 Hello everyone. This is Dr. Ahmed Ergen, your endocrinologist and a diabetes education specialist. Today we are talking about lentils. Lentils are amazing food for diabetics and here is why. All right guys, well thank you for watching. Make sure you give a thumbs up. Make sure you like this video if you enjoy it and then make sure you share this with other family members. This video is designed for diabetics but the content and the information in this video can definitely help a lot of other people as well. So lentils, let's start with diabetics. Is it good and why is it good? Well number one, this lentil is amazing. We'll talk about the heart benefits and some other benefits. What is in the lentil later in the video? But first, why is it good for diabetics? Well it's because it is low in glycemic index. If you have been watching our videos, our channel, you will know what glycemic index is and if you didn't know, you either didn't watch enough or you're not a subscriber. So subscribe now. As I said, glycemic index is 32 which is great. You think about this, you heard glycemic index from 0 to 100. Now your potato for example is 110. A half a potato is enough to spike your blood sugar to sky. So like same thing with rice, glycemic index of 90, like a white rice. Remember we have videos about all these potatoes, rice, if you want to go into detail about this to watch the other videos we have. But I'm just comparing how your lentils compare. Now lentils are interesting. There are a variety of lentils and I'll talk about that how to really cook lentils and what type of lentils are there. If you didn't have a good experience with lentil before, it doesn't mean that you will not because lentils are cooked in different ways and same thing with a meat dish. Just because one meat dish is not that great, enjoy it doesn't mean that you stop eating meat. Of course you can just try something else. So true for pretty much any food but lentils can be very enjoyable and great food. Now what else? Think about this. So one cup of lentil is 200 grams okay. Half a cup let's say you're not gonna have you know just lentils. Let's say you're gonna have half a cup of lentils that is 100 grams. Now 100 grams of lentils okay that's uncooked all right. So we have around 20 grams of carbohydrates. Now eight grams of that is fiber, soluble fiber which is very beneficial and I'll tell you why. Eight grams of fiber you have 20 grams of carbs so you are left with only 12 grams of carbs. What else you are left with? You are left with nine grams of protein. So that's a lot of protein for a plant food. I'm telling you there are a lot of guys that I see sometimes on YouTube or some friends and family members. They build muscle. These guys are plant-based guys they go to the gym they have these huge muscles and they don't even touch the meat. They love lentil because lentil is a great alternative to meat. When I was a child my mom used to say hey you know this cup of lentil is like a pound of meat and I'll be like mom what are you talking about I want meat okay so you're a child you don't know but my mom was smart. My mom was trying to make me eat more wholesome food more healthy food and so just eating meat meat you know trying to make you eat vegetables and lentils and so forth and in Mediterranean countries like in Turkey lentil is something that everybody eats every week it's it's amazing. We use red lentils most of the time you know in Italy Turkey you know Mediterranean countries have mostly red lentils and they actually make it into soup and they actually red lentils will will mush and will create this nice thick consistency. Now consistency is up to you but the lentils will mush and will turn into a great soup and you can find a variety of recipes whatever you put in there spices or whatever you want to enrich your lentils with you can and I have had so many different lentil soups and every time I have a lentil soup in a different place it tastes different so it's a very versatile food depending on your taste you can create your own soup and it's actually very fast to cook you just need a pressure cooker typically that's what I do or my wife does so basically it is super fast especially a pressure cooker if you want to just simmer it for a long time that's fine that works too if you have time just put it there let it cook but it's a very rich source of fiber as well now the fiber is very good why because soluble fiber is what binds your LDL which is the bad cholesterol so if you eat a lot of lentil you will reduce your LDL your bad cholesterol very easily so just have a lentil you know twice a week maybe you'll be good now if you don't like the red lentils or a mush lentils or whatever you can use brown lentils and brown lentils could they keep their shape and you know if you'd like that consistency that will work as well as and then you know you can also use lentils as a side dish it's very versatile just just maybe check other youtube videos about lentils see what people do about lentils how they cook lentils and so forth but it's gonna be amazing you know when you start using lentils you're gonna love it and your LDL cholesterol will go down so your your sugar will be better maintained why because you have fiber which slows down the absorption you have protein which slows on the absorption so your blood sugar does not spike plus you know it's it's not full of carbs either and then you have protein that comes with it so it makes you stay full longer so what else do we have in lentil that helps your heart that helps your immune system let's talk about that right now so lentils are rich in folate iron manganese phosphorus thiamine potassium vitamin b6 niacin zinc copper selenium so guys there's so many vitamins and minerals in these lentils think about this thiamine there's thiamine in there uh ribophilavin these are great things that helps diabetes remember the benfa thiamine video we talked about the benfa thiamine supplementation because most most diabetics don't like lentils most diabetics don't like vegetables so they end up being deficient plus their blood sugars are so high they kind of consume those minerals so fast and they need replacement but if you were eating these you may need less replacement so lentils are a great source of these now selenium for example is amazing we use selenium for thyroid patients because thyroid is an immune disease you know your immune system attacks your thyroid and so forth and we give them a selenium supplementation and so forth so it helps your immune system boost your immune system as well so potassium for example in in in lentils are amazing and magnesium calcium all those things help to reduce your blood pressure as well so if you remember my diabetic diet video first i talk about the tripod phenomena in in this phenomenon what we are talking about there is that if if you are controlling your diabetes but you're ignoring your blood pressure or you're ignoring your cholesterol think about like a tripod you know you fix one leg and then or you fix two legs and one leg is not fixed you're gonna tilt you're gonna fall so in diabetes management we always make sure that your cholesterol is under control your diabetes under control your blood pressure under control so that you do not get damaged to your tissues it's not just your blood sugar killing you it's the blood pressure and cholesterol as well so i hope that helped you guys if it did please make sure you thumbs up share this video subscribe and guess what we'll see you again