Adapting Dishes (for diabetes)

Adapting Dishes (for diabetes)

A Surprise Diagnosis

Maybe the problem was just that I am aging or possibly my love of cooking, but a year ago I was told I had diabetes. This was a shock as though I love cooking cakes I’ve always tried to grow at least some of our own vegetables here in Australia and in Greece. And I have always sought to include a large number of fruits and vegetables in the family diet. However although this news was a surprise I think I was not as worried as some might be because I was brought up a vegetarian and lived as a child and youth with a family that was very aware of rules of healthy eating.

 

A World of Sugar

There are times in life one has to say ‘my world has gone mad’ and make your own personal turnabout.  At present my turnabout relates not just to going back and forth from Greece to Australia but also to ‘world of sugar’. I know a lot about cooking vegetarian and also a lot about cooking cakes. In that early home I and the other daughter (I was eleven she was eight at the time) would be allowed into the kitchen each Sunday so make a cake for a Sunday special. We worked through the recipe book and made different cake each Sunday. But, whereas once sugary things were kept for high days and holidays nowadays they are so readily available folk just go out and buy them every day.

It’s even become a stealth campaign so that he things that we’ve always been buying have gradually got more and more loaded with addictive sugar. Its as though the makers thought we’d only eat one serve of their stuff to get through the day and that they’d put in all your daily need of sugar in one serve!

Australia and Greece

Everyone knows the Mediterranean diet is one of the best in the world, loads of fresh vegetables and plenty of olive oil. The Asian diet is also good with its emphasis on vegetables and fish. And in Australia these foods are available, though when bought packaged you need to stand in the shopping aisles for a while and check the contents.

 

I buy my special Seed and Grain Bread in Australia in the local green grocer’s shop, in Greece I need to walk down the Agora to the bakery to buy their special whole grain (very solid and hard) bread. I now much prefer these to ‘pappy’ white loaves! 

There are some sweet things I like to have now and then like chocolate and biscuits, and I  look carefully for those brands with no or very little sugar. I may not be able to find the same in both Greece and Australia however Greece has sugarless McVities Granita Biscuits - though not Australia, and while in Australia I can get Gullon Sugar Free shortbread cookies - though these are not available in Greece. 

 

My New Diet

I have to watch what I eat. Now I have to think in terms of sugar as the bad guy and bread, pasta and rice treated as friends of the bad guy! I’ve cut the bad guy out of my life altogether, and I try to associate only with the least poisonous of his friends.

With testing I found out what foods worked best for me, aware that my diet is not one all other diabetics use. Thus, with some changes, plus a lot of walking, I’ve lost weight and am now feeling very fit.

 

Now I do have some slightly doggy food friends like the mainly sugarless biscuits, Filo pastry, Seed bread, Basmati rice, and 90% Dark chocolate.

But, on the whole, my very best food friends are:

Almonds, Apples, Avocado, Broccoli, Cherries, Cinnamon, Cheese, Eggs, Fructose, Green Vegetables, Lemon juice, Milk, Olive oil, Soda Water, Soya beans, Cider Vinegar.

And, I've bought a stevia plant (tastes of sugar), but its still very small.

Adapted Recipes

I’ve found you can still bake cakes, just leave out the sugar and if you need a bit of sweetening add Fructose or some extra spices. 

A baked cheesecake for instance does not need very much sugar and can be easily made with just a small amount of Fructose.

 

On the look out for ideas I’ve been given some helpful hints, and some recipes, from friends and family.

Marianne’s  Low G1 pie.

Sugarless puff pastry, filled with chopped apple, chopped dried apricots, chopped nuts plus a little cinnamon and nutmeg.

 Sue’s Wild Rice and Cranberry Salad

(This is a great salad recipe that I copied after eating at a friends house this Christmas.)

100 grams wild rice (or one cup of uncooked Basmati rice)

1-cup cranberries (best if fresh, the dried cranberries have added sugar so cut down the amount)

½ cup of slivered almonds

2 spring onions sliced

½ cup coriander

Dressing: 1 teaspoon of grated ginger, ½ cup orange juice, ¼ cup of olive oil.

Rinse rice. Add to boiling water and simmer 4-5 minutes. Add other ingredients and dressing before serving.

Carol’s Carrot Cake

500grams grated carrot.

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon nutmeg

3 cups almond meal

¼ cup of olive oil

1-cup raisins

2 tsp baking power.

1 teaspoon of Fructose

Mix, and cook in tin for about 1 ½ hour in a moderate oven.

Let cool before turning out. Serve with ricotta