My sister was diagnosed with diabetes 2 this afternoon. We are trying to find a diet for her but she does not like a lot of the types of foods normal people eat on a day to day basis. Please help us find something that she can eat to help control her diabetes.

You don’t give much information about your sister and there are many things that affect the “best” food plan for a person with diabetes: her current weight, height, body make-up, work or school schedule, type of medicine she’s on, amount of activity she gets, foods she likes to eat, whether she eats out or at home, and so on. With that information, a dietitian or other diabetes educator can help her find an approach that meets her nutritional needs, fits her lifestyle, and helps control her blood sugar.

Until she can get that kind of advice, try this: have your sister start writing down what she eats — both the kind of foods and the amounts — and testing her blood sugar before and after each meal. This will begin to show which of her current food choices work and which may need to be altered. If her doctor has not given her blood sugar goals, you can refer to the ones from the American Diabetes Association: 80-120 before meals and no higher than 180 after meals. It may take a while to get down to those levels, depending on how high her sugars are just now. However, for any meal that shows a very high blood sugar after its eaten, have her cut the portions the next time she eats the same foods — one piece of bread instead of two, one scoop of potatoes instead of two, and so on.

BB