yogurt

Dear David,

Yes! It is all very confusing and worse if you follow the standard advise!

As for Yoghurt, i buy full fat, plain yoghurt and then add whatever flavoring i want.

I was diagnosed as diabetic in 2000, am now 61yeard old and still use only diet to
keep control.

I have watched several family members suffer from diabetes, whilst following the
standard advice; i have no wish to go that way.

There is a very interesting book by Barry Groves, 'Natural Health & Weight Loss'
In it he specificaly discusses diabetes and diet. I find his views very interesting.
I had his earlier book, 'Eat Fat and Get Thin', but sadly lost it and it is now out of
print, but his new book covers the field. He also has a web-site, you should be
able to find it with Google, I think it is called 'Second Opinion'.

Very good luck in coping with the whole thing...

John Fox.

Re: yogurt & other things...

Hello to all here!

Having tended to be fat since puberty and never being happy being fat and
having watched several family members die slowly and painfully from diabetic
complications, whilst following the doctors advise, and now being officially
diagnosed as diabetic myself, i'm keen to explore the natural ways of
controlling my health.

There have been and still are some interesting studies. The University of Lund,
in Sweden released a report last year, where they said that people following
a Paleolithic diet, which was low carb and low fat ceased to have sugar spikes
after only something like eight weeks following the diet.

In the USA and at Sheffield University here, there are trials using Hormone
Replacement Therapy ( that is Testosterone, not Oestrogen ) to attack the cause
of type II diabetes in older men. Sadly, by the time this has filtered through the
system to become orthodox, i'll probably be dead already...

One thing that i try to remember as i work away at my own reaction to food, is
the Inuit Paradox and that is that a people who only eat protein and fat were
perfectly healthy until they were introduced to Sugar and Alcohol, etc.

Keep Healthy,

John Fox.

Hi John,

The Inuit really aren't a paradox though. There are traditional peoples around the world with no incidence of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, hypertension when following a 'traditional' diet based on naturally occurring foods - regardless of how much fat and protein they eat.

The recurring theme is that, once these people begin to eat white flour, sugar, white rice, ok maybe alcohol too, their health deteriorates and they begin to succumb to 'western' diseases. Seems to take about 20 years.

It's us westerners who are the paradox I reckon. We've convinced ourselves our low-fat diet and whole grains are healthy, yet we're dropping like flies!

All the best,

fergus

Hello!

It is interesting and rather alarming, as one begins to explore the whole
diabetic diet conundrum, to discover that the information handed on to
us as gospel, regarding low-fat, high carb and acceptable levels of
alcohol intake, are not the result of scientific research, but arbitrary
ideas, concepts, figures.plucked from the air by possibly, well meaning people.

There seems to be some interesting research going on, but, lacking proven
fact, i'm continuing to experiment on myself to find what works for me.

About one year ago, after being sent on several Diabetic awareness things
by my doctor, i felt duty bound to try the recommendations, within about two
weeks of eating carbohydrate with every meal, i'd put on about ten pounds!
Never again!

Part of the problem is simply living in the real world, where it is difficult to
cook everything ones self and even more difficult to buy food that is safe. Even
ready roasted chicken will have had sugar added to it...

Dining with friends can be problematic too, not eating food offered can be
difficult to explain and short of becoming a total recluse, or aggressively
educating all and sundry, it is quite difficult to stay on the right track.

Good luck with the struggle.

John Fox.

Hi John,

That's an astute observation about the low-fat-high-carb nonsense that's continually force fed to us all. There's certainly no evidence that it promotes good health, and rather a lot of evidence that it does quite the opposite.

OK, so nothing worthwhile is ever easy, but since I saw the light, my health has never been better, my food has never tasted so good, and I've learned how to cook into the bargain. Not a bad deal really.

I agree that the low-carb idea just seems counter intuitive to many people because the current dogma has been in vogue for 30 odd years now. But when your weight and your health improves on low-carb, you'll be another great advert for the cause.

All the best,

fergus

Hello!

Intuition has little to do with my life. I'm slow to learn and non too clever, but i do have persistence and an inclination to logic...

I learned to cook before i learned about nutrition!

Eating the foods that cause the problems, then taking drugs to control the resulting mayhem, never seemed right. The ten pounds that i've put on, by following the doctors advice, prove me right.

Sadly, 'globalisation' took away my industry, so, in the last eighteen years, i've worked in eleven countries, living in six of them. This has made it very hard to maintain continuity and my diet has suffered.

Still, i'm working on the problem. Five months working in Vietnam, when the company that i worked for did not pay me for the first three months and i had to eat what i was given, rather than buy and prepare my own food, have highlighted my problems, but i'm hoping that this time, i'll nail the solution and keep on track.

Long before being diagnosed as diabetic, i discovered the Hay diet, food combining, this cleared up worrying digestive problems, but made no difference to my fat exesses. Later, i came across the Zone diet, this helped get rid of fat, but i kept moving around the world and could not maintain the progress. It seems that i am now, more insulin resistant and need to be even more stringent in my food intake.

I've ordered the new book by Barry Groves and am looking forward to reading it when it arrives. I do remember that his first book, 'Eat Fat Get Thin' was able to make me laugh as he pointed out inconsistencies in the logic of the prevailing orthodoxy...

John Fox.

