Tips for Smart Snacking With Diabetes

The right snacks can be beneficial to your diabetes plan. Learn how to choose healthy snacks for diabetes and when you might need them.

By Jennifer Warner

Medically reviewed by Niya Jones, MD, MPH

Knowing when and how to choose a healthy snack can help keep type 2 diabetes under control.

In fact, a healthy diabetic snack can help you maintain a stable blood sugar level and support your overalldiabetes diet and treatment plan. The key is to know what a healthy diabetic snack is and what it isn't. Try these five tips to help you snack strategically for diabetes:

1. Know how carbs affect your body. Smart snacking for diabetes starts with knowing how your body reacts to insulin and carbohydrates. Insulin is a hormone normally produced by the body to help regulate sugar (glucose) in the blood. If you have diabetes, your body can’t produce or process enough insulin to keep your blood sugar at healthy levels.

With diabetes, your body converts the carbohydrates in foods into glucose faster than it does protein and fat. You must be aware of the carbohydrates you're eating to avoid potentially dangerous spikes or drops in blood sugar. Typical high-carb foods include certain fruits, bread, pasta, rice, and cereal. Work with your doctor or a registered dietitian to develop an individualized diabetes eating plan for healthy meals and snacks based on your body’s reaction to carbohydrates and the status of your diabetes.

2. Snack only when you really need to. “If you're hungry, eat a snack. If you're not hungry, you don’t need a snack,” says Alison Evert, MS, RD, CDE, coordinator of diabetes care programs at the Diabetes Care Center at University of Washington Diabetes Care Center in Seattle. Because many people with type 2 diabetes are overweight and don’t need to make snacking a regular habit, Evert says, "the whole idea of three meals and three snacks a day is too many calories."

3. Plan ahead. Taking insulin or other diabetes medications that affect insulin production can cause dips in blood sugar after exercise or at night. To compensate, your doctor may recommend that you eat a snack before working out or going to bed. Always check your blood sugar before snacking, though, since a snack may not be needed.

“The idea that you need a snack if you’re exercising isn’t always true,” Evert says. Typically, if you take insulin or an insulin-producing drug that can lower blood sugar, you should check your blood sugar level before exercising and bring a snack in case you need it.

4. Keep snacks proportional. Portion control is essential to smart snacking for diabetes. Healthy diabetes snacks shouldn't add extra empty calories that can pack on the pounds. Instead, snacks intended to correct blood sugar should be proportional to blood glucose levels, says Helen W. Rodbard, MD, medical director of Endocrine and Metabolic Consultants in Rockville, Md., and past president of the American College of Endocrinology.

That means small dips in blood sugar should be managed with only a small, low-carbohydrate snack. Larger drops in blood sugar require a larger, faster-acting amount of carbohydrates. “If you’re having an episode of low blood sugar, you need juice or something that will raise your blood sugar rapidly,” Dr. Rodbard says.

5. Make snacking simple. Unless you’re experiencing low blood sugar, healthy snacks for diabetes should usually be low in carbohydrates and high in fiber or protein that won’t cause spikes in your blood sugar.

Again, portion size is key, Evert says. Most people should aim for snacks with some fiber, about 15 to 20 grams of carbohydrates, and no more than 150 calories. Fiber helps slow the absorption of carbohydrates and maintain healthy blood sugar levels. Some healthy snack ideas that fit the bill are an apple or orange, three cups of popcorn, or 15 almonds.

Evert says that most people with diabetes don’t need to worry about mixing food groups at snack time. This usually just adds extra calories you don’t need. “Many people have been told to add protein, and that’s a myth that we need to put to rest,” she says, because there's no evidence that it neutralizes the effect of carbohydrates. A study in "Metabolism" in 2012, for instance, showed that combining carbohydrates with protein does not improve the glucose response that naturally occurs in people with type 2 diabetes after eating carbohydrates.