Ask any doctor or nutritionist who treats patients with diabetes: the first focus for controlling the disease is a healthy eating plan. But typical diabetic eating plans have been all about what you can't eat and what to do if you fall prey to a craving for foods you shouldn't have.

But now a typical day in the life of a diabetic might start with a smoked salmon-and-dill omelet, continue to a lunch of three-bean chili, salsa and guacamole, and finish with a dinner of grilled shrimp and shaved fennel, topped off by a dessert of chocolate terrine. It's a kind of eating that virtually guarantees not just control of the disease and a satisfying of the appetite, but an emphasis on specific nutrients that actually target diabetes, beating back its potential side effects and maintaining the healthy weight that is key to controlling the disease.

In Eat & Beat Diabetes with Picture Perfect Weight Loss, Dr. Howard Shapiro uses the same visual method of food comparisons that made his bestselling weight-loss books so popular and easy to use. Now he has teamed with top chef Franklin Becker, a diabetic himself, and together they reveal the secrets to a diet that can actually help you prevent and beat diabetes—without depriving yourself of delicious food.