas is definitely much safer than humous. Obviously humous has more processing involved and probably has more ingredients like preservatives. So if you have to eat processed food, please go for foods that are less processed and those that remain much closer to their natural form.
Less is more
When it comes to processed foods, less is always more for diabetics. Less amount of processed food on the plate is more sensible. Similarly less industrial process a food has been through is more helpful for a diabetic’s health. Please visit our post on what a diabetic can eat to learn more.
