• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Tesco scupper diabetic diet

Pattidevans

Pattidevans

Well-Known Member
Messages
128
Location
United Kingdom
Having followed a number of threads here re diet I think some of you may be interested in this:-

http://www.tescodiets.com/index.cfm?currpage=contact&subsection=contact&code=350144
their suggested "diabetic diet" is so appalling that many members of
another forum have written to their dietitian protesting.
"Catherine" has written back extremely smugly defending their diet. I
wonder how many of you would be interested in pricking Catherine's
smug little balloon????
 
Thanks Patti,
I have just fired off a note asking them how many diabetics they are intending to kill off by following their diet!!
 
who is cathereine? The link takes me to an email address.

I am not sure what the first poster is talking about !

Tesco use an american package (groan) and i have had several pts pay for it - not diabetics. I do agree with this kind of package - it is almost robotic !
 
Pattidevans said:
sorry folks. I posted the wrong link - you can see the actual diet here http://www.tescodiets.com/index.cfm?currpage=dietplans&subsection=dietintro&dietchoice=9&code=350144
Catherine is the person who responds to any comments made about the content of the diet from their feedback page. The diet seems to consist of things such as rice, muffins, cereal, bananas etc.
Click to expand...
Crikey

That's one huge carb diet that Tesco are recommending. I hope diabetics dont automatically follow it, thinking that its ideal :roll:
 
Sounds just like the recommended diet poster on the wall at the diabetes centre in Reading. Picture of grains,potatoes etc and a notice saying"base your diet on these foods"
 
I wrote to Catherine as well, alarmed at the high carb diet recommended. Here is what she replied

Hi Karen,

Thanks for the email. I appreciate all of your comments and I can guarantee
you that we will review all of our meal plans to ensure they are in keeping
with Diabetic recommendations-if any changes need to be made they will be.
The diabetes plan that we offer is dietitian-approved but we still require
all people with diabetes to follow the plan, with their own modifications,
under medical supervision, this is mentioned on our registration page.

I am aware that personal insults have been used about me on this board. I
have taken the time to reply to anyone that has emailed me about this issue
but I will not be having any further communication with you about this as I
feel that there are some individuals who are more interested in attacking
myself than discussing what we can do to improve our online programmes.

Kind regards,
Catherine

Catherine Matthews
Nutritionist
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I dont think any of us should post out personal insults, surely this is not the way to improve/change things, and only serves to give us a bad reputation. I suggested that Catherine reads some of the threads in our forum, we should be working together with companies, like Tesco Diets, etc not alienating them by being hostile.
Not everyone is low carbing, though I dare say that eventually most people will reach their own conclusion re high/low carb...

All the best

Karen
 
You have only examples of the diet so you can't realy comment on the diet as a whole but why not say exactly what you think is right and wrong with the diet, rather than blanket , negative and I have to say rude complaints?
I had a look at the suggestion in the 'recipe ' diet for diabetics. The total carb for the day, whilst not being as low as many of you feel is necessary, is not extremely high ( If I worked it out right about 135gm , perhaps someone could check it), much lower than often suggested!
My thoughts would be that although the lunch is low GI and unlikely to impact hugely on BS, the dinner contains arborio rice which is relatively fast, particularly if cooked for 40 mins. It is also the highest carb meal of the day, thus perhaps causing a spike before bedtime. There seems to be a dearth of leafy veg. I'd rather see a huge salad than a snack of cereal, but without that snack there would be a lack of dairy. Some people also experience steadier BS with 'snacks

Breakfast
eggs toast
30gm carbs in bread
Lunch
Cannellini bean salad
13 gm beans ( low GI)
4 gm tomatoes
Dinner:
Salmon Risotto
46 gm rice ( high GI)
9gm peas
Snack
24 gm breakfast cereal
8 mg yoghurt
total 135 gm carbohydrate
 
Firstly, I think Catherine was looking at a different forum, or possibly one of the newsgroups. Certainly to my knowledge no-one has posted anything rude to Catherine from any source, people simply expressed their doubts and reserves about recommending such a high carb diet to diabetics.
Not all were negative, people pointed things out and suggested substitutes. Catherine came back with some extremely patronising responses which got people's backs up in various places around. To my knowledge the one or two threads in other places that I have seen were expressing people's annoyance at her attitude which was frankly scathing of their knowledge of what would be a good diet for diabetics. One thread was jokey and I myself wrote up a "spoof" response to her which was meant to be funny and was, to my knowledge, never sent to her. I have not seen, anywhere, anything worse than was posted in the 2nd carb thread on here. So where she is getting the "personal attacks" from I do not know.

From the example day on this link which is the suggested diabetic diet http://www.tescodiets.com/index.cfm?currpage=dietplans&subsection=dietintro&dietchoice=9&code=350144 I work out the carb count thus:-

Breakfast
60g Weetabix minis = 41g carb
Milk = 9g
Probiotic drink = 9g
Medium Banana = 35g

total = 94g

Lunch
Pitta = 25g
Cottage cheese = 9g
Medium apple = 15g

total = 49g

Snack
half muffin = 15g

Dinner
*Risotto = 39g

Grand total = 197g
*I have a risotto recipe which states 50g Arborio rice per person.

