5 pointers for navigating the beverage aisle

If you have diabetes, figuring out what to drink can be tricky.  Read on for some smart suggestions of low-calorie, low-sugar and low-sodium beverages.

Soft drinks (other than diet varieties) contain far too much sugar and too many calories, and even 100 per cent fruit juice should be rationed because it's higher in sugar than real fruit and contains none of the fibre.

This juice is particularly high in antioxidants, but like other fruit juices, it's too high in calories.

• Plan to dilute it with water (with at least 50 per cent water) and ice.

If you're limiting your intake of soda and other sweetened drinks, and you don't always care for plain water, what can you drink? Tea!

• It's rich in antioxidants that help protect your arteries and stave off complications of diabetes.
• For extra convenience when you want to brew your own tea, try cold-brew tea bags — just one bag turns a glass of ice water into calorie-free tea.
• Of course, you can also find many varieties of ready-to-drink unsweetened ice tea, including green teas.

Just avoid sweetened iced teas.

Calorie-free flavoured waters are okay, as long as they aren't carbonated.

• Unlike seltzers and club sodas, these aren't high in sodium.

It's a good way to sneak a vegetable serving into your day, and it has less of an effect on blood sugar than fruit juices do.

• That said, tomato juice tends to be awfully high in sodium, so look for a low-sodium variety or add water to regular tomato juice to dilute it.

Soda is filled with calories empty on nutrition. Drinking it raises the risk of both diabetes and obesity.

• If you must drink it, make it diet and spare yourself the calories.