The Diabetes Food Pyramid: Vegetables

When it comes to vegetables, people with diabetes, should eat at least three servings a day. Vegetables are healthy, chock full of vitamins and minerals, and some give you much needed fiber. The best part: vegetables are naturally low in calories -- if you are careful not to top them with butter, sour cream, cream soups, or cheese sauces.

Remember, non-starchy vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, lettuce, greens, carrots, chilies, peppers and tomatoes (those in this food group) do contain a small amount of carbohydrate -- 5 grams per serving.

Easy ways to eat your vegetables:

Keep frozen and canned vegetables on hand to know you always have vegetables at the ready.
Make double and triple portions; at a serving one day and have one ready-to-go for the next.
Blanch (quick cook and chill) a head of broccoli or cauliflower, break it into pieces, place in a plastic container and have a ready supply for the week, hot or cold.
Keep a bag of pre-cut or baby carrots around -- grab a handful as a snack, pack them with lunch, throw them into stew, or microwave for a quick vegetable.
Microwave or sauté onions and peppers to put more vegetables into a tomato sauce.
Toss extra sautéed vegetables on a frozen pizza.
Make a big salad to last a few days, store in the refrigerator in a plastic container.
Add vegetables into sandwiches -- not just the old lettuce and tomato, try alfalfa sprouts, sliced red onion, sliced cucumbers, sliced yellow squash or zucchini, red peppers, or leftover grilled vegetables.
Add vegetables to an omelette or scrambled eggs -- sauté onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes and add some fresh herbs.
Drink tomato juice, V-8 or Bloody Mary mix as a vegetable.
In a tomato sauce, cut the amount of meat you use in half, and add more vegetables -- onions, peppers, mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini or others.

Adapted from the book Diabetes Meal Planning Made Easy. Written by Hope S. Warshaw, MMSc, RD, CDE, a nationally recognized expert on healthy eating and diabetes.

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