Disease, explanation, solution
Check out these low carb recipes images:
Disease, explanation, solution
Image by Earthworm
Diabetes has tripled since the 1980’s. Apparently it is the most common chronic disease in the U.S. today and many people are not diagnosed. So we can expect lots more to find themselves in the same boat as me, especially now that the medical establishment has lowered the criteria where they can call you diabetic. In 2000 they lowered the fasting blood sugar threshold number from 140 mg/dl to 126 mg/dl. They also created a new category of 110 mg/dl to 125 mg/dl as an interim period. This is because they discovered that damage on a micro-vascular level was already happening at those levels. Even so the standard blood test still doesn’t catch people who are glucose intolerant because it only tests fasting blood plasma rates. If you have hypoglycemic issues, you likely have fluctuating blood sugar issues after eating a meal high in starch or sugar and this will produce insulin issues just as diabetes does. That’s where that term sugar shock comes in. I’ve been hypoglycemic all my adult life and I’m only being flagged now.
The book The Diabetes Solution was my go to book for the basics about handling this condition and it was a very good science based introduction, though it is more focused on people who are already using insulin. I also wanted to know more about the science behind insulin and why our nutrition assumptions were so ass backward. In Good Calories, Bad Calories, everything became clear and the whole controversy around nutrition fell into place too. Diet is possibly the most contentious subject I’ve stumbled upon. It was also through this book that I realized that I was going to have to give up trying to save the planet from being trashed by livestock, by eating low on the food chain, as Frances Moore Lappe so famously suggested in Diet For A Small Planet. And then there are those who want to serve their animal loving ideals, but all those fake meats and alternative FrankenSoy foods are just plain dishonest because they are misleading and add another layer of calculations to find out how much carbs you are actually eating. And if you are going to promote a plant based diet it will likely be high in carbs—otherwise it will be too low in protein. Plus current book I am reading says those soy derivatives mess with your thyroid. There are still vegetarian dishes I will cook, but I will have to modify the starch intake. I did find out that I can offset a meal high in carbs and hitting a glucose reading of 132 mg/dl, with exercise which will bring it down to 84 mg/dl. It doesn’t have to be super strenuous, yoga will do, but it has to go on for a while. Ninety minutes is good. An hour will probably work.
I was lucky to have arrived at this point when the Paleo diet was in full swing because it gave me The Primal Blueprint Cookbook which is not only helping me with the whole pre-diabetes dilemma of what to eat, but has recipes that are much easier to cook and take less time than my vegetarian dishes. It is also saving my relationship because every dish I’ve made from it has been delicious. Catherine wants to be vegetarian again, but she is relenting because her doctor’s want her protein intake to be quite high. I’ve been playing it safe by cooking only chicken dishes, bacon for bacon bits and vegetables, but soon I will venture into the beef ones. More on the Primal Blueprint here. He’s not as out there as the wild game/no cultivated foods Paleo people so is easier to live with.
The Blood Sugar Solution
A few nice low carb recipes images I found:
The Blood Sugar Solution
Image by Earthworm
Diabesity is an actual medical term used to refer to the continuum of health problems revolving around obesity and diabetes and everything in between. Diabesity is the single biggest global health epidemic of our time so says Mark Hyman, and I don’t doubt it given the low fat/high carb, nutrient depleted diet humans have embraced for last 40 years of industrial agriculture.
Hyman, like Dr. Oz and Daniel Amen, colleagues he mentions partnering with, is a doctorpreneur, part evangelical, part lifestyle coach, but the science behind his program does concur with what I’ve been learning. I gave it a chance because his earlier book (haven’t finished it yet) is much more science centered without the alarmist rhetoric and was probably written before he became a much in demand speaker. This book has that marketing-to-the-public flavor to it and is an easy read. He does redeem himself with a chapter, near the end, by describing how to take back our food health via education to our communities and he specifies direct action to take back our health care system from pharma driven research and profit driven hospitals and government policy.
