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Lizzis Granola

S

smidge

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,761
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi Guys!

Recently I've been craving cereal. I know it sounds strange. The last time I ate cereal was porridge and it was fairly soon after my diagnosis and sent my BG to 26. As you can imagine, I've not eaten it since. Anyway, fast forward a couple of years and I understand a lot more about my diabetes. I saw Lizzis Granola in Tesco the other week and thought I'd give it a try - it says a 50g serving affects BG at only the rate of 6.6g carb (for me, 6.6g of carb would push my BG up about 2 points and I generally wouldn't take any insulin for that). Well, I've been struggling with my fasting levels for a few weeks, so I put off trying the granola. Well, today my fastng levels were 4.3 (bizarre - they're never that low!) so I've given it a go. That was half hour ago and I'm a bit scared! Will test at the 1 hour, 2 hour, 3 hour marks. I was just wondering if any of you have tried this granola and what the results were? Also, what do you do when trying out new food that you suspect might not be good? e.g. do you wait til your BG is low? do you get ready to correct (if you are an insulin taker)? etc I now realise I don't really have a plan for if this goes wrong and my BG goes into the 20s again :oops: That's why I'm a little scared! I'll let you know how I get on.

Smidge
 
OK, so her's the results so far:

Fasting - 4.3
50g Lizis Granola and unsweetened soya milk (23.1g carb total - supposed to act like 6.6g according to packet).
1 hour - 11.4!
2 hour - 10.5

Conclusion: this granola does not do what it claims on the packet! It hit my BGs exactly as 23.1g of carb would (not like the 6.6g it claims!)

Back to bacon and eggs for me :(

Smidge
 
smidge - have you tried m aking your own granola?
I have made this recipe from this website
http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/main- ... anola.html

6 servings
1 cup flax seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped almonds
1 stick of butter -- melted
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla powder (sugar and alcohol-free)
3 packets of Splenda (or other sugar alternative)
In a large roasting pan, mix together flax seeds, sunflower seeds, coconut and nuts. Drizzle with melted butter. Stir in cinnamon, vanilla power and sugar substitute. Toast in the oven at 325 degees for a half hour, stiring every 5 or 10 minutes.

I add fresh berries or stewed rhubarb.

Here is another recipe, I cannot remember the website I got if from, its about a couple of years ago I found it.

Granola Topping

60g (2oz) flaked almonds
50g (1¾oz) dessicated coconut
70g (2½oz) flaxseed
60g (2oz) pecans, chopped
70g (2½oz) pumpkin seeds
70g (2½oz) sunflower seeds
2 oz walnuts, chopped
60g (2oz) butter or choice of fat
3 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tsp sweetening – sugar substitute or own choice
Method: In a large bowl, combine almonds, coconut, almonds, coconut, flaxseed, pecans, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and walnuts.
In a small saucepan melt butter gently. Remove the pan from the heat and mix in cinnamon and vanilla essence.
Pour over the nut mixture and stir to combine. Sprinkle with sweetening and stir again.
Spread mixture on a baking tray and bake, stirring around every 5 minutes for 20- 25 minutes until lightly golden. Cool and then store in an airtight container.
(You can add whatever you like and change ingredients to taste.)

I saw somewhere in this forum a post about flaxseed porridge, I only every tried it once, its quite nice actually, I will look for it for you.
 
Found it but dont know how to pick the link from all those posts, sorry, here is copied and pasted, its from clearviews

Re: Low carb, Low fat breakfast ideas
by clearviews » July 7th, 2011, 11:56 am

For the last few mornings, as it is winter here and I wanted a change from bacon, eggs, mushroom, zucchini, I have been having a kind of porridge inspired by something IanD posted, I think. I put 2 T ground almonds, 2 T golden flax seed meal, a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg, dash of sweetener of choice with water to mix to a runny paste. Zap in the microwave for 1 min just to heat it and stir in a dollop of cream. Comfort food.
I don't have cereal in the house but I always have almond meal and flax seed meal.
No miniscule portion of cereals keeps me under 6.0 so this is my alternative.Grower of an astonishing low carb veggie garden
T2 - VLC, fearless in the face of dietary fat - no meds - A1c 5.2 Aug 2011
clearviews

Posts: 315
Joined: June 30th, 2009, 7:40 am
Location: Australia
Private messageMSNM/WLM
 
Hi Smidge

I'm Type 2, and Lizi's granola is the only cereal I eat (apart from All-bran! :shock: ).

I tend only to have a 30g or 40g serving (I'm not a big breakfaster), but if that's not enough you could always follow it with eggs, or something you know you can eat, just to fill you up?

The last time I ate the granola, I started at 5.2; 7.6 after 1 hour; 5.6 after 2 hours. I don't have it often; carbs tend to accummulate with me.

I think the 50g serving is too much, regardless of what it says on the packet.

Viv 8)
 
Thanks for the posts Viv and WhitbyJet.

