Hi PM
I will start by saying that I have to admit planning food in my house is nightmare! I am a wheat intolerant, vegetarian, diabetic, and my husband is a carnivore on a low fat diet! Also I am not gluten intolerant but wheat intolerant so I can't guarentee that what suits me will suit you.
I do not know whether I would class myself as low carb or reduced carb as I don't actually count carbs, but of course I do not eat bread or pasta nor do I eat rice and I will rarely eat potatoes, although my body can tolerate some potatoes.
As vegetarian I eat plenty of vegetables, but take care how much of the starchy root carbs I eat, not too much carrots and parsnips for example, though I have been reading on a thread here that swede is not too bad, and sweet potatoes are better than the usual ones that we eat.
BTW my brother is also diabetic but he is a carnivore and he manages to control his diabetes very well by low carbing. He just leaves off the starchy carbs and adds a bit more meat, and he keeps his hba1c to a good level without medication. He doesn't alter his diet very much at all because he is happy to eat more meat to replace his potatoes and bread.
I do eat quorn but you have to be careful as some of it contains wheat/gluten and some of it is higher carb than others. I use quite a lot of pulses which can be carb-y but they are slow to digest and my body tolerates them quite well
I have not been diagnosed as wheat intoerant for very long so I am still learning too and there are some great tips on this forum for low carb versions of food many of which will avoid gluten.
But my daily menu will look like this:-
I have a cooked breakfast eggs and mushrooms or cheese, if you eat meat you can always have bacon with it. I found after little while that I don't miss having the toast with it, and I don't get the rebound starving feeling mid morning. If I get my breakfast right I can last a long time.
Lunch maybe cheese or houmus, maybe on a rice cracker or a corn cracker that I buy at the local health food shops, but again whach the carbs as some of them are higher than others. The health food shops also sell some tubes of veggie pate which are gluten free, and some are low carb. Or I may eat eggs with mayo and quorn.
Main meals I eat a lot of salads bulked with different cheeses or pine nuts and other types of nuts. I stuff peppers with variations of cheese and vegetables. I make cheese sauces by melting cheese into cream heated slowly. I do chilies/curries/stews with veg/quorn/pulses. I also make soups, again with variations of them.
I make nut loaves (again some nuts are lower carb than others) and instead of breadcrumbs I use flaxmeal as the bulking agent. There is a link on the low carb food thread to a site with a recipe for low carb 'bread' using flaxmeal, it isn't bread but it serves its puropse. It actually has quite a cakey texture, so I am going to experiment with it seeing if I can make it with orange or lemon juice instead of water and make a sweet. Flaxmeal is also good for coating things in instead of breadcrumbs.
If I know I am going to be out over a meal time I take with me a small packet of almonds, tescos sell them 3 for £2, and they are enough to substute for a meal if nothing else is available. I never rely on catering if i am out - experience has shown that I am reduced to eating the filling out of sandwiches and the salad garnish.
I have never tried the gluten free bread and so on, as the packets I have read show that they have a lot of carbs in them, though one day I may experiemnt.
Almonds are quite low carb and I have wondered if they could make a 'biscuit' type base for a desert, again I am going to experiement.
There are also some recipies around, though I have never tried them, for flaxmeal crackers.
I hope this is giving you some ideas, dont' worry it is a lot to take in to begin with but you will get there, read, read, read, this site and look at the low carb recipie,s as many of them will not contain gluten.
Good luck
Annie
