Diabetes and Going Vegetarian

Filed in archive Diet on May 25, 2007

Diet is a very important factor in the care and management of diabetes. However dieting alone is not enough to make your diabetes go away.

What Tina Samuels wrote at Associated Content, her article entitled "If You Have Diabetes Should You Go Vegetarian", is not to convince diabetics to go vegetarian, but she argues that becoming more vegetarian can offer more benefits to people with diabetes (especially those insulin dependent type 1 diabetics) than a carnivorous lifestyle.

Vegetarian diets are high in fiber and phytochemicals because of their fruits, veggies, and whole grains. Vegans are good for a cholesterol-free and low saturated fat diet due to their lack of eggs and dairy as well. Both are lower in calories than their carnivorous diet counterpoint. These are great ways for diabetics to benefit.

There are several types of vegetarian diets:

• Lacto Vegetarians - no flesh of any kind, only fruits, veggies and dairy.


• Lacto-Ovo Vegetarians - fruits, veggies, and dairy but also eggs.


• Vegans - only plant food. no eggs, and no dairy while honey may or may not be included in this diet -vegans are the strictest of the vegetarian diets.


• Fruitarians - only fruit, nuts, and seeds, including fruit of vegetables like tomatoes but not roots of plants like potatoes.

Also, several reasons why vegans and vegetarian diets do diabetics good:

• there is weight loss and the ability to maintain their target weight.


• according to some studies, a vegan and/or vegetarian lifestyle can help the body become more responsive to insulin.


• can reduce the risk of diabetes-related conditions like kidney and heart disease.

Whew! Living with diabetes isn't easy folks. For starters, consult a nutritionist/dietitian to help you make an appropriate diet.

So, what kind of diet are you on?