Whole Food Nutrition - Can You Avoid Or Reverse Type 2 Diabetes Eating the Average American Diet

I don't mean to scare anybody in this article or paint too gloomy and negative a picture. The reality is that I want to help as many people as possible get a better understanding of health and nutrition and what their diet might be doing to them.

To start off with let me explain what I mean by the western mainstream American diet.

It's what the majority of the U.S population is eating and some percentage of people in other western countries and to a smaller degree even in third world countries. It's the diet of way too much processed and refined foods, too much sugar, salt and unhealthy fats.

Lets be honest, the reasons for the obesity epidemic in the U.S. is not a big mystery. With up to 70 percent or more of the U.S. population considered obese there is something seriously wrong with what these people are eating and of coarse a lack of exercise is involved.

The huge type 2 diabetes epidemic is one of the most apparent results of this western diet, along with lots of other serious illness and diseases.

It's quite clear to me and becoming clear to more and more people that it is very difficult to avoid illness and disease eating the American mainstream diet or what is also commonly know as the western diet.

Are the foods you mostly eat processed, refined, loaded up with chemicals, salt, harmful fats, sugar or even worse high fructose corn syrup. If you are eating very little or no raw foods, very little fresh foods. If most of the meat, poultry and fish is from corporate farms, fed mostly GMO corn and soybeans then loaded with antibiotics, growth hormones, and other additives. I hope this not what your daily diet looks like?..

One statistic that I heard has amazed me and sticks in my mind. It goes like this: "There are over 30,000 food items in an average mainstream grocery store, ( like Safeway, Albertson's, Winn Dixie, Wal Mart etc.). Out of these 30,000 food items it is estimated that only about 6 % are good for your health. A large percentage of these food items are actually bad for your health and can and will cause illness and disease if eaten daily over a period of time.

The Good News You can change, you can eat in a different way, and to some degree not even give up all the great tasting things you like that are not terribly good for you.

Changing a long held habit like what you like and choose to eat can be difficult. Consider looking at ways to begin changing your diet. Pure organic whole super food supplements can be a great way to boost your nutrition levels and fill in some of the gaps in your current diet. It's all about boosting up your nutrition and antioxidant levels.

Should Type 2 Diabetics Start Eating Like a Caveman?

Thousands of diabetics memorize the American Diabetes Association Guidelines, weigh everything they put into their mouth, and count every carb... yet watch their blood sugar levels rise and fall like last year's Dow Jones. If this sounds like you, it might be time to consider one of the 'hottest' concepts in the nutrition field... paleo dieting.

Paleo dieting, short for 'Paleolithic' or the time period that modern humans first burst on the world's stage, is an eating plan that reflects the diet of our ancient ancestors.

What does this type of diet generally look like?

Foods Allowed On The Paleolithic Diet:

1. Meats of all kinds (including red meat, like steak and bacon)

2. Fresh, unprocessed fruits and vegetables

3. Water

4. Nuts (limited quantities)

5. Generous portions of fish and shellfish

6. Eggs

Foods Not Allowed On The Paleolithic Diet:

1. Grains and cereals (even whole grains)

2. Anything boxed, bagged, or packaged

3. Alcohol

4. Foods and drinks with sugar added

5. Dairy

As you can see, the diet is fairly restrictive in some areas (grains), and liberal in others (meats). In some ways, this approach is a planet-sized departure from the ADA diet that advocates a low-fat, moderate-carb diet with generous amounts of low-fat dairy. On the other hand, many of the staples of each diet: lean meats, eggs, fresh fruits and veggies, are found on 'both sides of the aisle'.

While you may think that eating this way is impractical or impossible, keep in mind that thousands of fairly hardcore followers as well as research subjects have been able to stick to the diet with no more effort than the typical diabetic diet.

Also, the potential payoff from this diet, nearly symptom-free diabetes, makes it at least worth a try. Recently, researchers from the University of Lund, Sweden, put a paleo diet head to head with the ADA diet for a 3-month period. They measured a battery of important factors that indicate overall health and diabetic control such as body weight, HbA1c, blood cholesterol, and waist circumference.

To the dismay of the ADA, the paleo diet trumped the standard diabetes diet in every single parameter measured. The researchers concluded that: 'Over a 3-month study period, a Paleolithic diet improved glycemic control and several cardiovascular risk factors compared to a Diabetes diet in patients with Type 2 diabetes'.

How does this diet work? No one knows for sure, but one of its weapons against Type 2 diabetes is the low glycemic index. Although whole grains typically have a lower GI than their refined counterparts, their GI can be double or even triple when compared to most natural vegetables.

Also, it seems that the paleo diet lowers inflammation... the silent cause of most cases of Type 2 diabetes. Research shows that a caveman diet can effectively reduce chronic inflammation.

