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Diabetes recipe book confusion

Nigelh

Nigelh

Active Member
Messages
26
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Hi. After a visit to my dietician I was told to reduce carbs and eat more protiein rich foods. I have a book which was bought for me recently called the diabetes recipe book and im sure this must be wrong as everyone knows we need to cut down our carbs, but heres what it says are the the main food groups.. (typed as in the book)

1. Starchy carbohydrates. These should form the largest portion of your diet. You should base meals and snacks around these foods when possible.
2. Fruit and vegetables. Fruit and veg should make the second largest portion of your daily diet. Aim to get at least 5 portions a day.
3. Milk and dairy foods. These should make up the third largest portion of your diet. Choose low-fat dairy foods and spreads whereyou can.
4. Meat, fish and other protein foods. Choose lean meat and poultry, fish, pulses or other protien foods. They should form the second smallest portion of your diet.
5. Fats, oils, and sugary foods. These should be the smallest portion of your daily diet.

Tell me im not going barmy?
Btw just for your interest im 48, diagnosed t2 about 4 months ago. My 1st hbac1 was 122, my second was 72. Im on 4x500mg of metformin a day. Aiming for 48 next time but boy is it confusing. My dietician says i can have crisps and biscuits as a snack, says all fruit is fine, so are carrots, but reading on here its not the case.. i feel like a ping pong ball bouncing around different opinions.. Still finding my way but ill get there.
 
The government advice in the middle of a very hard winter in the 1960,s to OAP,s was to wrap them selves in old newspapers .this advice you are getting is in the same vein
 
Many of these diabetes recipe books are aimed at Type 1 diabetics so give carb values etc and this helps when planning insulin dosages I guess. There aren't many recipe books specifically for type 2s or low carb/high fat diets. Hopefullly more will come as this way of thinking starts to be more accepted. Your best bet is to look for recipes on the low carb forum here and the what did you eat today threads. thats what i've done and its very helpful. Plus of course probably based around NHS eat well plate which conveniently forgets Type 2's are basically carb intolerant and making us eat more of them guarantees we'll get sicker.

Good book to read is grain brain which has some nice low carb recipes in the back. Not sure if Trudy Deakins Eat Fat book has recipes or not.

I was only diagnoses with pre-diabetes but suffered 'food confusion' like you for a few weeks. read everything I could on food and nutrition and found this forum by way of paleo diets and ended up at the low carb forum. It makes sense and it works so now use a combination of paleo principles with low carb.
 
Hi. The book needs to go straight into the bin. I saw a similar one a year ago. The writers haven't a clue about diabetes and they all follow the (incorrect) establishment mantra. The advice is simple i.e. keep the carbs down and have enough proteins, fats, veg and non-tropical fruit to keep you feeling full; it works. Crisps and biscuits are not the ebst idea for a snack. For snacks if needed, then berries, nuts and cheese are good. Not all fruit is good so avoid high-sugar tropical. Carrots do have carbs but also a lot of fibre etc. I always have raw carrots when I can as they are low-GI and who wants stewed carrots anyway.
 
Hi @Nigelh

Check out the following link...it's a great site and you'll find loads of information on LCHF...which is by far the best way to get your Hba1c down to your target level of 48.

http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf

Ditch the book...and as a rule of thumb...avoid anything that claims to be diabetic friendly...most especially diabetic chocolate and jams...they're not only disgusting but usually contain artificial sweeteners which cause nasty tummy upsets.

Good luck with your journey
 
I would argue that this book is trash for both type 1 and 2 - its much easier to deal with diabetes when you dont eat masses of carbs
 
Thanks for your kind replies. I do keep an eye on my carbs, eating lots of chicken (ill look like a blummin chicken soon), salmon, fresh meat. I even avoided temptation when i went to a friends house who was having a macmillan coffee morning.. so many tempting cakes!... i hid in the garden and watched with envy.. When it comes to snacks i eat nuts...i love dry roasted! I have a bg tester but i only use it occasionally. My lowest reading 2ish hrs after a meal was 4.7, and my highest was 10 after fish n chips.. (a rare treat) , my dietician said 10 was fine... hmmm.
Other info about me is i used to be 12.5 stone.. i started losing weight which is why i went to the docs. Im now around 11stone and its staying around that now. Im fit and active. My eyes have been screened and all is well. I cycle and fell walk. My blood pressure is spot on and my cholesterol is 6.5.. a little high but i dont want to go on statins which my dn suggested.... i think shes a bit too quick with the pills in my opinion..
 
At least your dietician told you to reduce your carbs so thats a step in the right direction...most are still saying eat starchy carbs with every meal...10 is a bit high but you say that was only after a rare treat. You have taken your diabetes in hand and are doing well so congratulations
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Nigelh said:
Hi. After a visit to my dietician I was told to reduce carbs and eat more protiein rich foods. I have a book which was bought for me recently called the diabetes recipe book and im sure this must be wrong as everyone knows we need to cut down our carbs, but heres what it says are the the main food groups.. (typed as in the book)

1. Starchy carbohydrates. These should form the largest portion of your diet. You should base meals and snacks around these foods when possible.
2. Fruit and vegetables. Fruit and veg should make the second largest portion of your daily diet. Aim to get at least 5 portions a day.
3. Milk and dairy foods. These should make up the third largest portion of your diet. Choose low-fat dairy foods and spreads whereyou can.
4. Meat, fish and other protein foods. Choose lean meat and poultry, fish, pulses or other protien foods. They should form the second smallest portion of your diet.
5. Fats, oils, and sugary foods. These should be the smallest portion of your daily diet.

