Welcome to I Love Me Café,

where a chef and a nutritionist collaborate with you to create meals and snacks that are tasty, while also being healthy for people with diabetes.  You’ll also find generous helpings of information and suggestions that are vital to your well-being.

Do you have to watch your blood pressure and cholesterol level? Manage your weight? Keep your blood sugar stable? We present recipes that are designed to help you do just that. The ingredients are fresh and flavorful, as well as heart healthy, cholesterol lowering, and insulin stabilizing.

Food is one of the great pleasures of life, one you should not miss out on because of diabetes or pre-diabetes. It is our mission to make eating well a total pleasure. Enjoy!

Train your taste buds

Making excellent eating and cooking choices is easier when you make sure to have the healthiest ingredients on hand, while banishing the bad ones.

Over time, your taste buds will come to prefer fresh, natural foods over those with the high levels of salt, sugar, and fats often found in processed foods.

I Love Me Café meal ideas will help you include more plant proteins and fresh vegetables in your diet — and gradually reduce the amount of red meat in your meals. This will help you reach the healthiest (and most diabetes-friendly) balance of nutrients.

So take an afternoon to transform your kitchen into your source not only of taste and flavor, but also of optimal nutrition and health.

Throw away foods that will sabotage your glucose control

Be cold-blooded about this – it doesn’t matter if packages are unopened!

Go through your refrigerator and throw out the processed deli meats, fast food leftovers, sodas, processed breakfast meats, processed cheese, muffins, sodas, doughnuts and cookies with trans fats, ice cream, margarine, heavy cream,  salad dressings and other bottled condiments with those mysterious ingredients.

Then go through your pantry to discard nutritionally risky foods: salty chips, artificial cheesy snacks, white sugar, white flour, sugary cereals, crackers and cookies containing trans fats, and processed vegetable oils.

Stock up on foods that will fortify you

Now that you have room, load up on powerful, high-antioxidant, plant-based ingredients. Think berries and other fruits, especially those in season, along with spinach, broccoli, whole grains, legumes, raw nuts and seeds, sardines, healthy oils and a variety of your favorite spices and herbs. Your taste buds will appreciate the incomparable flavors.

You can also add antioxidants to your drinks: prepare fruit-infused waters, chia drinks, and green tea. Keep super-fresh vegetables as bite-size snacks to provide you with vital flavonoids and vitamins.  These convenient, ready-to-eat snacks can help transform your glucose control and your health.

Another plus is that many highly nutritious foods can easily fit into your budget: vegetables in season, legumes, brown rice, quinoa and tofu, to name just a few.

This site is for informational purposes only. Please consult your health-care professional to determine medical recommendations specific to you.  See Terms of  Service

Effect of Replacing Animal Protein with Plant Protein on Glycemic Control in Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of
Randomized Controlled Trials http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26633472

Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source, Vegetables and Fruits

Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source – Protein