If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, you may be wondering how to make your meals more healthy and suitable for your condition. Well, the good news is you don’t need to throw out all your favourite cookbooks!

To make your meals into healthier alternatives, you can modify them simply by reducing the amount of fat, salt and sugar they contain, and increasing their content of fibre. Don’t be afraid to alter the ingredients stated in a recipe, it will probably involve a bit of trial and error, however the effort will be worthwhile in the long run. Personally, I have discovered some great alternatives in my own cooking, however I’ve also had some which didn’t quite work out, maybe this is part of the fun!

The main thing to consider is the overall balance of your meals, with the emphasis on long term health and weight loss/maintenance. Therefore, you can enjoy a variety of foods, including those that are higher in fat and sugar, but still achieve a healthy diet, as long as you get the balance right!

Recently, I have been covering this series on diabetes, and while some of the information below comes from Diabetes UK, it is no different to advice for the general population, and therefore everyone can benefit.

The following are some fab tips on how to adapt your recipes, produced by Diabetes UK:

• Try to reduce the amount of fat you use by swapping high fat ingredients, for lower fat alternatives.
• Grill, bake, poach, steam, microwave or boil foods, rather than frying them, or cooking with added fat.
• Use low fat dairy products where possible, such as skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, reduced fat cheeses and low fat yogurts.
• Light creme fraiche is very similar to traditional soured cream. It is heat stable and is therefore ideal for use in savoury sauces. You can also serve it on hot or cold puddings instead of double cream.
• Fromage frais is fresh skimmed cows milk cheese, but is more like a natural yogurt. It is not heat stable and is therefore best used in desserts and dips in place of cream or Greek yogurt.
• When you feel nothing but cream will do, spoon extra thick single cream onto fruit or puddings instead of double cream. Whip up whipping cream rather than double cream for filling cream buns or cakes.
• Use fats and oils which are high in monounsaturates.
• Try using stronger cheese for cooking. You’ll find that you won’t have to use so much to give it a cheesy flavour. Grated cheese tends to go further too.
• Try and reduce the amount of salt used in cooking, and at the table, as we eat more salt than we need. Add flavour to your food with lemon juice, herbs, spices or mustard.
• Use pulses such as peas, beans or lentils to replace some of the meat in traditional recipes for shepherd’s pie, casseroles, lasagne. They can also be used in soups and salads. They are low in fat and high in fibre. Tinned beans are more convenient to use, but are more expensive than dried ones.
• Recipes using a reduced amount of sugar will not keep as long as a traditional recipes, as sugar is a natural preservative. To avoid any wastage, freeze in portions that can be defrosted as needed, but check that the recipe is suitable for freezing first.
• If liked, you can experiment by reducing the added sugar in your baking recipes. Most cakes, for example sponge cake, will work even if the sugar in the recipe is cut by a half. Remember that they will not keep as long as a traditional recipe. Recipes such as fruit cakes, fruit scones or teabreads can be made without added sugar. They do not require sugar for bulk, and the dried fruit will provide sweetness.
• Jams and marmalades – use a thin scraping of ordinary jam, or instead of using the traditional ratio of 1lb fruit to 1lb sugar, you can reduce this to 1lb fruit to 3/4 lb sugar.
• Cold desserts such as fruit fool and foods that require no further cooking, eg custard, can be sweetened to taste with a liquid or granulated intense sweetener if necessary.
• Hot puddings, such as fruit pies, crumbles or bread pudding, can be sweetened with sugar, if necessary, but some fruit based puddings, or puddings with added dried fruit, will not require any sweetening at all.
• If you rarely eat cakes etc, you don’t need to adapt your recipes when baking, if it’s for a special occasion, such as birthdays.

Below are some other resources on recipe modification. Please take a look at these, you may find them a good reference point when cooking and baking. Please note these are not specifically for those with diabetes.

• Colorado State University Ingredients Substitution
• University of Illinois Ingredients Substitution: Baking

Diabetes UK have also produced a database of over 140 healthy recipes. The meals are calorie counted and adapted for those with diabetes. Why not check out the Recipe Search for inspiration!

This is the sixth in a series of discussions on diabetes. Please be sure to contact me with any other topics you would find useful on this subject.

Please note, if you have diabetes, you should be regularly monitored by your GP and dietitian. These notes are for general guidance only, and are not a substitute for regular diabetic checkups.