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Improving how you eat: diabetes nutrition

by Ann-marie Stephens

US-standard food labels are one tool a person with diabetes, or some-one trying to prevent the onset of the disease, can use to make healthy food choices. Here in Panama the labeling laws are different, and moreover frequently go unenforced, but companies that want to do business in the Americas are ever more adhering to US requirements as well as the Spanish-language standards of Panama and other Latin American countries. To bring more balance to the meals prepared at home or how you purchase your foods and snacks, you can gain a lot of help from the food labels on most packaging. Read the labels as you shop and pay attention to serving size and servings per container. Compare the total calories in similar products and choose the lowest calorie items. Let us try to break it down and make using the food label more easily understood and actionable.

Start with the top line and go through a single line at a time. Do not scan the label, you must read it. It starts with the serving size. This is the amount of food in one serving or one portion. Do note that all of the information on the food label is for one serving. The portion a person eats may not be the same as the serving size listed on the label. Ideally, you want to get as close to one serving as possible, but it depends on how your level of daily activity, the size of your bone structure and whether you are trying to lose weight or not. If you eat more or less than one serving as recommended on the package, you will need to adjust the corresponding numbers accordingly (up or down) to make them accurate. The number of servings is listed next to the Servings per Container on the food label. Most food packages contain more than one serving.

Calories are a measure of how much energy a food provides a person. The food label shows the number of total calories and how many calories come from fat for one serving.

Total Fat - one fat serving is about 5 grams (g). Most people need about 50-65 grams (g) of fat a day. One teaspoon of butter or oil has about 5 g of fat. Limit saturated fat to less than 7 percent of your total daily calories. Eliminate foods with Trans fat from your diet, studies have shown that Trans fat can raise LDL (bad cholesterol) which is associated with heart disease. Some examples of foods with Trans fat include vegetable shortenings (lard), stick margarine, commercially baked foods, such as pastries, donuts, cookies and deep fried foods and snacks.

Cholesterol - A low-cholesterol food has 20 milligrams (mg) or less of cholesterol per serving. Try to eat less than 300 mg of cholesterol each day. Less than 200 mg is recommended for people with diabetes or high cholesterol. A "quarter pound" hamburger has about 70 mg of cholesterol.

Sodium - Choose foods that have less than 400 mg of sodium per serving. Most people need 2,400 mg or less of sodium each day. One teaspoon of salt has 2300 mg of sodium.

Total Carbohydrate - Includes dietary fiber, sugar and sugar alcohols. A carbohydrate serving is about 15 g. Most people need about 300 g of carbohydrate each day. Get your carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and low-fat milk. A slice of store bought bread (1 ounce) has about 15 g of carbohydrate.

Fiber - Choose foods that have 3 or more g of fiber per serving. Most people need about 25 - 35 g of fiber each day.

Protein - Most people need about 50 - 80 g of protein each day. Try to eat 2 or more servings of fish each week (not fried). One ounce of meat has about 7 g of protein.

Ingredients are what things are contained in the food.

The first ingredient is always the main ingredient and the rest follow in decreasing amounts.  For grain foods like bread, tortillas, and cereals, choose foods made with whole grains (like whole wheat or oats). Try to avoid foods that start the ingredient list with sugar, this includes words such as sucrose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, maple syrup, and fructose. These are all caloric sweeteners and contribute few, if any, nutrients and only create more problems for your body.

If you are diabetic or trying to prevent diabetes, the nutrition food label is your friend. Grab a package of anything and start again at the top. Take it line by line, be patient with yourself.  Start using the nutrition label to make all of your purchase decisions for packaged goods that you buy in the supermarket. Use the food label to:

·        learn how much of a food is a serving (portion)

·        learn what is in the food

·        choose food and drinks that best fit your meal plan

A registered dietitian can also help you learn how to use food labels as well as a certified diabetes educator.

The author is co-founder of http://www.imtypefree.com, a website designed to help diabetics and their families

WHO addresses health care worker migration issues
People's perceptions when they observe wildlife on Barro Colorado Island

Diabetes nutrition

STRI research on drought sensitivity and tropical forest plant distribution published in Nature

Do Irish dolphins have a brogue of their own?