Is there a 'below' number for carbohydrates then that you look for? :roll:
I'm trying hard but then realise I still know very little!
Jual

Hard to say, really. It's yet another complexity that we all react slightly differently to different foods, so what might be ok for me might cause problems for you, and vice versa.

I rarely eat stuff from packets or tins these days, so the precise amount of carbs is hard to judge. Having said that, I guess one rule of thumb for me would be to be careful of anything with more than 10g carbs per 100g.

On the up side, I don't worry about the fat content of foods at all, so foods we've been conditioned to fear suddenly are back on the menu. That's a pretty good trade off!

All the best,

fergus

Hi Jual

What is a reasonable amount of carb in one food item needs to be seen in the context of how much carbohydrate you want to eat per day. The US recommendation for a healthy diet is a maximum of 170g (6ozs) of carbs per day, so if that is what you want to target for yourself then you can work out whether a particular item of food fits into your total for the day. For example if you have a thing about Mars bars then 170g would allow you to have 3 per day - but you wouldn't be able to eat anything else unless it was something with zero carbs.

As Fergus said, we are all different and I personally find that 170g of carb per day would give me an uncontrollable BG level. I try to keep at around 80-100g per day and that gives me reasonable control. Someone much younger than me and who gets a lot more exercise than me might need more than 100g.

I go for total carbohydrate too, although as a general rule I try to avoid products with greater than 5-10g per 100g of sugar (sugar sugar not carb (total) sugar), this is because I am sensitive to sugar and it would cause a massive high immediately.

I avoid Muller Light too, not just because they don't even taste like yogurt, but because they do actually contain sugar plus a whole load of artificial sweetners.

I like the yeo valley organic yoghurts, they at least have cane sugar in them and taste great. You could try the yeo Valley natural yoghurt and add your own fresh fruit, there are some lovely berries in the shops at the moment.

Or just don't eat yoghurt, that's also an option! :mrgreen:

Weightwatchers yoghurt are low sugar and low calorie and have approx 6g carbohydrate

Hi i have just registered, my daughter has type 1 diabetes and was diagnosed 12 months ago she tends to eat a lot of mullerlight which are made with low sugar and sweetners they must be absolutely fine as her HBA1c is around 5.8 and 6.3 has been the highest which we are told is excellent. We are new to all this label reading etc but as more time passes we are beginning to understand a lot more and life is feeling a lot easier. It is all a lot to cope with at first but you will soon get hang of it. Good Luck
Danica

Hello David,

Diet Irish Yoghurt is very good. It comes in at least 4 flavours and has sweeteners in it but is very creamy.

Have a look at http://www.ciao.co.uk/Irish_yoghurt_Die ... y__5351810.

You can get it in most supermarkets but you may have to ask for it as it won't necessarily be with the other yoghurt.

Good luck,

Russ

Hi Russ,

According to their website, Tesco and Sainsburys are the only UK outlets, and possibly not a line that is stocked in every branch. The manufacturer's website says they use no added sugar, just what occurs naturally in the fruit they use, but they don't say what they are using as a sweetener in the diet versions. It could be a sugar alcohol (sorbitol, maltitol, etc), which would be little different to using sugar, or could be an aspartame or sucralose based sweetener (in which case it would really be low sugar).

Not seen anone mention Greek Yoghurt.
In Germany it is recommended.
Low fat and low sugar/carbs and its great with the fruit but don't add the honey. :wink:

Hi Dennis,

I don't have any at the moment but seem to remember that the sweetener was either saccarin or aspartame - not one of the ols. or oses I'm not a fan of saccarin and recall that it did have a slight taste of it, but this didn't detract from its pleasant taste. It's really very nice.

Russ

Total 0% yoghurt is sold in all supermarkets and is a totally natural product with no additives and no sugar. Even the full fat version isn't that bad and they can be sweetened with fruit or splenda if you like your yoghurt sweet

Namaste
Liz

नमस्ते.....Namaste Liz

Hi everyone
I am new to this forum and although had diabetes for sometime am having trouble grasping the formula for reading labels, and maybe that is why I am having trouble getting my levels under control. I am also trying to loose weight not very successfully.

I have read that it is not the sugar content on food labels but it is the carbohydrate that I have to watch out for. I saw the example given but cannot fully understand that the label with the higher sugar but lower carbohydrate is the one to opt for. Am I missing the point somewhere? Looking at the example it would seem that A would be the one to choose as I would not be putting as much sugar directly into the blood stream. Someone please help me understand and maybe I can get on the right road to sorting my levels out once and for all.

Thank you.
Christine T

Hi Christine,

Sorry if I have confused you - let me try to explain.

The carbohydrates that we eat are converted to glucose in our blood. This is what causes the "blood sugar" levels to rise. Sugar is a type of carbohydrate, but it is the one that causes an immediate increase in blood sugar levels. The other non-sugar carbohydrates also raise blood sugar levels but slower than pure sugar does. So it is not just sugar that a diabetic needs to be aware of, but the total amount of carbohydrate.

If you see a product that contains 30g total carbohydrate, of which 10g is sugar, it means the 10g of sugar will immediately raise your blood sugar, then the remaining 20g will raise it further but will take a bit longer to do so. Because we tend to refer to blood glucose as "blood sugar" many diabetics mistakenly think that it is only the sugar content in food that they need to be concerned about.