Like Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution, Hyman wants to empower his patients to reverse their diagnosis with diet and exercise, but he reaches beyond the diabetic diagnosis by spreading the word about diabesity. Belly fat is his favorite indicator. He outlines a six week, seven step program custom fit to each individual according to how you answer his many questionnaires. The questions do not seem specific enough for me to trust them entirely. But it is a start and he goes on to tell you how to get tested to make sure. His program is described in his online paper "Biological Tune-up". You can also fill out the questionnaires at his website by taking his blood sugar quiz, if you become a member (at no cost). Selling supplements is likely the money maker on these health sites, but the information is still valid.
The seven steps of his program are:
Improving Nutrition
Regulating Hormones
Reducing Inflammation
Improving Digestion
Maximizing Detoxification
Enhancing Energy Metabolism
Sooting the mind
His diet is not vegetarian biased, despite his association with the cancer celebrity girl, Kris Carr of the Crazy Sexy Cancer fame, who advocates the alkaline vs acid diet (which still sounds like bunk to me, but is a good detoxification diet, just not for life.) He counsels readers to eat organic food and warns of chemical poisoning especially from mercury, arsenic, lead, PCBs and pesticides, all of which, he says, has been linked to diabetes and insulin resistance. He has footnotes referring to actual medical papers (unlike other health books like the Younger Next Year series which are a complete mish mash of conventional medical advice based on old assumptions and lifestyle cheerleading, much like Suze Orman in the financial world. I trust Suze more).
He advises on how to figure out if you are allergic to gluten, but warns that it is not going to help to eat gluten free junk food. The whole gluten story, I learned from him, is about celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that triggers body-wide inflammation via a leaky gut, caused by gluten damaging the gut lining. So food particles leak out of the gut into the blood stream causing inflammation in response to the invader organisms. Gluten is found in wheat, barley, rye, spelt and oats. (That’s my whole muesli breakfast practically.) And gluten has been made more intense in these grains due to current industrial agriculture practices so that’s why we’re seeing such an increase in cases. Gluten also triggers obesity and diabetes in patients with gluten sensitivity, which is 30% of the American population.
He also calls all those fake-meat-soy products Franken Soy foods which I found helpful to decamp from the vegetarian diet. And he was my introduction to supplements to use to help ailing mitochondria get back on its feet. (That’s the little energy production plant inside the cell.) As well as other broken functions. To boost nutrition function he focuses on deficiency of magnesium, Vitamin D and Omega-3 fat.
There is a recipe section and a shopping list for ingredients. The program is well thought out and well delivered in book form. It is rather strict. You have to cut out a lot in terms of carb and wheat reduction, but chocolate is still allowed (70% cocoa, 2 oz a day). After six week you can adjust to fit your personal nutrition profile from what you discover. He does convince me that close adherence to the plan will reverse what ails you if you are on the diabesity continuum.
uglybiscuits
Image by -Mandie-
Fresh honey only a week from the hive made my ugly biscuits sing for joy. The country ham wasn’t bad, either.
Recipe for biscuits:
www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,183,158178-228196,00.html
My modifications: Instead of 2 c all purpose flour, I used 1 1/2 c King Arthur bread flour and 1/2 c King Arthur whole wheat flour. The wheat makes it ‘stick to your ribs’, as Dad likes to say. Easier on your blood sugar and low-carb eating, too.
The Sugar Solution Cookbook: More Than 200 Delicious Recipes to Balance Your Blood Sugar Naturally
Product Description
This follow up to The Sugar Solution offers more than 200 delicious recipes that stabilize blood sugar, which is the key to losing weight quickly, safely, and permanently
The latest medical discoveries make it clear: The real key to losing weight isn’t in calories, carbs, or exercise—it’s learning to control blood sugar. By focusing on the healthiest carbohydrates and fats, The Sugar Solution Cookbook enables readers to keep their blood sugar in check
