Healthy options

Creating meals for diabetics, coeliacs or others needing special diets conjures up visions of strange substances painstakingly prepared to a chemist's formulation. But think again. The nutritional advice being given to those on special diets is no different to that which the public in general is getting on healthy eating. The exception is that certain foods otherwise considered healthy for most of us could make others very ill.

Nuts, for example, are normally considered a reasonably healthy food, but they can be fatal for people who are allergic to them. Pasta is generally part of a healthy dietary regime, but not for those who are coeliacs.

"There's currently a lot to recommend the Mediterranean diet," says Jasmine Challis, a state registered dietician.

Challis has supplied dietary advice for many of the menu items in the Berrydale range of prepared foods for special diets.

The reason the Mediterranean diet is encouraged is that it incorporates the best of current thinking about healthy eating. It takes in fresh fruit and vegetables, pulses, lots of complex foods and minimal fat.

The way to cater for special diets is, basically, to follow what is the current trend. Bear in mind that coeliacs can't have things like bread and pasta, but could happily eat grilled sea bass with ratatouille and a green salad. So, too, could diabetics, along with people who are lactose intolerant, and those who are allergic to nuts.

There is one important factor to keep in mind. Current thinking on diet and nutrition changes as regularly as scientists make new discoveries. "For example, 10 years ago you would say that anything for diabetics has to be sugar free," Challis says. "But now we believe that a bit of sugar in a high-fibre dessert after a high-fibre meal is okay once in a while."

Lactose-free

Many adults - and some children - cannot have foods containing the milk sugar lactose, because they do not have the enzyme to digest it.

Banned foods

Cow's milk, butter, cream, ghee and margarine (unless it is dairy-free), cheese, cow's milk yoghurt, ice-cream, milk chocolate, any milk derivatives like casein, whey, milk protein, lactalbumin.

Alternatives

Goat's and sheep's milk, cheeses and ice-cream made from it, soya milk, tofu and frozen tofu.

Diabetes

This affects at least 1% of the British population. It is caused by a lack of insulin secreted by the pancreas. Insulin is necessary for metabolising glucose, the digestive product of carbohydrates. Insulin enables the body to store the energy in glucose as fat for later use.

There are no "banned foods" as such, but diabetics who eat out regularly must carefully monitor their diets.

Current advice is to follow a healthy diet, rich in complex carbohydrates which take longer to break down into glucose. These include wholegrain cereals and breads, along with pasta, potatoes and pulses.

Diabetics are also more at risk from heart disease and must keep their intake of all types of fat relatively low.

Foods to avoid

Fatty meats, fried foods, cheese, butter, margarine and other fats, all sugars, including honey, and alcohol.

For further information call the British Diabetic Association, 10 Queen Anne Street, London W1M 9LD, telephone 0171-323 1531.