Small Food Tweaks That Will Improve Your Glucose Levels

1. Add protein to your snacks

Many common snacks are mostly carbohydrates. On their own, they can cause BGLs to rise quickly.

Adding protein helps slow digestion and keep you fuller for longer.

Easy swaps:

• Instead of eating plain crackers, add cheese, tuna, or hummus
  • *Tip* choose a grainy cracker for best results such as a Vita Weat or Ryvita.
• Instead of eating fruit alone, eat it with Greek yoghurt or nuts
• Instead of plain or buttered toast, add eggs, peanut butter, or cottage cheese

Eating enough protein across the day supports steadier BGLs and helps maintain and build muscle, keeping you feeling strong.

2. Change the way you cook carbs

Cook and then cool your starchy carbohydrates. This increases the amount of resistant starch in the food. Resistant starch is digested more slowly and can lead to smaller BGL rises (lower GI).

Foods this works well with:

• Rice
• Pasta
• Potatoes
• Oats

Cook these foods ahead of time, cool them in the fridge, and eat them later cold or reheated. The resistant starch remains even if you reheat them again!

Portion size still matters, but this tweak will change how your body digests the carbohydrate.

Read more about this in our February article “Resistant Starch: A Simple Cooking Trick to Lower Blood Glucose Levels”

3. Eat more fibre

Fibre slows digestion of carbohydrates, which helps glucose enter the bloodstream more steadily.

Small increases in fibre can make a big difference.

Easy ways to increase fibre:

• When preparing a meal, fill ½ your plate with non-starchy vegetables such as a garden salad, steamed or stir-fried vegetables
• Choose wholegrain bread instead of white or wholemeal
• Add lentils or beans to soups, salads, curries and casseroles
• Sprinkle chia seeds or psyllium husk into yoghurt or oats

Increase fibre gradually and drink plenty of water to avoid gut discomfort.

4. Swap the order you eat foods

The order you eat foods can affect your BGL response.

Eating protein and vegetables before carbohydrates may help lower the rise in BGLs after meals.

Try this:

• Start meals with non-starchy vegetables or salad
• Eat protein next (meat, fish, eggs, tofu, legumes)
• Eat carbohydrates last

This is a simple habit change that does not require cutting out foods.

5. Simple drink swaps

Drinks that contain natural or added sugar raise BGLs quickly because they are absorbed rapidly and do not contain fibre.

Drink swaps:

• Swap regular soft drink for diet soft drink or sparkling water
• Instead of fruit juice, eat the whole fruit
• Swap sweet coffee drinks for coffee with milk and no added sugar, use less sugar or a sweetener like Stevia

You do not need to be perfect. Even reducing sugary drinks sometimes can help.

Check what works for you

Everyone’s body responds differently. The best way to know if a food tweak helped is to check your BGLs.

Simple check:

• Check before the meal
• Eat your meal
• Check again 2 hours after starting the meal

Write down what you ate and how your BGLs responded, notice the difference between the before and after-meal reading. Over time, patterns become clearer.

The bottom line

You do not need to give up your favourite foods to improve your BGLs.

Small tweaks - like adding protein, increasing fibre, changing cooking methods, or adjusting food order - can meaningful improvement your BGLs.

Focus on progress, not perfection. Try one change at a time and see how your body responds.

As always, individual responses vary, and people living with diabetes should work with their dietitian or healthcare team to tailor food choices to their needs. You can get specialised diabetes advice from our experienced team at the Diabetes Care+ Clinic.