Safety of Meal Replacement Shakes for Type 2 Diabetes?

First of all, regardless of what's in the shakes, a person would not last for a long time, much less life-long, drinking shakes in place of meals.  Weight loss shakes might work in the short term but I believe it's not practical to depend on shakes for life.  What's in the shakes?

Diabetics as well as non-diabetics benefit from a diet lifestyle based on real, fresh vegetables (when available) some protein, nuts and dairy.  Some people who have further dietary restrictions because of diseases like celiac, Crohns, vegan diet, etc. might have to tweak out some food but basically we should eat: fresh vegetables, small portions of meat/chicken/fish, some eggs, nuts, cheese, some fruit. 

The tricky part of being a diabetic is the carbs.  This is where you will find lots of differences among doctors, nutritionists and patients.  After reading Dr. Richard Bernstein's Diabetes Solution, I figured out my own eating plan and I eliminated potatoes, rice or anything made with flour or sugar.  The Food Pyramid and the American Diabetes Assoc. (and probably the one in Canada too) all allow whole grains and a certain amount of carbs per meal.  The reason this is so is not because of nutrition but because they figure people won't give them up.  So, they say if you want bread, fine, eat whole grain.  If you want a potato, fine, don't put butter on it.  The problem with this reasoning is that the whole grain bread or the potato will raise blood sugar very high.

As Dr. Bernstein points out, it doesn't make sense to eat all the carbs that raise the blood sugar in order to take diabetes meds (including insulin) in order to bring the blood sugar down.  That's like hitting your head against the wall till it hurts so you can take aspirin.

In the end, however, the choice belongs to the patient.  My doctor is happy with my choice of diet because of the lab results.

I do not count anything, carbs or calories.  For breakfast, I eat little florets of raw broccoli, cauliflower, some slices of raw bell pepper, a leftover piece of chicken if we have it or 2 pieces of Oscar Meyer Oven Roasted Turkey or an egg, a few almonds, coffee and a small glass of Low Sodium V-8.  Lunch might be similar or low carb yogurt and a couple of berries, dinner a piece of protein, salad and veggies and a glass of wine.

Please read the stickies above Testimonial and Diabetes Resouces for more information about food.

The bottom line is:  keeping the blood sugar as near normal as we can.  We can do this with the food we eat and don't eat.  It's actually simple.  The more carbs we eat =  higher blood sugar = the more diabetes meds we have to take.

If you both like cheese cake, make one with three packages of Kraft 1/3 Less Fat Neufchatel, 1 or 2 eggs, vanilla and artificial sweetener.  Bake it at 350 till done.  No crust.  If you want a crust, make it with ground almonds.  You can do that with your food processor and mix in some melted butter.  It is just like graham cracker crust.  Add some berries on top or in the batter.

Make 'wraps' with large lettuce leaves.  Place a dab of mayo, slice of cheese and luncheon meat on the leaf and roll it up.

Lots of ways to have fun with this.  Honest.  I've been doing this for four years.