· CDE Mehandi Sharma
Best Indian Breakfast Options for Diabetes
Breakfast is the meal most people with diabetes get wrong, because almost every standard Indian option is built on carbohydrate and eaten with very little beside it.
An Indian study measured the glycaemic index of traditional preparations — how quickly each one raises blood glucose, on a scale where under 55 is low, 55 to 69 medium, and 70 or above high. The results do not follow the usual assumptions.
| Food | GI | Band |
|---|---|---|
| Broken wheat upma | 51.7 | Low |
| Methi paratha | 60.2 | Medium |
| Sorghum (jowar) idli | 61.3 | Medium |
| Wheat dosa | 61.8 | Medium |
| Adai | 66.2 | Medium |
| Wheat flakes chivda | 72.5 | High |
Two things follow from this. The form matters as much as the grain — the same flour behaves differently as a roti, a dosa or a porridge, which is why the study's authors concluded that being whole grain does not by itself make a food low GI. And a snack that sounds healthy is not automatically gentle: wheat flakes chivda measured higher than everything else on the list.
The single most useful change is not swapping one grain for another. It is adding protein to whatever you already eat: a bowl of curd, a boiled egg, sambar with real dal in it, or a handful of peanuts. That does more to steady the morning than switching from rice idli to ragi.
Breakfast is genuinely the hardest meal to get right — here is why.