A diabetes-friendly eating style is much easier to achieve when you prepare your own meals. Cooking puts you back in control when diabetes threatens your sense of well-being. However, this requires you to have some basic cooking skills. Click here to learn how to cook with non-starchy vegetables. Adding vegetables to a meal is a great place to start since they are low in calories and carbohydrates but loaded with fiber to help you feel full.

To help you move beyond vegetables and prepare a whole meal, read this article, Choosing The Right Cooking Method by Chef Mark Ainsworth of The Culinary Institute of America. It tells you how to match the best cooking technique (roast, grill, steam, etc.) with the right food for a delicious outcome. More details about each technique are in my cookbook, The Diabetes-Friendly Kitchen 125 Recipes For Creating Healthy Meals (HMH 2012) available at most major book sellers or through my website jstackchefrd.com. So pick up your chef’s knife and spatula and get started enjoying good food & good health!

Photos by the talented Ben Fink