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Knowing what to serve and eat for dinner can sometimes be a challenge —
especially for people with diabetes. While eating healthy foods is important
for everyone, it’s essential for people with diabetes. Diabetes is a disease that
results in high glucose, or sugar levels in the blood, which can lead to serious
complications. For the 21 million people with diabetes in this country, making healthy food
choices and being physically active is crucial to managing their diabetes.
Whether you are a person with diabetes or a family member or friend, you can prepare a meal
that is healthy and tastes great. Look for recipes that are low in saturated fats, trans fats,
cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars. Experiment with recipes that include fruits and
vegetables, fish, lean meats, chicken or turkey without the skin, dry peas or beans, and low-fat or
nonfat milk and cheese. Other healthy ingredients are foods high in fiber, such as whole grain
cereals, breads, crackers, rice, and pasta. To give an example of what to serve as a healthy meal,
the National Diabetes Education Program suggests a recipe, along with other foods to complete
the meal, that everyone can enjoy — whether you have diabetes or not.
What’s For Dinner?
When planning a meal, start with a salad appetizer. Baby spinach leaves with seasonal fresh
vegetables or fruits like sugar snap peas or sliced pears go nicely with a low-fat vinaigrette
dressing. For the main course, stick with lean meats or fish. Below you’ll find a recipe for baked
salmon. Designed to serve six people, it takes about half an hour to prepare. Nutrition
information, including carbohydrate grams, is provided.
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Entree: Baked Salmon Dijon*
Ingredients:
1 C fat-free sour cream
2 tsp dried dill
3 Tbsp finely chopped scallions
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 ½ lb salmon fillet with skin (cut in center)
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp black pepper
Fat-free cooking spray as needed
Instructions: Preheat oven to 400°F. Whisk sour cream, dill, onion, mustard, and lemon juice
in small bowl to blend. Lightly oil baking sheet with cooking spray. Place salmon, skin side
down, on prepared sheet. Sprinkle with garlic powder and pepper, then spread with the sauce.
Bake salmon until just opaque in center, about 20 minutes.
Nutrition Information Per Serving: Calories 196, Total Fat 7 g, Saturated Fat 2 g, Cholesterol
76 mg, Sodium 229 mg, Fiber less than 1 g, Protein 27 g, Carbohydrates 5 g
* Recipe taken from
Keep the Beat: Heart Healthy Recipes from the National Heart, Lung, and
Blood Institute
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A great side dish to serve with salmon is brown rice. Cook the rice with garlic, ginger, or green
onions to give it more flavor. For dessert, serve a selection of fresh fruits of the season or a small
scoop of fat-free or low-fat frozen yogurt or sorbet instead of regular ice cream. On special
occasions, try a twist on traditional fruit pie by adding oats and almonds to the crust. It makes for
a crunchy treat!
Eating healthy foods doesn’t mean sacrificing taste. One of the best ways to tell if a meal is both
healthy and something you’ll like is by knowing its ingredients. When you do the preparation
and cooking, you know exactly what’s going into it, and more importantly, what’s not! You can
find more examples of healthy recipes by searching online for
NHLBI’s “Heart-Healthy
Recipes,”
“A Healthier You” Recipes, or
Fruits & Veggies Matter’s “Recipe Finder.”
For more information about making healthy food choices for people with diabetes and free
resources to help manage diabetes, contact the National Diabetes Education Program at
www.YourDiabetesInfo.org or
1-888-693-NDEP (6337). Bon appétit!
From the National Diabetes Education Program
November, 2007
http://ndep.nih.gov/diabetes/pubs/DiabetesFriendlyMeal.pdf
[PDF file]
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