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The aim of the Traffic Light Guide system is to guide your food choices and give you greater flexibility when it comes to choosing how you eat. Understanding food and how to make it work is the cornerstone of successful diabetes management. Keep yourself informed so that you can make the best decisions about food and health for you. We all understand the pleasure that eating can bring; however, when you are first diagnosed with diabetes, knowing what to eat can be a problem. Instead of being pleasurable, eating can become a troublesome necessity. Suddenly you need to understand a lot more about what you are eating and how it may affect your blood glucose levels. There's a lot to learn. There's also a lot of confusing information about 'diets' in our community with low carb, high carb, high protein, cleansing and detox diets making everyone an expert on what you should and shouldn't eat. The Traffic Light Guide to Food has been helping people manage their diabetes since it was first published in 1975. With this new edition, the team at the Diabetes Education Centre and Paediatric Diabetes and Endocrine service of Royal North Shore Hospital, in particular our dietitians, bring you the latest information on food based on current dietary knowledge and practice. This edition includes a review based on comprehensive consumer and health professional input. For the first time, information on gestational diabetes has been included.

Other new features include:

• more information on flexibility in eating patterns
  
• information on how exchange/carbohydrate counting systems can be helpful for type 2 and gestational diabetes
  
• reviewed and updated content
  
• updated carbohydrate information.