Changing the pantry

With the diabetes diagnosis, what's in my pantry and fridge has changed a lot. Here's my inventory of the ins and outs.

What's out:

White flour
Flour tortillas
Milk
Sugar
anything from a bakery
juice
gatorade (you might as well just write a higher glucose level into my meter)

What's in:

Splenda (embrace the fake!)
Almond flour (awesome for low carb baking!)
carrots (great for bulking up dishes)
chicken
homemade chicken stock (flavor without carbs!)
eggs (omelets mmmmmm)
egg whites
cheeses
diet soda (never thought THAT would ever happen)
yogurt (I need to get calcium in somehow but milk does ever make me feel full. Yogurt on the other hand can be a great meal with fruit)
berries (15 grams of carbs per 1 1/4 cups!)
bagged salad mix from the farmer's market
muscat or reisling vinegar


What's in that's kind of surprising

White rice (you never think that a half a cup of rice will fill you up but really it does)
Pasta (same as the rice)

I'm not gonna kid you, the eating is radically different and I've said before, I miss things. I miss the baking. The sad thing for me is changing my thinking from what tastes delicious to what will keep me full. The lucky side is that I can make things taste delicious. Nevertheless, I am surprised how much I have been able to retain in my eating habits.

I ate a croissant!

And it didn't raise my blood sugar beyond the targeted levels! There's a woo hoo moment right there. So work brought in breakfast for a staff meeting that had fruit and breakfast croissant sandwiches stuffed with eggs and ham (or eggs, bacon and cheese). I was going to hold firm and deny, deny, deny, but I did a little research and found out that the carb content of a large croissant is 31 grams with 14 grams of fat. I should eat between 45 and 60 per meal.

There's this thing about baked good for diabetics, you trade carbs for fat. If there is a low-carb baked food, most likely it's loaded with fat. For example, a Starbucks marble pound cake has 69 (!!!) grams of carbs and 21 grams of fat. On the other hand a slice of low-carb poundcake made with Splenda and almond flour has 5 grams of carbs but a whopping 50 grams of fat (usually we should have around 40 grams of fat per day). You really do pay one way or the other.

So in the end I ate half a croissant sandwich and fulfilled the rest of my carb allotment with fat free plain yogurt sweetened with splenda and a big handful of raspberries. A nice, filling breakfast. The baby steps for me are coming from starting at a completely restrictive diet when I was first diagnosed (no white flour, white rice, white food whatsoever) to adding a moderate portion of conventional starches once in a while. While I won't be eating croissants with abandon, half a breakfast croissant once a month feels pretty damn good.

Fresh and Flavorful Swaps

I'm still experimenting in the kitchen, trying a new trick or two every week. Lately, I've been finding lots of ways to use cilantro. If you have to buy it by the bunch, it means you've got to be creative in finding ways to use it up! I have been putting it in my Egg Beaters omelets in the mornings, which has been fantastic.

Tonight, I decided to jazz up one of my usual recipes and try some new flavors in the mix. I've been doing a tilapia-and-tomatoes thing for a while, thanks to the advice of Scotte back when I was attempting a low-carb diet. (That lasted about 2 weeks. Not good.)

For the past few years, this recipe has evolved to include a tilapia filet cooked on the stovetop in a little olive oil and jarred minced garlic, then adding no-salt diced tomatoes in their juice and dried Italian herbs. It's always good, and have a hearty Italian taste to it, which works well when I sometimes serve it over whole wheat pasta with parmesan cheese on top.

Well, tonight I changed it up. I still cooked the tilapia in a pan, sprinkled with black pepper, but used just a spritz of no-stick canola spray instead of about 2 tbsp of olive oil. The no-salt diced tomatoes stayed the same. But, instead of the dried Italian herbs and the minced garlic from a jar, I diced up more of the fresh cilantro and chopped 2 full cloves of fresh garlic.

Look at how pretty it was in the pan!


The result was a really light, fresh, and flavorful new version of what had become a familiar dish. The cilantro and garlic worked beautifully together, and since there was no oil in this the "sauce" was just so light and crisp. I did serve it over whole wheat fusilli pasta, and the sort of sweet nutty tasty of the pasta went with the fish and the sauce so well. I only made a few little changes, but now this dish had no fat and fresher, more nutritious ingredients. YUM!

Dining Out

For us diabetics dining out can be a minefield. Cooking at home means you can measure everything and calculate the carbs and know you're safe. My problem eating out is actually that I totally overestimate everything and end up having a low blood sugar moment. That's a train to Shelbyville (Steel Magnolias reference!). For example, I went to a great restaurant near our house and ordered the lamb sliders (Mmmmm!) and I estimated the carb content of the mini buns to be around 15 g of carbs per bun. It turns out they were much less than that because my blood sugar level went down to 65 (it should go below 80) and I was all shaking and bitchy.

