I’m rather unknowledgeable on diabetes, so here’s a question that may seem basic:
does choosing healthier meal, a salad instead of sweet ribs, not suffice for a good blood sugar?
does choosing healthier meal, a salad instead of sweet ribs, not suffice for a good blood sugar?
Even low GI foods still cause blood sugar to raise by some amount.
All of the vegetables in the salad have carbohydrates that will raise blood sugar. Carrots, onions, tomatoes, all of that will raise blood sugar. Croutons? Blood sugar.
Obviously selecting a garden salad with no dressing is a healthier choice than "sweet ribs". Most diabetics (that are managing their condition) are not going to be ordering things with refined sugar in them.
Where things get tricky is asking questions like "what's healthier, a honey-miso glazed salmon with brown rice or a salad with croutons and a honey and berry dressing?" or "What's better for you, grilled chicken with a sugary barbeque sauce or fried chicken with no sauce?"
Making salad dressing is really easy btw in case anyone wants to try. Often all you need is olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and you're set for most salads. Even a restaurant should be able to whip that up.
https://www.seriouseats.com/two-minute-mayonnaise
(And it tastes way better than commercial mayo!)
I love this author's recipes; it's the opposite of the normal recipe-preamble-slop. All of the stuff before the actual recipe is relevant information. In more complex recipes, he goes over the testing and process that led to the finished recipe. It's a wonderful view into the world of recipe creation.
You can also make mayonnaise with a whisk.
It's so much easier to do it with a hand blender though. It takes longer to clean up afterwards than it takes to make. And no maintaining a steady thin stream of oil, you just put it all into a container and blitz it.
You can make meringues and cakes with a whisk, too, but most people I know have electric mixers for that.
Mechanical eggbeaters with little flywheels were popular before the electric ones, too!
Why do you need a "dressing"? In my corner of Europe they put the above by default on every restaurant table and the salad has nothing in it (or maybe a tiny bit of oil and vinegar), you adjust it to taste.
The only places that offer salad "dressings" are american inspired and even those mostly serve it separately so you can ignore it.
Plus, it's a little hard to emulsify or even suspend the oil and vinegar right there at the table.
That's what I mean by "dressing". We're talking about the same thing.
Sure always ask for the vinaigrette eating out, but at home make your own salad dressing:
* get a mixing bowl big enough to toss salad in, and a whisk * add 1T dijon mustard, 1T not-balsamic vinegar (balsamic is high sugar! I like sherry or beer vinegar), salt & pepper * drizzle in 1T olive oil while rapidly whisking. * Add 3 oz or more salad, toss, done for 2 servings
The lengths I’ve seen brands go To avoid having sugar as their 1st or 2nd ingredient…
after that you have invert sugar, corn syrup, molasses, brown rice syrup etc. as following ingredients…
My recipe is basically what you have here, although I usually mix some balsamic and other vinegars, and add a bit lemon juice.
I went from feeling sorry for people who were "forced" to eat salads to craving them. (Side benefit of not having the afternoon urge to sleep.)
So I get some of the sugar sources in the kit. Just smaller amounts.
Otherwise, I just use olive oil and balsamic vinegar with arugula, pecans.
Arugula is a good source of nitrates, which are good for nitric acid.
Even a stupid salad, what's in the dressing, what's in the bread/croutons, what was the meat glazed with. Etc.
Restaurant food tastes good because it is generally unhealthy top to bottom, with quantities of salt, butter, etc no sane person would use at home.
One thought experiment - when was the last time you ate out and needed to add salt to anything? Now thing of home cooking how often you might add a little salt while you are eating.
The easiest thing to do is ruling out restaurants entirely, but then that's rather anti-social.. Not to mention family/friends gatherings, etc.
And then there is the supply chain since most restaurants are not cooking every single part of every meal from absolute scratch ingredients.
There was a story about a woman near us operating some sort of celiac friendly/gluten free bakery. One day the donuts were delivered and she noticed some D shaped sprinkles and realized her supplier had come up short and just put some random Dunkin Donuts into the delivery. Good on her catching it, but how in good conscience could she operate a bakery advertising itself as celiac friendly/gluten free if she was outsourcing like this?
If I had any sort of food allergy that could result in hospitalization or death, I'd just stop eating out. I'd rather be a little boring than very dead.
You go to a place advertising itself as gluten free / vegan / celiac safe / whatever .. and its been outsourced.
Once it's outsourced, all bets are off. Who knows if the vendor subbed it out further, etc.
Which is why for a certain level of food sensitivity it's almost not worth eating out. It comes down to - do you trust random strangers with your life?
For a type 1 diabetic, no (gets more complex with type 2).
Your body produces insulin at a basal rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_rate
If you're healthy between the pancreas and the liver you maintain homeostasis and things are fine.
As a T1D you don't get that base rate, so your blood sugar will mostly trend up and stay high, even without eating anything. You simply have to get more insulin to avoid burning out all the systems in your body and dying slowly.
However, everything is complicated by numerous factors and the technology you use.
Factors: how you feel, stress, exercise, what you ate in previous meals, your blood sugar level at the start of the meal, and the activities you’ll engage in after the meal (physical or mental).
There’s also the issue of how you administer insulin.
In Italy, up until 3-5 years ago, most of us were using the “multiple daily injections” method, which involved taking a dose of “long-acting” insulin (lasting 24 hours) as a “base” and using “rapid or ultra-rapid” insulin at meals. Clearly, this approach provides limited control and requires a VERY habitual lifestyle (you can’t skip a meal; the long-acting insulin keeps working regardless).
Now (at least here in Italy), we are all transitioning to or already using CGM systems, which are more or less intelligent systems that continuously administer insulin at a “medium” rate. Based on input from the patient regarding the predicted amount of carbohydrates (and fats) they will consume, the system calculates the best strategy for what is called the “meal bolus” (using strategies like multi-phase, direct, etc.) and at the same time, it maintains a continuous but adaptable level of injection to achieve a target blood sugar level (day and NIGHT!!)
In essence, it’s a very nerdy way of dying slowly (hopefully as slowly as possible).
È un mondo difficile E vita intensa Felicità a momenti E futuro incerto
I was curious, for the other curious:
"It's a tough world And intense life Happiness in moments And uncertain future"
Cooking at home can be managed, and still heavily limiting. Eating out is a nightmare. First of all there are no "diabetes" places in the similar style to "vegan". And eating in a restaurant with at least some diabetes friendly selection of dishes is hard. For example there are may be 4 soup dishes. But 3 of them or even all will have either potatoes or pasta as ingredient (and leaving out said ingredient makes for a very mall meal, because those are often added to compensate). Salad section - the same issue, too often they have sweet syrup added for flavor. Anything Asian has rice or noodles in large quantities (I often wonder what diabetics in Asia eat). Second course dishes like meat or fish also sometimes contain sweet "surprises". All in all it is very hard task to find something, in a big city even.
AOL keyword: “keto”
low carbohydrate foods are currently trendy but they’re not called “diabetic”