Feature
Eating with type 2 diabetes: real numbers, not forbidden lists
“What can I eat?” is the most common question after a diagnosis. Nilera doesn’t answer it with a meal plan: it lets you look up a food, enter the portion actually on your plate, and read what the official composition tables say — even with no connection.
Too many conflicting rules, no reliable number at hand
Between the lists of “forbidden” foods found online, well-meaning advice from those around you, and miracle diets, it’s easy to get lost — and to end up eating with anxiety rather than pleasure.
And when you want to check something precise — how many carbs in a portion of rice, in a serving of yam, in a slice of bread — you find approximate, contradictory figures, often copied with no source. The problem isn’t a lack of advice: it’s the lack of one reliable number at the exact moment you need it.
Where the numbers come from: official food composition tables
Public guidance doesn’t speak of strictly forbidden foods, but of balance and quantity: regular meals, a big role for vegetables, fiber, and whole grains, and limited intake of very sugary or ultra-processed products. For blood sugar, it’s the quantity eaten — far more than any single food — that makes the difference.
A food’s nutritional values aren’t an opinion: they are measured and published by public bodies in composition tables. The USDA’s FoodData Central, ANSES’s Ciqual table in France, the FAO/INFOODS regional tables, the TACO table in Brazil. Those are the tables Nilera ships with — not numbers copied off a forum.
These tables don’t overlap. Yam, attiéké, fonio, and cassava don’t appear in European tables, and a European table doesn’t correctly describe a West African dish. It also happens that a value was never measured for a given food: in that case Nilera shows it as not reported. Never replaced by a zero — an invented zero would silence a potassium or sodium flag that matters to someone.
Every situation is individual: the right food support is built with your doctor and, if needed, a registered dietitian. Nilera gives you access to composition data and explains how to read it; it does not build a meal plan and does not replace dietary care.
Sources: USDA FoodData Central · FAO/INFOODS — Food composition tables · Ciqual table — ANSES · CDC — Diabetes and healthy eating
How Nilera helps day to day
Nilera ships with more than 12,000 foods from four official composition tables — CIQUAL/ANSES, FAO-INFOODS WAFCT, TACO, and USDA — including a catalogue matched to your region. You look up a food, adjust the quantity, and read:
- A food search that works offline: the composition tables are bundled inside the app, not queried from a server.
- A portion selector in grams: you enter the portion actually in front of you, and every value recalculates on screen.
- Clear guidance for that portion — “good choice”, “in moderation”, “limit it” — always with the mechanism explained, never reduced to a red light.
- Flags tied to what you declared: allergens, sodium if you have high blood pressure, potassium in case of kidney failure, saturated fat if you have high cholesterol.
- A catalogue matched to your country: based on the region you declare, Nilera loads the matching composition table — the one that actually contains yam, attiéké, or cassava.
- When a value was never measured by the official table, it is shown as “not reported”. Never replaced by a zero.
Screenshot coming soon
The features described here reflect the current version of the app, with no promise of a medical outcome.
Frequently asked questions
Reliable numbers, even with no signal
Coming soon to the App Store — join the waitlist.