Diabetes Dishes For Everyone - CBS News

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Diabetes Dishes For Everyone

Renowned New York City Chef, Tom Valenti, Brings His Healthy Recipes To "The Early Show"

NEW YORK, June 9, 2009

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Diabetic-Friendly Dinnner

(CBS) Tom Valenti, a New York City chef known for his Upper West Side fine-dining restaurants "Ouest" and "The West Branch," thought his culinary life was doomed to boredom when he was diagnosed with diabetes 14 years ago.

However, he's since discovered it’s possible to eat well and still keep salt and carbohydrates to a minimum.

But can diabetic cooking be for everyone?

Valenti thinks so -- especially if you want to eat healthy.

Valenti compiled his favorite diabetes-friendly recipes into a new cookbook, "You Don’t Have to Be Diabetic To Love This Cookbook." He visited The Early Show Tuesday with some of its recipes.

Valenti got a surprise after he was diagnosed: He realized that some of the techniques he already used in the kitchen -- for example, using a lot of acidity, brightening dishes with lemon juice and vinegar -- are actually healthy ways to cook.

"Beyond discovering how useful my standard operating procedures were for my new scenario, I found that very often honoring the limits of diabetes simply meant rejiggering the proportions in a dish, emphasizing proteins and vegetables over pastas, legumes, and so on," Tom writes in the book.

There is no "diabetes diet." Each person with the disease -- and there are almost 24 million people in this country who have it, according to the American Diabetes Association -- follows a different regiment based on his or her health and lifestyle. However, general diet guidelines include cutting back on carbs, and lightening up on fats and sodium.

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Yellow Tomato Soup

In general, soups are a great option for many diabetics.

"For the most part," Tom ...

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