Diabetic patients should be careful about their diet during the Mid-Autumn Festival! Nutritionists urge: Diabetics to follow these two principles to keep their blood sugar under control

The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching, and all kinds of delicious food are full of temptation. How can diabetic patients enjoy the food without worrying about blood sugar soaring? As the diet becomes more refined, the proportion of Taiwanese suffering from diabetes is increasing year by year. Diabetic patients must control their sugar intake to avoid affecting their blood sugar. However, foods suitable for the Mid-Autumn Festival, such as sugary drinks served with barbecue and the sugar contained in grapefruit itself, are factors that can easily cause blood sugar to rise. Mooncakes, in particular, are a combination of high fat, high calories and high sugar, so you must be more careful when eating them.

Nutritionist Zhou Jialin from the Department of Nutrition at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital shares the correct dietary concepts for diabetics, allowing them to enjoy delicious food while taking care of their health. The outer skin of mooncakes is mainly composed of flour, butter and sugar. If a layer of oil is applied, it will be crispy and delicious after baking. In addition, extra refined sugar will be added to the filling to increase the sweetness. Common red bean paste, taro paste, etc. are all starches with high sugar content. Therefore, both the outer skin and the filling of mooncakes are rich in ingredients that cause blood sugar to rise.

Take egg yolk pastry as an example. Each 50-gram egg yolk pastry contains 240 calories, which is equivalent to half a bowl of rice and three teaspoons of oil. Traditional mooncakes and pineapple pastries are equivalent to half a bowl of rice plus two teaspoons of oil. Even the lowest-calorie snow skin mooncake has half a bowl of rice and a teaspoon of oil, and the sugar content is also not low. Therefore, when choosing mooncakes, diabetics must carefully read the nutrition labels to understand the sugar content. Nutritionist Zhou Jialin emphasized that if diabetics consume too much mooncakes, it will not only cause high blood sugar reactions such as dry mouth, dizziness, and physical fatigue, but it is also easy to aggravate cardiovascular disease or cause obesity due to excessive fat intake.

Nutritionist Zhou Jialin shares correct dietary concepts so that diabetics can enjoy delicious food while taking care of their health. (Photo courtesy of Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital)

Diabetic patients should follow these two principles to keep their blood sugar under control

When delicious food is in front of you, everyone wants to enjoy it. Nutritionist Zhou Jialin pointed out that if diabetics follow the following two principles when eating mooncakes, they can reduce the chance of losing control of their blood sugar:

1. One mooncake per day is the upper limit:

Diabetics can eat no more than one small mooncake a day, and read the nutrition label on the packaging bag. If the carbohydrate content of a mooncake exceeds 30 grams, it is not suitable to eat it all at once and needs to be eaten in several times. Mooncakes can also be eaten as a dessert after a meal (eaten at the end of the meal). If you eat mooncakes, you should also reduce your intake of staple foods (starches) at the meal. For example, if you eat half a mooncake as a dessert at the end of dinner, you should reduce your dinner intake. It is also not recommended for diabetics to eat mooncakes as a main meal, because in addition to being high in sugar, mooncakes are not easy to make people feel full and it is easy to consume too much.

2. Avoid eating with fruits:

Since fruits themselves contain sugar, it is not recommended to eat them with mooncakes, or to eat fruits after eating mooncakes.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is full of delicious food temptations for diabetics. When the moon is full and families are reunited, if you master the correct health principles, you can feel at ease and free of worries. Nutritionist Zhou Jialin reminds that in addition to the intake of mooncakes, diabetics are limited to consuming a maximum of half a medium-sized grapefruit (about six petals) a day as a snack between meals, and it is not recommended to eat other fruits. For barbecue, it is recommended to choose vegetables and plant protein ingredients, and for beverages, try to choose sugar-free tea or sparkling water. Diabetic patients who are sweet-loving can use sugar substitutes to replace the sweetness. In addition to dietary management, diabetics should also monitor their blood sugar at any time, take medication on time, and maintain walking and exercise habits to help stabilize blood sugar and spend a happy "sugar-free" Mid-Autumn Festival.