Of course my maths is rubbish, but I did bother to weigh an apple and a banana and deduct an amount off the banana for the skin. The other carb amounts came from the Collins Little Gem Calorie book and/or the internet.

IMHO that's rather a lot of carbs per day for a diabetic. It's indeed reminiscent of the "food pyramid" suggestions that we all know are far too starchy. Since the rest of the world are realising that the starchy carbs with every meal advice is wrong, surely we, as diabetics, should be banding together to get the British recommendations overturned.
 
Hello Pattidevans,

Is this diet specific to T1 or T2?
Did the diet claim to be "low-carb" in the first place?
What kind of daily carb total would you like to be seeing?

Regards,
timo.
 
timo2 said:
Hello Pattidevans,

Is this diet specific to T1 or T2?
Did the diet claim to be "low-carb" in the first place?
What kind of daily carb total would you like to be seeing?

Regards,
timo.
Click to expand...

It just says "diabetic diet" - doesn't specify for T1 or T2 but no carb values on anything so that T1s could calculate doses (that's just one of the things wrong with it). Ridiculously high in carbs for T2s IMHO.

I'm T1.5 on insulin only and count carbs. I don't completely low carb, but find that restricting carbs gives me much better and more predictable results. The lower the dose of insulin the less margin for error.... you know it all.... I've seen it posted on here often enough. I've known it years... which is how I've maintained an Hba1c of less than 5.7 for the last 5 years. (Current 5.5 result received today).

I enjoy fruit, fresh veg and a varied diet including lots of different dishes, all home made and plenty of meat, fresh fish, eggs etc. I do allow myself a couple of new potatoes and the occasional roast one or the odd tbs of rice. I just avoid pre-prepared food, pastries, crisps and other such rubbish. I'm well aware that I have a bit of latitude that T2s don't and thoroughly agree with the likes of Fasteddy.
 
the word that jumped out at me from this post is "nutritionist" this word has no meaning. It's not based on a qualification that's recognised anywhere.We have enough disagreements with our own,properly qualified and registered "dietician" ally. to be botherin about someone who calls themself a nutritionist. the REALLY bad thing is that it's endorsed by Tesco, which will convince many people that it's right.
theyr'e still selling stuff endorsed by "Dr.?? Gillian McKeith think and just remember what the press did to her. It seems that self-awarded quqlifications are all you need, so why did I spend 4 years working hard for my mere B.Sc. all those years ago????
 
Hi - can i clarify the term nutritionist - some are qualified and they tend to be involved in public health. They will have done a degeree in nutrition and can reg with the nutrition society. the problem is anyone can call themselves a nutritionist and alot of them are not qualified - they may have done a few weekend courses. and they alos include some medics who claim to be too!
Dietitians are the only regulated nutrition professionals and have to meet the Health Prof Council standards - this is done by completing a degree - usually 4 years that meets the standard. The term dietitian is protected in law so you would end up in court if u call yourself a dietitian and u are not!

Thsi has been in the media alot this week when a nuutr therapist caused brain damage in a client by advising this wacky hydration therapy diet - they never look at evidence alot of their work is based on "nothing" and the promotion and sale of supplements.

Dietitians are not allowed to sell them or promote individual products so if i said to some one to drink say diet coke - I would have to tell them about diet pepsi too. We also have a code of conduct and I would have been struck off i suspect if i had done what she did but she is free to practice.

Ill get of my soapbox now because i have had to sort out so many issues with clients from these unqualified quacks .

I am not happy about these on line consultations either - it is much better to see people face to face.
 
Thank you Hanna and Ally I do believe all we have is a person following the daft guidelines and what really annoys me is the fact that there is no open thinking anywhere.
 
I just wonder why anybody thought that Tescos or indeed any supermarket would come out with anything different from the stadard diet advice from the ADA or DUK. Tescos are not scientists, they're told what is acceptable so they sell it. there is no way on this earth that a supermarket will say docs are wrong and we know better.it won't happen

on a side note about nutritionists and dietitians, these problems didn't exist till they did lol
 
oh ha ha - we could do with out the quacks in fact. I was in Borders the other day and just surveyed the books on diet all contradicting each other.

My clients and gp patients dont feel like you do - i have had some luvly letters and see many of them as they live near me.

In fact dietitians do not just treat diabetes - they work with alot of very sick people - cancer care, special care babies , in born errors of metabolism - they have very special skills so stop knocking them .
 
no - i was in agrrement about tesco and just wanted to point out the difference between dietitians, real nutritionists and the quack ones !

But that doesnt mean I wont disagree in the future !! lol
 
Tesco-every-little-helps-lo.jpg
 
Back
Top