On World Diabetes Day

‘Decide Diabetes Initiative’ together with myself and Dr. Wafa Helmi, the founder of ‘Sweet Kidz’ got together with media representatives to kick off the ‘Raising Diabetes Healthy Eating Awareness’ project.

The event took place at the beautiful Miele Gallery’s state of the art kitchen, where we discussed diabetic health, and healthy eating for diabetic patients. We also cooked a diabetic-friendly three-course meal to showcase how with a few adjustments to cooking methods, and the proper counting of food intake enables diabetic patients to enjoy all types of food and lead a healthier lifestyle. We focused on the fact that diabetic-friendly foods do not have to be tasteless, or even boring! Furthermore that the preparation of this food does not have to be complicated or requiring any extra work!

This project is based on Dr. Wafa’s extensive research on various food types and their effects on diabetic patients. Based on her research, Dr. Wafa had developed diabetic-friendly recipes to enable parents, caregivers and patients take control of diabetes and enjoy an undeprived and delicious lifestyle.

As I have come to learn from Dr. Wafa through this event:

Diabetic patients can eat everything, provided they follow their proper food intake count, as recommended by their doctor.
Diabetic-friendly cooking is everyday cooking with a few adjustments: like lower fat content, lower carb content, and using sugar substitutes. Please note that Dr. Wafa says “lower”, not fat-free, not carb-free! Even diabetic patients need to include all food types including carbohydrates. This is exactly what any of us would do when trying to eat healthier.
Through all of this I concluded that diabetes or not, when any of us wants to eat healthy:

We must eat all food types in moderation.
We must focus more on fruits and vegetables for their valuable nutrients from vitamins and minerals to even their antioxidant properties, fiber content as well as lending our food their colourful and visually appealing properties.
And most importantly, we must never completely omit any food type as our body tends to suffer when we do so.

We will hopefully be bringing you an array of demonstrations for you to attend in order to help you cook for diabetes. I will also be periodically bringing you tips here for diabetic-friendly eating, in hopes that it will help you in your everyday cooking, as well as add some varieties to make diabetic-friendly cooking more interesting and a tad more delicious.

With that said, you will have to get your regular check ups with your doctor, and you will have to follow your daily intake and monitor that you are following the proper quantities for your body as recommended by your doctor. This is not something that I can suggest for you, I am not a doctor. I can only show you how to cook the food, and how to make the eating experience interesting.

About Insulin Resistance and type 2 diabetes