Diabetic Friendly?

BOOKS

Reader’s Digest Magic Foods for Better Blood Sugar (2007)
- (A cheap used book, but great read on paying attention to the foods that hurt & help blood sugar, and even includes a simple test to see how well you are eating well regarding blood sugar.)
Living Well with Diabetes : Manage It. Reverse It. Use It To Your Advantage (August, 2021 – Munson)
Managing Type 2 Diabetes for Dummies (2018 – American Diabetes Association)
The Complete Diabetes Cookbook (Americas Test Kitchen)

ONLINE & STREAMING

Diabetes Food Hub (ADA)
Living with Diabetes Type 2 (ADA)

VIDEOS

Top 15 DIABETIC Friendly Foods To Eat In 2025
- (YouTube video. Entertaining speaker.)
Top 18 Scientifically Proven Foods for Diabetics
These 10 Foods Lower Blood Sugar Naturally & Fast

I find that my favorite AI is extremely helpful in making various recipes “more diabetic friendly.” I can take a picture of a recipe in an old cookbook. Upload the pic to my AI and ask it to list the items it sees and the quantities. It is usually pretty good at this translation of an image of text, to actual text that I can paste into a word processing document or a web page, or even an online recipe program. I can also ask the AI to suggest ways to “make this recipe more diabetic friendly.” Once it makes the suggestions, I can agree or disagree, and tweak the recipe even further, either adding other ingredients or removing some. I can also ask the AI to convert the number of servings to maybe just two helpings (since I don’t want a bunch of left overs in the fridge). And the AI can guesstimate the nutritional values for the recipe such as calories per serving, and sodium/carbs/sugars, etc.

ChatGPT
Gemini

MyFitnessPal

My Fitness Pal is an online tool (basic features are free, extra features require a subscription). I use this online app for two main things: I record the foods I either have eaten (for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Snacks) or plan to eat each day. By being able to add foods & meals I plan to eat, I can try to provide a changing meal rotation that doesn’t bore me, and that also takes into account that I need to eat the “left overs” at some time in the future.

Once you start recording your meals, it quickly becomes obvious that you only have 21 meals in a week, and you have limited snacks. If you eat out somewhere, that is one less meal to prepare, or possibly some left overs that will need to be thrown out later, because you just can’t eat everything you prepare.

When adding foods to a meal, I can search for foods that others have already added to the database, or I can add a recipe with the exact ingredients I have chosen. e.g. I could add a recipe that I’ve copied from an old cookbook, and had my AI help me make it “more diabetic friendly.”

Oh, I also record my “resting blood sugar level” each morning, and my weight. My Fitness Pal generates a pretty little line graph for each of these items and it helps me see if I am going in the right direction over time.

FOODS