The Diabetes-Friendly Pantry

A diabetes diagnosis makes the grocery store feel smaller than it is. The advice tends to arrive as a list of what to put down. I’d rather hand you a cart.

The American Diabetes Association doesn’t set an ideal share of calories from carbohydrate. Its standards name foods to build around instead: nonstarchy vegetables, whole fruit, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds, lean proteins, and dairy or a nondairy alternative (the standards say low-fat; I’d say plain, and let you pick the fat), with at least 14 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories.¹ I read that as a shopping list rather than a rule book.

Twenty things follow, grouped the way the store is laid out. Nearly all of it is on the shelf at H-E-B or Fiesta; a few things cost less at the Indian grocers along Hillcroft, and I’ll say which.

The bean aisle

Beans are where I’d start. In a three-month randomized trial, people with type 2 diabetes who added about a cup of beans, chickpeas, or lentils a day lowered their A1C by about half a point, a bit more than the group that got its extra fiber from whole wheat.² The trial didn’t pit canned against dried, and the nutrition is close enough that I wouldn’t either. Buy the one you’ll cook.

• Canned black beans or pintos, “no salt added” when the shelf has it Rinsed and drained, they go into tacos, soup, or a salad with no planning. If the no-salt can is out, rinse the regular one under the tap for a minute and move on.
• Dried red lentils (masoor dal) No soaking and soft in about twenty minutes, which makes them the lentil that gets cooked instead of planned. The Indian grocers sell them by the big bag, which costs less than the little box and keeps in the pantry until you’ve cooked through it.
• Canned chickpeas Roast a drained can with cumin until the skins crisp and you have a snack that isn’t chips. One can is about a cup and a half.

Rice and tortillas

The standards put whole grains in the same sentence as legumes and ask us to minimize refined grains.¹ A whole grain keeps all three parts of the kernel, the bran, the germ, and the starchy middle; white rice and white flour have lost the first two.⁵ USDA counts nixtamalized corn, the lime-treated corn that becomes masa, as a whole grain, which puts a plain corn tortilla on this shelf.⁶ In Houston that makes the shelf a lot wider than the brown rice.

• Corn tortillas Corn, lime (the mineral, not the fruit), water, and salt is the whole list on a good one. If the label says corn masa or corn treated with lime, that’s the stack you want; if it says degerminated corn flour, the germ is gone, and I’d pick a different one.
• Brown basmati Stays separate and a little nutty, which is why people who swear off brown rice tend to finish it. About 40 minutes on the stove.
• Old-fashioned rolled oats The plain canister, which has no added sugar. The flavored packets run about 12 grams apiece, three teaspoons’ worth, and the label says so.

Nuts and seeds

A handful of peanuts needs no label reading, which is why nuts are my fix for three o’clock. They’re on the standards’ list of foods to build around too.¹

• Peanuts or almonds, unsalted or lightly salted A handful with a piece of fruit, packed the night before so it’s in the bag when the afternoon runs long. Bulk bins keep the price down.
• Chia seeds or ground flaxseed Two tablespoons into oats or yogurt is fiber you don’t have to chew for. Ground flax lives in the fridge once opened.

Canned fish

Sardines are about the cheapest fatty fish in the store, and they come already cooked. When the standards say fatty fish, they mean salmon, tuna, sardines, and mackerel, and the canned aisle has all four.¹

• Sardines, in olive oil or water The one I’d push on anyone who’ll try them. On toast with a squeeze of lime and sliced onion, bones and all; they’re soft enough that most people don’t notice.
• Canned salmon or tuna A can of salmon, an egg, a handful of oats, and a hot skillet make patties in fifteen minutes.

The freezer

The freezer aisle counts as produce. I don’t rank fresh over frozen, and the study that convinced me is small but clean. Researchers at UC Davis compared eight fruits and vegetables frozen against the same ones kept in the fridge, and vitamin C held up as well or better in the frozen samples. Beta-carotene was the exception; it dropped in frozen peas and carrots, and by some measures in spinach.⁴ On a weeknight, the bag you’ll open beats the bunch that wilts.

• Frozen chopped spinach A block, thawed and squeezed dry in a towel, goes into a pot of dal without anyone washing a leaf. The squeeze matters; skip it and the dal goes watery.
• Frozen broccoli florets or mixed vegetables Roast straight from the bag in a hot oven until the edges brown. Steaming in the bag is fine too; it’s just less interesting.
• Frozen edamame or green peas A legume that lives in the freezer. Edamame with salt is a snack; peas go into the rice at the end.

Vinegar and spices

Flavor is a diabetes tool because the food you season is the food you keep eating. Vinegar has its own small literature. A meta-analysis of short trials found that vinegar taken with a carbohydrate-heavy meal blunted the after-meal rise in blood sugar and insulin.³ The trials are small and the effect is modest. It’s a good reason to dress your salad, and I’d stop there. The caution is for anyone with gastroparesis. Vinegar slows how fast the stomach empties, and in a small study of people with type 1 diabetes whose stomachs already emptied slowly, it slowed them further.⁷ If you’ve been told you have it, skip this one.

• A vinegar you like (rice, apple cider, or plain white) A splash right before serving is the acid that makes a plain plate of beans and rice taste finished.
• Whole cumin seeds, dried chiles, and Mexican oregano Cumin bloomed in hot oil over lentils, a dried chile in the beans, oregano in the tomatoes. The Hillcroft grocers sell whole spices in bags for far less than the jars.

Dairy and eggs

Two proteins with nothing to decode on the carton, which is why I’d start a first week here. On a good label, plain yogurt is milk and cultures; an egg is an egg. Both go with what’s already in the cart, and neither asks you to read past the first line.

• Plain yogurt, Greek or regular Plain, so the sugar is yours to add. Fruit, a few nuts, a spoon of chia.
• Eggs Boil six on Sunday. They keep about a week in their shells, and a boiled egg with a corn tortilla is breakfast on the way out the door.⁸

Shortcuts that hold up

The standards ask us to minimize ultraprocessed foods.¹ Some convenience foods are just food someone else prepped, and on a hard week that’s the difference between cooking and not. These three have short labels, which is my test.

• Frozen cooked brown rice pouches Ninety seconds in the microwave, and the ingredient list is rice, maybe a little oil. It beats the forty-minute pot when the forty minutes isn’t there.
• Rotisserie chicken Three dinners from one bird, inside three or four days; freeze the third if the week runs long.⁸ Night one it’s dinner over a bag of salad, and what’s left goes into tortillas with black beans or starts a pot of lentils. Check the label; if yours was brined, go easy on the salt in whatever you build around it.
• Jarred salsa or canned diced tomatoes Tomatoes, chiles, onion, salt is the list to look for. Salsa dresses the beans and eggs; canned tomatoes start the dal.