How to order a blood-sugar-friendly meal at your favorite delivery app?
We all accepted delivery meals as ‘not healthy’ options. But maybe we are mistaken?
They are the life-savers of the modern era, especially for the people who cannot cook at home all the time.
If you monitor your blood sugar, specific tips make delivery meals healthier. You can even make your meal blood sugar-friendly with the right moves.
Besides meal composition and size, the timing of macronutrient consumption during a meal has been recently recognized as a critical regulator of postprandial glycemia. A recent study showed that the magnitude of the glucose-lowering effect of protein and fat was even more significant when these macronutrients were consumed before carbohydrates than mixed with them. Based on these observations, “preloading” each meal by consuming protein- and fat-rich food before carbohydrate has been proposed as a novel strategy for preventing and managing postprandial hyperglycemia.
Add salad or vegetable options before your meal.
Eating vegetables before your carb-loaded meals leads to lower post-meal glucose and insulin levels.
If you start your meal with a cup of salad, you will see that your post-meal reading will be distinguishably lower. Vegetables cover your stomach and decrease the glycemic index of the food consumed after them.
Proteins are the rescuers of every cuisine.
There will be no problem if you want to order from Chinese, Lebanese or Mexican restaurant. You can always find chicken or red meat options. It will be better to combine carbs with protein and fiber sources to avoid spikes in blood sugar. For example, try to choose lean meat and vegetables with limited rice, noodles, or sushi.
Avoid fried dishes
Although they are delicious, deep-fried foods are high in fats and carbs. Plus, most of the restaurants don’t replace the oil in the fryers regularly. Try to choose steamed, baked, or grilled options while choosing your meal.
Use the search button effectively.
Did you know the search buttons of the food delivery applications are much more helpful than you expected? If you try to be more specific about what you are looking for, you can easily reach the blood sugar-friendly and healthy options. Your words can be ‘grilled’ ‘healthy’ ‘calorie’ ‘diet’ and even ‘low carb.’
Prefer make-your-own option
The bowl concept is almost new in our lives and is easy to use. Although they also have carb-loaded options, you can always choose to build your bowl. In this way, you can have grains or beans, steamed vegetables, salad, and meat options at the same time on your plate with a low glycemic load.
Remember to make requests.
The restaurant you are ordering from can have options of fries, pasta, rice additional to your meal. Do not forget that the options can be changed easily! Just request for substitution of carb-loaded options for vegetables or salad. Sometimes they can add lots of oils and high-calorie sauces, so asking them to send the sauce separately can be a great idea to choose the amount you want to use.
Understanding your blood glucose levels is a powerful tool, the nuances of nutrition can be tricky to nail down without a real-time cause and effect.
To help our patients understand their bodies better and live healthier lives, we recently launched an affordable CE-marked continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system to measure blood glucose levels. The GluCare CGM is integrated into a novel model of care that takes the traditional CGM value proposition a step further. GluCare has built a digital therapeutics platform that collects data from multiple inputs, including wearable devices and electronic medical records, and incorporates a wide range of health behaviors, including sleep, physical activity, and dietary habits, with current blood glucose levels. The combined data is continuously analyzed by artificial intelligence algorithms and compiled into a risk score monitored by a specialized clinical care team.
