Can Diabetics Eat Carrots, Peas and Corn (Gajar, Matar, Makai)?

Winter brings gajar, matar and bhutta, and with them a lot of worry at the diabetic’s table. Here’s the short answer to “can diabetics eat carrots, peas and corn”: carrots are a free-and-easy vegetable, eat them freely. Peas and corn are half vegetable, half starch, so they’re fine but they sit in the roti-and-rice quarter of your plate. The trouble is never the gajar. It’s the halwa.

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Can diabetics eat carrots? Yes, and here’s why

A carrot tastes sweet, so people assume it’s full of sugar. It isn’t. A whole medium carrot carries only about 6 g of carbohydrate, of which a few grams are natural sugar, and the rest is water and fibre. You’d need to eat three medium carrots to match a single slice of bread.

Raw carrots barely move blood sugar. Cooked carrots rise a little faster, because heat softens the fibre, but the amount of carbohydrate is still small. For people with diabetes (fasting sugar of 126 mg/dL or above, or HbA1c 6.5% or above), carrots count as a non-starchy vegetable: they go in the half of the plate you fill with sabzi and salad.

Red desi carrots in winter are sweeter and juicier than the orange ones sold year-round. The difference in sugar is small. Black carrots, used for kanji, are just as fine.

Carrot juice and gajar ka halwa: where the sugar comes from

Juice changes things. A glass of carrot juice takes roughly four or five carrots, strips out much of the fibre, and puts 20 g or more of carbohydrate into something you drink in a minute. A small glass with a meal is okay now and then. A big glass every morning is not the vegetable it pretends to be.

Gajar ka halwa is the real issue. The carrots in it are fine. The sugar, the khoya and the ghee aren’t. A typical homemade recipe uses a lot of sugar per kilo of carrots, and a single katori can carry as much sugar as a plate of mithai.

• Portion: 2 level tablespoons, on a plate, eaten slowly after a meal. Not a katori.
• At home: cook it with milk and much less sugar. Many families find a third of the usual sugar still tastes sweet, because slow-cooked carrots add their own sweetness.
• Skip: the extra khoya layer and the nuts fried in ghee on top, if you’re watching weight too.

Can diabetics eat peas and corn? The “part-starch” rule

Peas (matar) and corn (makai, bhutta) are the seeds of their plants. Seeds store energy as starch, so these two carry more carbohydrate than leafy or watery vegetables. That doesn’t make them bad. It just means you count them like you’d count a little roti.

Peas

Green peas are a surprisingly good choice. Half a cup of cooked peas has about 12 g of carbs, but also about 4 g of fibre and 4 g of protein. Their glycaemic index (GI, how fast a food raises sugar) is low, around 50 or under. Frozen peas are just as good as fresh; they’re frozen within hours of picking.

Corn

Sweet corn has a medium GI, roughly in the 50s. Half a cup of kernels carries about 15 to 17 g of carbs, and a medium bhutta around 20 g. The roasted desi bhutta with lemon, salt and chilli is a far better choice than a corn cup swimming in butter, cheese sauce or cream.

The plate method with gajar, matar and makai

Picture a normal dinner plate, about 23 cm across. Divide it like this, and peas and corn find their place automatically.

1. Half the plate: non-starchy vegetables. Carrot, cauliflower, cabbage, palak, salad, bhindi, lauki.
2. A quarter: protein. Chicken, fish, eggs, dal, chana, paneer or dahi.
3. A quarter: starch. 1 medium roti (about 30 g of atta), or half a cup of rice, or half a cup of peas or corn, or a mix.
4. If you eat aloo matar, that dish is mostly starch. Have 1 katori of it with salad and dahi, and cut the roti down to one.
5. Matar pulao: about three quarters of a cup cooked as your whole starch for that meal, with raita and a big salad. Not a mound.
6. Check: test your sugar before and 2 hours after the first bite on a few days to see how your usual plate behaves.

Three winter dishes, made diabetes-friendly

Bhutta chaat

Half a cup of boiled corn kernels, half a cup of diced cucumber, a small onion, half a tomato, lemon, chaat masala and green chilli. No butter, no sweet sauce. Eat as a snack or beside grilled chicken.

Carrot and cabbage salad

1 grated carrot, 1 cup shredded cabbage, lemon juice, salt and roasted til. Put it on the plate first and eat it before your roti. Starting with vegetables tends to soften the rise from the rest of the meal.

In desi homes: the gajar and matar season

Myths about carrots, peas and corn

Myth: carrots have a very high glycaemic index

An old test gave carrots a high GI, and the figure spread everywhere. Later testing found cooked carrots are low to medium. More importantly, a normal serving has so little carbohydrate that its effect on your sugar is small.

Myth: diabetics must never eat corn

Corn is a starch, like atta and rice. In a measured portion, in place of some of your roti, it fits. What doesn’t fit is corn plus two rotis plus rice.

Myth: matar is “heavy” and causes sugar

Peas are rich in fibre and plant protein, and their GI is low. Some people find they cause wind. That’s digestion, not sugar.

Surprising facts

• Early cultivated carrots were purple and yellow. The familiar orange carrot was developed later, largely by Dutch growers.
• One corn cob can hold 500 to 800 kernels, and each strand of “silk” leads to a single kernel.
• Peas are legumes, close cousins of chana, masoor and rajma.

Carrots, peas and corn for diabetics: questions answered

For the bigger picture, read roti and chawal portions for type 2 diabetes and browse Fruits and Vegetables. Also see dates and dry fruits for diabetics.