Essential to Everyone
Everyone benefits from eating more fiber - not just the person with diabetes. Experts agree that fiber has many health benefits, from improving digestion, to protecting against colon cancer, and now some experts believe that it prevents you from absorbing some of the fat that you've consumed. Sadly, most of us find it hard to consume the recommended amount of fiber (25 to 30 grams) in our daily diet.
Here's some ways to increase the fiber in your diet:
* Eat more vegetables, especially raw vegetables such as broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, green beans, and zucchini. Spinach is high in fiber - 1/2 cup of boiled or steamed spinach contains 6 grams of dietary fiber.
* Eat fruit with its skin (apples, nectarines, peaches, pears, etc.) instead of drinking juice. Especially high in fiber: blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries.
* Choose whole grain pasta, breads and cereals. Add wheat germ to recipes.
* Have legumes (dried beans, peas, lentils, etc) several times a week.
* Eat the edible skins and seeds of vegetables such as the skin of a potato or seeds of a cucumber.
* Eat brown rice instead of white rice and try other grains such as barley, bulgur, couscous, and quinoa.
* Eat dried fruits (careful, they're high in carbs) such as dried apricots, figs, prunes, and raisins.
* 3 cups of air-popped popcorn has 4 grams of fiber-eat it as an evening snack
* Read food labels to help you pick higher fiber foods.
If you take insulin or are on an insulin pump, ask your doctor if you need to adjust the amount of rapid-acting insulin you take before a high fiber meal.
