Your Guide to Diabetic Cooking

photo credit: The Gifted Photographer

Diabetic cooking is not as hard as it seems. The very first step simply entails choosing the right healthy and fresh ingredients for their recipes. Also, diabetics must be very careful when it comes to the kind of methods for cooking, which should always be concentrated on reducing saturated fats and cholesterol so as to reduce heart disease risk. These should also keep your calorie count down. A good method for diabetic cooking is to maximize the dish’s nutritional value. There are great methods which you can apply in order to cook food suitable for diabetics.

First, baking – which is great for vegetables, poultry, fruits and lean meat. It is even great for puddings – you just need a bit of additional liquid in order to make this happen. Second to baking is stewing or braising. This is good for browning meat or fish right on the top of your stove, which you then proceed to cook using small quantities of liquid. Another great diabetic cooking technique is grilling. When you use a rack to grill, you can instantly drain most of the fat away. Next, you have microwaving. The microwaving cooking technique can nix the fat when you put the food in between paper towels to let the fat seep into it while you are cooking it.

Poaching is another great method of diabetic cooking. You just simply have to pop your diabetic recipe into a covered pan and let it stay until the water gets minimized. Another is steaming, wherein you put the food in a basket that has perforations and then place this basket on top of simmering water. This great diabetic cooking method gets better with extra seasoning for more flavors. And finally, you have stir fry. In a wok, you can sauté or stir fry food using a little bit of olive oil.

Reducing the salt and fat content while adding flavor to your cooking is important. To make it happen, prepare your own cooking stock rather than resorting to prepared cubes. These cubes are very much high in salt. You should always choose to use vinegar and extra virgin olive oil compared to prepared salad dressing which is also high in salt. Make it a point to wash your canned vegetables because in doing so a substantial amount of salt can be eliminated from them. Always trim fat off the meat, and make it a habit to strip poultry of its skin. Always drain the oil from canned fish and try to carefully rinse it in water before cooking. Using herbs and lemon juice will enhance the flavor of your cooking, too. If you follow these dishes, the outcome will be healthy and flavorful.