Tell me im not going barmy?
Btw just for your interest im 48, diagnosed t2 about 4 months ago. My 1st hbac1 was 122, my second was 72. Im on 4x500mg of metformin a day. Aiming for 48 next time but boy is it confusing. My dietician says i can have crisps and biscuits as a snack, says all fruit is fine, so are carrots, but reading on here its not the case.. i feel like a ping pong ball bouncing around different opinions.. Still finding my way but ill get there.
Click to expand...

You've done well to get your readings down, a goof start. The thing about carbs is easy to explain and I like the "wrap yourself in newspaper" post. Reducing carbs is possibly what you'd call "new school". I remember in 1997 when first diagnosed asking if I should reduce carbs and was told in no uncertain terms not to reduce. Consequently my condition progressed until I was on Metformin, Gliclazide and Januvia and was being prepared to go onto insulin. A natural progression they called it and I'd seen it happen to my dad and a cousin, a natural progression my sweet a**e.
I actually reduced my carbs to lose weight and the side effect (apart from losing weight) was a much more pleasant "natural progression". I no longer have to take Gliclazide or Januvia and I never went onto insulin. Every time my GP sees my HbA1c she says "well done" and puts it in my notes. So, lowering carbs is a no brainer for me.
Hopefully you'll have your trusty meter, another thing people are advised to do without. How do you tell what your BG is doing, the HbA1c is all very well, but it doesn't show peaks and troughs. You could have your crisps and biscuit and use the meter to see how high your BG goes. Something the HbA1c doesn't show up.
So, you're not barmy, in fact you're ahead of the game. There's a lot to take on board and you're well on the way to having it sussed. Use your meter, it will tell you if you're doing the right thing or not.
All the best.
 
Stick with the advice from the forum and you will be fine. It is amazing how much conflicting advice is out there. I'm continually looking on the net for low carb recipes and it is amazing what some people consider low carb. Eat to your meter and ask as many questions as you want, everyone here is only to willing to help.
 
Thankyou for your kind and informative replies. Today was my first time posting on this forum and i already feel more positive and more determined to get this under control and in turn help others. Its the best thing i did today.
 
There are some good LCHF recipe books available if you have a look. Lots seem to be non-UK so watch the measurements they use, but there are some quite attractive ones if you're interested :)
 
I wouldn't recommend any of the diabetic cookery books out there. My mother bought me loads and they were full of cake recipes and I don't have a sweet tooth at all.

My own personal view (and I know others may disagree strongly), is that unless you change the way you eat entirely, you are more likely to be tempted i.e. if you make cakes with weird flours (many of which are still carby) and use artificial sweeteners, you haven't lost the craving that maybe contributed to becoming T2DM in the first place.

I do fully accept though, that's very easy for me to do without the sweet tooth, and extremely difficult for some people.

What I did, was scoot around the Internet to find definitions, then chucked anything over 10g carbs per 100g out of fridge and larder unless it was something that I would only use a teaspoon of e.g. mustard.

I went to the library and photocopied any recipes I liked the look of from low carb recipe books. I scouted around charity shops and found some Atkins and South Beach Diet books for peanuts, too. Again I used 10g carbs per serving as my cut off point so that I could eat three meals plus snacks if I wanted without eating a lot of carbs.

I bought a copy of The Dukan Diet in The Works too, just because it has some interesting ways of doing completely flourless sauces.

The next thing I did was cross reference the lowest carb veg against the most nutrient dense veg using USDA, Mayo Clinic and about.com websites. I looked at suggested foods for healthy heart, kidneys etc on the relevant charity/society/research websites and providing they were low carb, incorporated them. I don't want to feel if I'd known X or eaten more of Y I could have avoided a complication.

By this time then, I had a list of healthy low carb stuff and I began to venture into my cookbooks and mark everything that I could eat with LC. Sometimes recipes do need tweaking but you learn that with practice.

Paleo(lithic) and Primal diets often use low carb recipes but some authors do veer towards carbs so do look through the recipes first before buying.

I have a Kindle Unlimited subscription and that enables me to download loads of recipe books. I might only copy one recipe, but the subscription saves me £££ on what I would have to fork out otherwise.

If you're on Twitter you can follow other low carbers and doctors like Aseem Malhotra, Robert Lustig, Jason Fung etc.

Pinterest.com is another good source of low carb recipes. Anything you see there or on any other website can be pinned to your own boards.

Once you've decided what you can or can't eat with the aid of your BG meter and defined your daily carb threshold, once you get the hang of the food choices you have it gets easier I promise.

You may see people posting about rolls, toast, cakes etc. Usually it means that their diabetes is not severe or they inject insulin. A minority of us on the forum can only get good BG numbers by going very low carb. Best advice anyone can give, is Eat to your Meter. If it makes you high time after time, bin it.

It may be controversial, and I've only seen his tweets on it, but Professor Tim Noakes MBChB MD DSc(Med) i.e. a medical doctor as well as professor, states that if you're eating more than 25g carbs per day, you can still get diabetic complications.

I hope some of that is useful !
 
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