While a caveman diet may sound like the newest fad diet for diabetics, the truth is that with 50,000 years of history in its favor, it's the oldest and most trusted diet of all time.

And now I would like you to claim your Free E-Book when you click on Answers to Your Questions

You will then have access to information diabetics have requested over recent months.

Beverleigh Piepers RN... the Diabetes Detective.
Let me help you... Beat The Belly Fat Blues
Beverleigh Piepers is the author of this article. This article can be used for reprint on your website provided all the links in the article are complete and active. Copyright (c) 2010 - All Rights Reserved Worldwide

What You Need to Know About Diabetes and Eating

Setting nutrition goals should be your first plan of attack while handling your diabetes responsibly. Eating right, and choosing variety over boredom includes fresh fruits and vegetables in season, dairy products low in fat, looking for whole grains in pasta and breads, and choosing from a variety of dried beans, fish, and turkey or other lean meats. Learn to use seasonings creatively.

Recently, a good friend lost over thirty-five pounds in about six weeks just by eating modest portions of vegetables, fish, chicken, or turkey, and drinking a protein drink every morning and noon before his meals. For the first time in over ten years his blood sugar was registering in the eighties and nineties instead of over 220. Losing weight was a real eye opener and his doctors celebrated with him.

Healthy food plans for diabetes will benefit everyone in the family. Choose foods that are family favorites and work with your diabetic cook books to develop weekly meals that are easy and practical, most menus call for foods that are inexpensive and readily available.

Pay attention to what you eat, how much at each sitting, and what time of day you eat. Don't overlook your water intake of at least eight glasses a day. Enjoy your food, eat at a slower pace than usual, and savor each bite.

Perhaps it has been too long that as a nation with plenty of everything we have forgotten that eating can be a celebration as well as a necessity.

With fast food places everywhere we look, it hardly takes a thought to dip in and pick up fries and a coke. Not only is food everywhere we look, we can eat 24/7. Diabetics CANNOT do that. The rest of us shouldn't either!

New Eating Habits With the Diabetes Diet Plan

The diabetes diet plans improves body functions.

You can lower or even eliminate the use of some medications with the diabetes diet plan.

The diabetes diet plan involves rethinking the foods that you eat. It will not be necessary to cut calories or limit carb intake or reduce portion sizes. In fact you can eat until you are full. If you get hungry between meals, you are free to eat more. The emphasis is on the types of food that you consume.

The Diabetes Diet plan approaches diabetic reversal through nutrition

Research conducted has shown that people with diabetes can think beyond delaying previously inevitable decline and dramatically improve their health. Benefits of the diabetes diet plan include a reduction in blood sugar, increase in insulin sensitivity and reduce or even eliminate medications.

There are also some positive side effects of the diabetes diet plan such as, weight loss,lower cholesterol levels, lower blood pressures and increased energy.

The diabetes diet plan causes a fundamental change in the body itself. It can help the body's own insulin to work properly by improving the cells sensitivity, which is the key issue in type 2 diabetes. Even when the disease has evolved to the point of serious complications, it is not too late for some marked improvements.

Diabetes is no longer a condition that you have to live with,and it should not slowly and inevitably get worse. In fact quite the opposite is possible, that with the diabetes diet plan, you can have your life back.

The plan is designed to help understand the cause and correct it to the fullest extent that lifestyle and diet changes possibly can.

Reversing diabetes with the diabetes diet plan means reversing trends.

Most people with diabetes tend to experience increasing trends of weight gain, higher blood sugar and higher doses of medications. Reversing diabetes entails reversing these trends.

Weight is dropped gradually but decisively, blood glucose values as well as medication doses are decreased. Symptoms such as neuropathy which is pain of the nerves in the legs and feet can even improve or disappear. Heart disease can be reversed.

There is evidence that diabetes may be genetic, and once the condition is inherited,it cannot be removed.

The implication therefore is that once someone has diabetes, that person will always have it, even if blood tests improve so much that the condition is no longer diagnosed.

What is mean is that inherited traits do not go away and type 1 diabetes requires continued insulin treatments, regardless of how well your diet is adjusted.

Each person with diabetes has a unique ability to heal and return to health. This ability differs from person to person, but there are no barriers to improvement such as age, weight or any other factors.

There has been some correlation with diabetes and racial origin, but there may be a stronger correlation with socioeconomic background which also related to diets.

Simple diet changes are not difficult to implement.

Population studies showed that diabetes was rare in Asian countries and Japan, China and Thailand and was similarly rare in parts of Africa even though a lot a of carbohydrates were consumed.

The inescapable fact is that the problem is not carbohydrates (sugar and starch as was previously believed), but it how the body process them.

The diabetes diet plan can repair your body's ability to absorb and use carbohydrates, so you can continue to enjoy carbohydrate rich foods while your diabetes improves and even goes away.