What you see here is a selection of healthy Slimming World meals, each made with something processed and prepared, packaged and picked off the shelf by yours truly; tarted-up Low Fat supernoodles (2 syns per pack) with chicken and speed veg, Overnight oats made with a Mullerlight yoghurt (syn free with Healthy Extra B) and fresh fruit, A Milky Bar dessert (4.5 syns) with raspberries and a drizzle of choc shot (0.5 syns) and some beans on wholemeal toast (syn free with Healthy Extra B), all of which are fantastic for a non – diabetic following Slimming World.
Let me explain by breaking each one down for you:
- Supernoodles. Whilst the chicken and veg are perfect, the supernoodles despite being low fat, are high in carbs – and not the good, wholegrainy ones we get from our healthy extras. These may or may not spike your sugars, and should be selected with care. If your levels are low and you are controlled by diet alone, you could perhaps substitute these for plain, wholegrain noodles and eat a small portion occasionally if you can tolerate them as well as your Healthy Extra B choice for that day.
- Overnight Oats. If you can tolerate oats and a little fruit, this is a great slow release breakfast idea, but the ingredient to watch out for here is the yoghurt; I have given Mullerlight yoghurt as an (obvious) example here because despite being syn free, they have lots of sugar in them. Less obvious are the Fat Free plain yoghurts, which do often have hidden sugars in them – not as much as the flavoured ones but still enough to consider when buying; check the packaging, and go for the lowest one you can find. The best one I have found so far is Fage total 0% yoghurt which contains 3g of carbs (made up entirely of sugar) per 100g. Fancy some overnight oats? Check out 3 ways with overnight oats, but read the rest of this before you do; it’s important.
- Milky bar dessert. Quite an obvious one, this; even if something is Slimming World friendly, as this is, it may not be suitable for those with Diabetes. This little dessert, served frozen with fruit and a drizzle of Choc Shot, has a whopping 13.7g of sugar. That’s around 3 teaspoons, and that’s before we get to the fruit or the choc shot which, whilst both containing fruit sugars, still add sugars all the same. Leave the Milky Bar desserts in the fridge for someone else, and be aware that Slimming World Friendly isn’t always Diabetes friendly; Always check the labels for sugar and carbohydrates.
- Good old beans on toast. Syn free baked beans? Wholemeal toast? Surely that’s healthy, right?! I used to buy Sainsbury’s baked beans and have between 1/4 and 1/2 a tin on wholemeal toast. If beans and wholemeal bread don’t make you spike then have them, but be aware that your average tin of baked beans contains hidden sugars – these particular ones contain 13g of carbohydrates per 100g, 4.6g of which are sugars. I now opt instead for Sainsbury’s reduced sugar and salt baked beans, which still taste great but contain 10.5g of carbs per 100g, 2.4g of which are sugars, making them a much better choice.
The simple rule here is this: Unless it is a fresh, raw ingredient, such as raw meat, poultry or fish, or fresh fruit and veg etc, Always check the labels for sugar and carbohydrates before choosing food. The recipes I post on here are made with mostly basic ingredients, but ingredients such as quark, fat free cottage cheese and fat free yoghurt (quark probably being the better choice) should always be checked for hidden sugars when buying, every time you buy them; ranges and recipes change, and the responsibility lies with us to check and to know.
If you have ever been to a DESMOND course, part of that course will have covered how to make effective food choices for the management and control of your Diabetes. If you haven’t, you should ask your GP or nurse about the availability of these courses – I cannot recommend them enough. That knowledge of what is or isn’t a good food choice is invaluable and should be applied everywhere, including when you are out at the supermarket, or reading a menu at a restaurant, or on here looking at my recipes; what is good for one person may not be for another. It’s good practice, and will help lead you to good control of your Diabetes.
Of course, many of your food choices will stem from what you as an individual know to be a bad choice (something that makes you spike) or on the flip side of that, something which may make others spike but which you can tolerate; oats, wholemeal bread and certain other slow release carbs, for example. Slimming World can work for you to help control your Diabetes, but you must apply your individual food choices to whatever approach you take, and take that control with the choices that you make and the food that you buy.
Remember, you rule Diabetes!
Sarah Rules Diabetes 