Diabetes: Healthy Snacks

Vegetables are the best snack for diabetics. Most non-root veggies are essentiall "free foods" which means they are free of calories, but rich in vitamins, minerals, and polyphenols needed to protect the damage to the cardiovascular and visual system that ensues from diabetes.

Get creative with different low calorie bean dips, cottage cheese, hummus, guacamole, and other healthy dip ideas in order to stretch your calorie allowance that much further. Two tablespoons of almond butter for instance has about 190 calories, but celery is a "free food" is high in fiber, and thus goes great with the vegetarian proteins and fats in almond butter.

Just buy it raw not roasted. Roasting destroys the fats in nut butters rendering them rancid. Rancid fats age our arteries and get stored as fats. Healthy fats are used by every single cell in the body to protect us from disease. Use your fat calories wisely!

Smart Snacks for Diabetics:

• Hummus with raw chopped vegetables or whole grain pita bread.
• Low-fat organic cottage cheese with sliced pear, plum, cherries, or ¼ cup fresh berries.
• Whole-grain toast with nut butter (cashew and almond butter are delicious alternatives to peanut butter).
• Olive tapenade spread on toasted pita bread, no salt corn tortilla chips, whole grain crackers, or rye crisp.
• Apple or pear slices with organic cheese slice or nut butter.
• Mochi with 1 Tbsp nut, seed or apple butter smothered inside.
• Low-fat organic yogurt with nutty (almonds, cashews, etc) granola or ¼ cup fresh berries.
• Tofu chive spread or roasted garlic tofu spread (both found at the PCC deli) with crackers, whole grain bread, or pita.
• Nuts or seeds (roasting them with tamari is delicious) and a piece of fruit.
• Sardines or smoked salmon on a cracker.