But dining out has been a joy when I realize there are things I CAN eat and things I can enjoy. Here's the cuisines I've been partaking as well as the ones I'm avoiding:

The Good:
The Classy High-End places - These are awesome because the portioning is usually a decent sized piece of protein (roast chicken, steak), a great vegetable, and a starch that is fairly well defined portion wise.

Chinese - There are many things on a Chinese menu that fills my tummy and are low carb. Mu Shu! Hot and Sour Soup! Things to avoid are those General Tso's type of of batter fried. But most of the menu is a cavalcade of fun for this diabetic.

Indian - Naan may not be your friend but the basmati rice is easy to portion out and the curries and tandooris can be eaten to your heart's content.

The many organic diners in the Bay Area - tasty omelets and salads along with toast is killer(in the good way)! I'm blessed to be fairly indifferent about french fries so the salad substitution is great.

In and Out - a double double has 30 grams of carbs. I can have 45-60 per meal. If I do take out and make myself a salad I am SOOOOOOO set.

The Not So Good:
Vietnamese - sugar is a pretty integral part of of the sauces and marinades so I have been hesitant to try. I have made a splenda nuoc cham at home and that is some tasty eating.

Thai - Do you know what the carb content is for 1/2 a cup of pad thai? 98 grams. At most you should have 60 grams per meal. What the hell? Are they dousing it in sugar and deep frying? A Kripsy Kreme donut is less than that!

Mexican - Beans have carbs. Rice has carbs. Tortillas have carbs. Avocados are teeming with fat.

Kicking some diabetes ass

So I got my blood tested today. Less to check the progress and more to check whether I need to adjust some medication that regulates my blood pressure and the protein in my blood (called an ACE inhibitor). I guess since they were drawing blood, the lab decided to run a whole bunch of tests including my lipid panel (fats and cholesterol in my blood) and my fasting blood sugar.

As it turns about everything went down, except for my HDL (the good cholesterol) which stayed the same. But the overall cholesterol level went down 100 points, the triglycerides went from six times the normal level to normal range, and the fasting blood sugar went down 150 points. WOO!!!!!

Yes, you can get your body chemistry under control by writing down everything you eat, exercising like a mofo, and regulating your carb intake. The upside is that I've made sure to eat regularly and not get hungry. Getting hungry is the worst thing to do because your liver thinks you're starving and dumps glucose into your blood. I've been lucky to have a regular enough job to eat snacks and do brief spurts of exercise to keep my blood sugar down.

Speaking of staying full, the meal I had tonight has been a mainstay of my post-diabetes cooking.

Seared ahi tuna with salad

1 1-inch ahi tuna steak (about 3/4 of a pound. This will be expensive but worth every penny)
2 tablespoons of sesame seeds (optional)
3 cups of salad greens
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
a mustard-muscat vinegar vinaigrette
- 2 tablespoons muscat or riesling vinegar (Trader Joe's has a good orange muscat vinegar)
- 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 2 tablespoons olive oil

Heat a nonstick pan or cast iron skillet to smoking hot. Brush one side of the tuna steak with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and sesame seeds. Place oil side down on the smoking hot skillet and let it sear for two minutes. Brush the non-oiled side down and repeat the sprinkling. Flip over and let sear on the other side for one and a half minutes. Take off the grill and put on a plate and cover with foil to the the tuna steak rest. While the tuna is resting, assemble the salad. WIth a sharp knife slice the tuna into 1/4 inch slices on the bias (agaisnt the grain of the meat). Artfully place on top of the salad. Eat with abandon and remember to eat a few slices of bread for carbs.

Quench That Thirst

Here's something pretty simple that could be a major positive change for me. I need to drink more water.

Reasons why I should drink more water:
- It's good for you, period, and everyone should drink 8+ glasses a day.
- My blood pressure medication is dehydrating, and the warning labels say to make sure you're getting enough water.
- Drinking water helps fill you up and you tend to eat less.
- I have IBS (mmmm, yeah, fun) and keeping yourself hydrated is a very key strategy for keeping things normal and comfortable
- Water is good for your skin and helps get rid of all the oogy toxins and stuff we don't want anyway

I do drink a lot of fluids during the day, but they're not all good for me or helpful in my constant monitoring (but inconsistent addressing) of my health issues.

On a normal weekday, here's what I consume:

- a 10ish oz glass of orange juice with breakfast, if I've bought groceries recently. Orange juice is high in sugar and calories, but I drink it anyway (and love it) on doctor's orders. Why? Because OJ is also high in potassium, and my blood pressure medicine has the negative side effect of leeching potassium. So I need to make sure I get it in my diet, from multi-vitamins, OJ, and bananas. I always buy the OJ-with-calcium, too. If I haven't bought groceries, I drink Crystal Light with breakfast. So that's good and counts toward the water total.

