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Summary: Contrary to common belief, a diabetes recipe need not be bland and tasteless. It is palatable and healthful for you and your family so blend it into your life.

If you suffer from diabetes and are responsible for meals served to the family, you may get unnerved trying to balance your health requirements with the needs of your family. You may wonder whether your family should also endure the bland food that you require. Should you change everyone's diet to suit your own medical needs?

However, do not feel desolate. You can prepare meals using diabetes recipe which is both tasty and healthful at the same time. So, not just you but your entire family can benefit from the healthy aspects of such a diet.

A diabetes recipe is basically a normal recipe with just a few ingredients either eliminated or limited. Salt may be cut down while you need to continue taking sugar in small quantities. So, complete elimination of sugar is not necessary. In fact, diabetes recipes might even let you enjoy the occasional dessert. Foods rich in fibre need to be incorporated in the diet to a greater extent. So, most green vegetables are to be given high priority in the diet.

Therefore, following diabetes recipes does not in any way deprive you of gastronomic delights, rather helps you eat healthy. Your family also gets to eat healthy food owing to the changes in your dietary habits. This is a blessing in disguise if diabetes runs in your family or if a family member is in the pre-diabetic stage. Also your mealtime continues to remain enjoyable family time. So, go ahead have your cake and eat it too!

Gestational Diabetes Diet

An appropriate gestational diabetes diet would be one which provides all the nutritional requirements for the mother and foetus as well as keeps the mother's blood sugar normal.

The daily calorie intake has to be increased by three hundred calories during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy i.e. after fourteen weeks a woman should take 2100 calories per day.

The requirement of vitamins and mineral is greater during pregnancy so taking low fat dairy products, whole grain cereals and breads, fruits and vegetables in larger amount will help. Pre-natal vitamins though helpful, do not replace a good gestational diabetes diet. These vitamins should be taken before bedtime or on an empty stomach in the morning.

High sugar foods should be avoided like pies, cakes, cookies, ice-creams, soft drinks, jams and jellies, fruit yoghurt etc Juice should be taken only with meals and not more than 6 ounces as these contain large amounts of sugar. Tomato juice is the best since it has the lowest sugar content. Though fats are needed for vitamin absorption, the diet should have little of it. Complex carbohydrates like vegetables, cereal grains, peas, beans are excellent for gestational diabetes. They help keep the sugar normal and hence decrease the need for insulin. Foods high in fibre like whole grain cereals, breads, fruits and vegetables and legume are good because they help in digestion.