Gestational Diabetes – Snack Ideas

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has days when you’re just so hungry! There have been times when I can eat what feels like a three course meal and thenfind myself absolutely ravenous two hours later. A question that alot of women diagnosed with GD ask is whether or not they can include snacks between meals, and the answer is yes, you can! Which is good, because if I couldn’t snack I might fade away to a small block of flats.

As with your main meals, you need to choose your snacks wisely. Snacks should be low in fat (particularly saturated fats) and high in fibre (Fibre helps ease a certain side effect that you can experience if you’re taking iron supplements. I’m sure you know what one I’m talking about!). Its also important to note that many low fat foods can have a significant kilojoule conent, so try to snack in moderation.

Anyhow, here is a list of sweet and savoury snack ideas as well as a short list on what is safe to drink. These ideas are taken from the “Healthy Snacks” fact sheet written by DiabetesWA:

Sweet Snacks

• Slice of Raisin toast
• Snack Right Fruit Slice or Spicy Fruit Roll biscuits
• Frozen fruit cut into pieces
• Small handful of dried fruit such as apricots, sultanas, apple or prunes mixed with nuts
• Low fat/diet fruit yoghurt or Fruche Light
• Light Cadbury or Nestle Mousse
• Pikelets or Wholemeal Crumpets (Wholemeal crumpets tend to send my sugars through the roof, but its on the DiabetesWA Snack list, so I may just be special. Wholemeal bread has the same effect)
• Fruit or Wholemeal scones with fruit spread
• Fruit or Bran Muffin
• Mother Earth Wholemeal fruit bars
• Low fat fruit cake

Savoury Snacks

• Pretzels, low fat corn chips or rice chips
• Low fat noodles
• Rice crackers
• English Muffin topped with tomato slices and low fat cheese (English muffins destroy my sugar levels as well, but once again, its on the DiabetesWA list)
• Low fat Cup a Soup varieties
• Low fat crackers or vegetable sticks
• Light microwave popcorn
• Vita-Weats with 9 grains topped with your favourite topping (These things are great! I live off them some days)
• Savoury muffins
• Celery boats

Drinks

• Any type of coffee, as long as its made with skim milk*
• So Natural Soy Banana smoothie
• Fruit Smoothies
• Diet Cool Drinks*
• Water
• Light Fruit Juices

^{* Its important to note that these things may contain artificial sweeteners such as saccharin, which you may be trying to avoid during your pregnancy.}

These are of course, just some ideas of what you can eat and may not work for you specifically. Like I mentioned next to some of the ideas, I’ve found that some of the snack foods can be terrible for my BSL’s. It really is trial and error to see what does and doesn’t work for you. So far the only two things that I’ve found that have randomly upset the balance of my diet are wholemeal breads and Hi Lo milk. For other people, it could be the Cuppa Soups or sultanas. Its all about finding out what works best for you.