Viv, I think you are right and 50g is way to much for my poor pancreas in the morning - if I do it again, I'll reduce portion and take my insulin! I also suspect that carbs are cumulative but I don't understand how that can be - it does seem that if I eat more carbs, even with the correct insulin dose, my BG edges up over a number of days and I need to increase insulin doses to deal with it.

WhitbyJet, I'll work out the carb content of those recipes and give them a go - thanks for digging those out for me -you're a star!

I think all I proved to myself is that Glycaemic Load makes no difference to me - the total carb content is what's important.

For completeness, the results ended up as:

Fasting - 4.3
50g Lizis Granola and unsweetened soya milk (23.1g carb total - supposed to act like 6.6g according to packet).
1 hour - 11.4!
2 hour - 10.5
3 hour - 5.7 (after half hour punishing myself on the cross-trainer)
4 hour - 4.3

I'm guessing that the exercise helped get the BG down a bit and my morning intermediate basal kicking-in at around the 3 hour mark did the rest. Ah well, no harm done I expect!

Smidge
 
I suspect that the "cumulative" effect may be that eating too many carbs regularly makes my pancreas go all weak and floppy on me again, now it's got used to resting on a very-low-carb diet, rather than the carbs lurking in my system ready to get me! :lol:

Viv 8)
 
this is the only breakfast i have now and i have had it every day for the past 3 yrs, boring but it works. i to got high readings after it but with a bit of twinkering i can eat this without hardly any bg rise. try this it works, 30g of lizis granola original, 12g of mixed sunflower and pumpkin seeds, teaspoon of flaxseed, handful of mixed nuts brazils,alomonds and hazelnuts topped with 4 fresh strawberrys and milk. i hardly get any rise 1 2 and 3 hours after. i know it is a lot of ingredients but once you get them all that lizis granola pouch last forever. check my other posts for lizis granola. i have used the same mixture with 1 and a half weetabix with the same results, if it was weetabix on its own well bgs would be 8 to 9. its the fat in the nuts and flaxseed.
 
Hi all!

Well, I made one of the granola recipes and no BG spike! Amazing! I even had a couple of strawberries with it (although I used soya milk as milk is particularly bad for me). Next step is to mix som Lizzis granola into my home made granola and see what happens! Glutton for punishment :lol:

Thanks to everyone for your help!

Smidge
 
Smidge - so good to have the feedback, pleased the granola worked for you, I am a self-indulgent woman and have mine with cream! Clearviews porridge is delicious too, made it this morning with rhubarb added, comfort food indeed.
Milk makes me spike, its the lactose, I am ok with lactose free milk.

All the best.
 
Smidge :D

Which recipe did you use out of those two? Also can I ask where you got most of the ingredients from?

Glad it has worked out for you, I would like to find a cereal that won't spike me ,so it is music to my ears that this has worked for you..I miss it for a quick brekkie or snack.
 
Hi Fallenstar,

I made the second of the two recipes because I had all the ingredients already. However, they are all easily available in Tesco (at least in the larger stores)! You might need to substitute the pecans for something else (hazelnuts would work very well I reckon!) because I don't think they sell pecans (although Aldi do). I think the flaxseed is called linseed in Tesco, but it's the same thing. They only sell the dark seeds, not the golden ones, but they taste the same. Having said all that, I tend to buy my supplies from an on-line store called Healthy Supplies - if you google for it you'll get the address. They have a fantastic range and deliver within a few days.

Smidge
 
Thanks Smidge, I will give it a go!

If you are getting short of breakie ideas on the low carb, I don't know if this one may be of any help to you.
There are some mornings I either don't have time for the bacon and eggs or just don't fancy it. I have been buying the boxes of frozen berries from Tesco. They do 3 large boxes for £5, you can mix and match the three.
Strawberries and blueberries , mixed berries ect, you get the picture :wink: :lol:
Defrost them in the microwave for a 45 secs with a big dollop of full fat Greek yoghurt.....it's to die for!
I'm having them for breakie and pudding at the moment, I'm addicted, I need to step back from the berries..NOW... otherwise I will sicken myself off!!

I will give the cereal a go...lots of choice then....toast seems so boring now :lol:
 
Hi Folks

Woke up this morning with fasting level at 7.8 after going to bed with it at unknown level but probably around 11 or so. At 16:30 (after having Carrot and Coriander soup and a toasted teacake for lunch (OOPS! I know. <groan>) my glucose level was 13.7. I was horrified!

Had some of the granola (30g) with about 12g seeds (pumpkin etc.) a handful of nuts, 6 rasberries and semi-skimmed milk for breakfast. At 10:30 (one hour after completing the meal) my GL was 9.0. Does this sound about right, considering I was already at 7.8 at 07:30 this morning?

I didn't take any Metformin at breakfast because I wanted to see what the Granola would do. Am going to measure again at 11:30 to see where the levels have gone to...

Cheers
Chris
 
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