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Chickpeas, pulses and effects on diabetes

DavidGrahamJones said:
I recently tried emulating the very low calorie Newcastle type diet by removing red meat, pork, chicken, fish from my diet, almost veggie except weekends are a time to have a treat so bacon on Sunday. It was very successful in straitening out my BG. MY BG is doing some very silly things that I can't explain. The whole "which food does what" is very much a moving target at the moment.
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I've played that game many times. The worst part is once you figure it out it all changes!!
A few questions if you will. Might help me sort things out.

What have you added back in?
How much protein are you eating? How much at each meal?
What about fat sources?
Do you eat dairy?
Nuts?
How low carb are you?

These are all my questionable foods.

Thanks!!
 
Kristin251 said:
What have you added back in?
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It's changing day by day, the biggest nuisance is having to do the shopping and the cooking while trying to get the shed sorted out and clearing the front room of all signs that it was my study when I was working. HID has recently retired and seems to think stuff gets done, she's in for a wake up call once the retirement honeymoon period is over although to be fair she's been working today, preparing for a conference we're going to in Sydney in October. It's not straight forward at all.

Answers for today.
How much protein are you eating? How much at each meal?
Breakfast - 2 slices bacon 6gm protein, 150gms mushrooms 5 gms protein.
Lunch - Nothing, been too busy wiring the shed.
Dinner - 150gms Beef 40 gms protein

What about fat sources? Cheese,

Do you eat dairy? Yes, I also eat yogurt, found that Onken is 4gms carbs per 100gms

Nuts? Yes, usually Brazil nuts, cashew - limit by calories

How low carb are you? Generally less than 40 gms per day having stopped eating bread/past/rice/potato except for very very infrequently. I don't even have toast with bacon or egg these days.

The week is usually similar minus breakfast, Mediterranean vegetables for lunch, evenings might be salmon, pork chop, stew, prawn stir fry. Recently I've been avoiding salmon and pork chop, with lamb stew being the only source of meat.

Obviously not a full menu, but basically there isn't much I'm eating at the moment.
 
DavidGrahamJones said:
It's changing day by day, the biggest nuisance is having to do the shopping and the cooking while trying to get the shed sorted out and clearing the front room of all signs that it was my study when I was working. HID has recently retired and seems to think stuff gets done, she's in for a wake up call once the retirement honeymoon period is over although to be fair she's been working today, preparing for a conference we're going to in Sydney in October. It's not straight forward at all.

Answers for today.
How much protein are you eating? How much at each meal?
Breakfast - 2 slices bacon 6gm protein, 150gms mushrooms 5 gms protein.
Lunch - Nothing, been too busy wiring the shed.
Dinner - 150gms Beef 40 gms protein

What about fat sources? Cheese,

Do you eat dairy? Yes, I also eat yogurt, found that Onken is 4gms carbs per 100gms

Nuts? Yes, usually Brazil nuts, cashew - limit by calories

How low carb are you? Generally less than 40 gms per day having stopped eating bread/past/rice/potato except for very very infrequently. I don't even have toast with bacon or egg these days.

The week is usually similar minus breakfast, Mediterranean vegetables for lunch, evenings might be salmon, pork chop, stew, prawn stir fry. Recently I've been avoiding salmon and pork chop, with lamb stew being the only source of meat.

Obviously not a full menu, but basically there isn't much I'm eating at the moment.
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Sure doesn't look like much. Nor does it look like you're over eating protein. Do you eat enough fat with the protein to delay a spike or keep it lower.

Why no salmon or pork? I don't eat pork but I do eat salmon. More canned than fresh. I got grosssed out a couple months ago with stinky salmon and haven't been able to bring myself back to it.
 
Two reasons why I think that BG readings after food can be confusing:

In order for an experiment to be valid it should be reproducible. Many times I see people saying things like "I had a meal and I got a large spike but I can't understand why" or even "today I had a pickled onion with my lunch and my BG was much lower why was that?". I would say if results are illogical repeat the experiment to see if the result is repeated before trying to interpret it.

In order for an experiment to be valid it needs to be in controlled conditions. If you want to find out how a food affects you then you need to ideally eat just that food or at least in combination with other foods that you know have predictable results. Eating some beans in Chilli con Carne is not the same as eating beans in a salad.

So to get back to @biren1973 's original question. Maybe it was a one off. How do you know it was the chickpeas? Have you had say a cauliflower curry to the same recipe with a different result? I find I can eat most pulses as long as I keep the quantities low, about 50g dry weight of lentils say. I suggest experimenting with a variety of pulses and quantities before writing off a whole food group.
 
Back to the original subject for this thread (sorry, I only just spotted it), I think chickpeas are one of those oddball foods.
Some people can digest them and their carbs which means higher BG (or insulin) whereas some people can eat them feel fine but the chickpeas are not broken down (trying not to be too descriptive, just think about undigested sweetcorn) so it has no impact on their BG.
The only way of finding out is trying some hummus, felafel or chickpea curry and see what happens to your BG.
 
biren1973 said:
This is what I don't understand. So when we say "released slowly " , what does it's impact on BG? High BG for more time , but you don't feel hungry? And is it good for diabetes then? Will it decrease the A1C ?
I heard food that released sugar slowly good for diabetes? Is it true?

Regards
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My understanding is that food with a low GI can contain the same amount of carb as food with a high GI. The difference is the total time it take for your body to digest it. This does not necessarily mean a BG spike is moved from 1 hour to 3 hours after eating; it may mean the spike is longer and lower.
As a result, your body has longer to produce the insulin it needs.

A long time ago, when i first came across GI, I read how high GI is bad for people without diabetes. Although they have the ability to produce insulin, the demand for insulin to be produced quickly puts extra pressure on the heart. Hence the interest in low GI foods.
 
helensaramay said:
Back to the original subject for this thread (sorry, I only just spotted it), I think chickpeas are one of those oddball foods.
Some people can digest them and their carbs which means higher BG (or insulin) whereas some people can eat them feel fine but the chickpeas are not broken down (trying not to be too descriptive, just think about undigested sweetcorn) so it has no impact on their BG.
The only way of finding out is trying some hummus, felafel or chickpea curry and see what happens to your BG.
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I agree and there is also a difference between the big chickpeas and chana dhal which are smaller and split. If trying felafel then beware that some of them have ordinary flour in the ingredients.
 
as i don't eat meat or poultry, i do include some pulses in my lchf diet. i find that hummus will sometimes push my levels up a bit, to just over 7 or so, but not always. however, tinned chickpeas nearly always do - still not mega-high, but higher than i like them to be, so i avoid those. life is too short to soak dried pulses before cooking them .... lentils seem to be fine.
 
KathyCP said:
as i don't eat meat or poultry, i do include some pulses in my lchf diet. i find that hummus will sometimes push my levels up a bit, to just over 7 or so, but not always. however, tinned chickpeas nearly always do - still not mega-high, but higher than i like them to be, so i avoid those. life is too short to soak dried pulses before cooking them .... lentils seem to be fine.
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Black beans seem bette for me but I still avoid ad I need to stick to vlc. Odd how different pulses matter.
Also odd tinned ones do that vs hummus.

Now other threads have me wondering about different cheeses !!
 
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