Diabetes classes encourages smart label reading

By Lailani Upham

Brenda Bodner, CSKT Tribal Health Nutritionist, holds up a bag of crackers to participants as they guess how much sugar, sodium and other unfit ingredients for diabetics are totaled in a serving of the snack. (Lailani Upham photo)

POLSON — Reading labels should be a common practice for diabetes patients and even for those who believe they are healthy and have nothing to worry about when it comes to ingredient intake.

Many products out on the market can add up carbs, sugars, sodium that exceeds the total no-no’s for those dealing with diabetes. However, if you know how to manage and monitor what’s what, you can snack without guilt, says Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Health nutritionist Brenda Bodner.

Bodner’s diabetes nutritional last classes are held four to six times per year. The latest session covered healthy and beneficial snacks.

Classes are on the top floor conference room of the Polson Tribal Health clinic and has been open to everyone willing to be educated on how to maintain a healthy diabetic diet.

In the past few weeks Bodner’s participants have been gaining knowledge on making wise choices and using the information found in total amounts of nutrients per serving in snack foods.

Bodner says servings sizes are important to diabetics, and they need to pay close attention to what they intake and become “normal label readers.”

Participants check out a label on an oatmeal cookie package to find out the carbs may be a slightly on the high side but the fiber intake has a ideal amount for a snack. Bodner stated, choosing individually wrapped snacks were a better choice because it tends to keep one from over indulging a goody in one sitting. (Lailani Upham photo)

She led the class to check the grams of carbs and fiber in a number of packaged snacks. A good note for this is if the grams are more than 5 grams of fiber, subtract half of the fiber from the total of carbs. For example if the serving size is 18 grams of carbs and the fiber is 6, the subtraction would be 3. This would total the carbs to 15 grams.

A diabetic should limit 30 to 50 grams of carbs per meal.

She encouraged the group to look at the fat grams.

According to Diabetic Living, avoid foods that are more than 1 gram of saturated fat per serving and more than 3 grams of total fats per serving. Even though a label states it is “low fat” it does not always mean it is low fat for a diabetic.

The next session will begin in January in the St. Ignatius clinic and the specific dates are yet to be announced.

For more information on diabetic nutrition call Brenda Bodner at (406) 675-2700, ext. 5020.