If you have diabetes, it’s important to an eating plan that supports your heart health because you are at higher risk for developing heart disease. In fact, people with diabetes are twice as likely to have heart disease or a stroke. Here is how to choose foods that will help lower your risk for or manage heart disease.
Heart-healthy eating patterns that can be used for your eating plan include:
- Mediterranean Style
- Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension (DASH)
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Low Carb
- Very Low Carb
A heart healthy eating plan will include foods that are low in saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium. This includes vegetables, fish, nuts, beans, seeds, fruits, and fiber-rich whole grains. Also included in this type of eating plan are lower fat dairy products, lean proteins like skinless poultry, and if you include red meat (should be limited), you should select the leanest cuts. Examples of lean cuts are tenderloin, sirloin (top sirloin, bottom sirloin), and round cuts (eye of round, top round, bottom round).
Tips for Making a Heart-Healthy and Diabetes-Friendly Eating Plan
- Choose lean proteins and foods lower in saturated fat. Foods that come from animals contain saturated fat. Select the leanest cuts of poultry (skinless chicken, skinless turkey breasts, lean ground chicken, or lean ground turkey) or fish because it has some of the lowest levels of saturated fat). You can also reduce the saturated fat by blending animal proteins (ground turkey or chicken) with plant-based food proteins like beans, tofu or plant- based crumbles. You will get all the flavor but half the saturated fat.
When choosing dairy products, which also count as protein, select lower fat dairy, such as low-fat cheese, lower fat milks, and lower fat yogurts.
Using plant-based proteins is another way to keep the saturated fat lower in your eating plan. Beans, nuts, nut butters, and seeds are plant-based proteins that are lower in saturated fat and higher in fiber.
- Select lower saturated fat oils and fats. Be aware that there are plant-based foods that are high in saturated fat. –Coconut oil, palm oil, and cocoa butter are good examples. Olive, canola, corn, peanut, safflower, soybean, sunflower and vegetable oil are lower in saturated fat. Limit foods that contain trans-fat in your eating plan. This includes commercially prepared baked products, shortening, frozen pizza, fried foods, non-dairy creamers, and stick margarine. You can see if foods have trans fats in the nutrition facts label.
- Lower the sodium. To keep the sodium low in your meals, choose:
- Fresh, frozen, or canned no-added-salt vegetables
- Fresh meats, poultry, and fish
- Unsalted nuts
- No-added-salt canned beans
- Fresh fruit
Season your foods with fresh herbs or spices that don’t have added salt, like using garlic powder instead of garlic salt.
- Include non-starchy veggies and fiber-rich foods. Adding non-starchy veggies to your meals is both heart-healthy and diabetes-friendly. Follow the guide of the Diabetes Plate by filling half your plate with non-starchy veggies, one-quarter with a lean protein, and one-quarter with a fiber-rich quality carbohydrate.
While our Diabetes Food Hub recipes strive to provide better-for-you options for people with diabetes, we encourage creativity in the kitchen. If you want to drop or swap an ingredient, like a type of protein or carb, give it go!
Get Started
Ready to start your cooking adventure? Be sure to check out all the recipes on Diabetes Food Hub and create an account so you can save recipes to try later. You can even create and print a grocery list to bring with you to the grocery store.