- About 4 out of 5 days, I stop at Starbucks on the way to work and get a grande skim chai latte. Lots of caffeinated sugary goodness! But, pretty much the benefit of the nonfat milk is negated by the black tea, cuz from what I've read black tea "bonds with" (or something) the dairy molecules and it just flushes from your system. And caffeine dehydrates. And there's a lot of sugar and calories in my favorite drink. I should cut back...

- During the work day, I *may* drink about one 20 oz bottle (refilled from the office cooler) of water. It's not enough, and I should make myself drink more. I do love cold water, I just like other things better.

- If I did not stop at Starbucks in the morning, I'll need a caffeine fix in the afternoon. So that's when I often make a run for a Coke Zero, preferably Cherry. I almost never do both chai and a Coke on the same day, cuz the caffeine would do me in. But I usually have either one or the other every week day, and for many reasons I need to tone down my caffeine intake. I should be drinking water every afternoon, not soda.

- At night, I probably have another 2-3 glasses of Crystal Light or, if I have the fridge stocked, a can of diet lemon-lime soda. I don't drink a lot in the evenings, cuz I don't want to be up every hour all night long...

So, there's definite room for improvement here. I'll stick with the juice, try to cut back on my purchased caffeine treats, and drink more water overall. There are just so many reasons to do it, and none not to.

The Downside

Sometimes I want to say suck it to this healthy living and make a nice batch of cookies with sugar and white flour. I could make a nice batch of cookies with Splenda and almond flour. While each cookie would have a carb content of 3 grams as opposed to 15, they would probably have a meal's worth of fat. That's the tradeoff I have to live with when it comes to sweets - low carb, high fat or high carb, moderately fatty. I've opted for the former because my nutritionist told me I was probably burning more calories than I took in so it's not like the fat, protein or carb calories were staying in my body anyway.

The downside of all of this has been baking. I've been avoiding watching cooking shows and reading cooking magazines because my GAWD does baking come up a lot. That is a void in my life because I really don't want to have a ton of baked goods I can only eat a half ounce-serving of. I'd much rather make a batch of sugar free jello (which has neither carbs nor fat!) and fulfill my sweet tooth that way. That doesn't fill the void of being able to bake. Throwing stuff in the stand mixers and have a nice big batch of cookies, muffins, or cake. or pies! Giving up the killer pie crust recipe! It's sad that's for sure.

It's nice being on track, keeping my blood sugar down and generally being physically fit but there are days, especially now when the weather is chilly, I'd like to whip up a dessert and not worry about portions.

Beyond Mortification

Okay, this is as tangible a sign as I've ever gotten that I need to change my lifestyle.

This morning, I broke my office chair. Good Lord.

Now, it's true that I kinda twisted and fell into it -- I didn't sit down normally, and I fell at an angle that was different than normally sitting. But still, I snapped the edge of a hard plastic chair.

That's doing wonders for my self-esteem right now.

MLK Jr. - Good for Civil Rights and Healthy Living

In the wake of the passage of California's Prop 8 I had to post this (which are good words of encouragement for those of us changing our lives in any way):

"I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil-rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future."

Getting In Touch with My Inner Bugs

I've been cooking again! Lately that's my weekend hobby, which works well in this economic slowdown, I guess. Anyway... today's cooking experiment was a long time coming.

This summer, a group of us girls celebrated Brunette's bachelorette party in a most unusual - and awesome - way. Rather than the typical Adams Morgan bar crawl (which, let's face it, we're all way to old to do) we took a cooking class! For about 3 hours on a Saturday night, we hung out in the kitchen of Figs, a great little Mediterranean cafe right here in DC. We were taught how to make a full dinner, with I think 5 or 6 different dishes. My absolute favorite recipe of the evening was the carrot salad, immortalized in the pic on the right amongst its other salady friends from that night.

And, even though my gal pals would probably say I'm the *last* person they'd expect to try to recreate any of our dishes from that night... that's exactly what I just did! AS was good about writing down and sharing all the recipes, so I used her notes as a basis for my carrot salad but tweaked it a little bit (to reduce the salt and, um, cuz I forgot one ingredient but I don't think it matters much.)

So, here we go...

I started with a bunch of carrots fresh from the farmers' market. It's been a *long* time since I've peeled and diced carrots, since I've become one of those people who rely on those bags of baby carrots. I don't know if this bunch I bought would qualify as heirloom, and I can't remember how they were labeled, but it was still great to see carrots that didn't look like mass-produced clones.

All clean and ready.

I loved the color variations, they were really were so pretty. From this point, I attempted blanching for the first time in my life. I don't know if it is an exact science --- what I did seemed to work. I boiled them for about 5 minutes, then drained them and dropped them into a pan of cold water for a few minutes. Later, I chilled the whole thing before eating. They were soft yet still structurally intact, not mushy.

While the carrots had their bath, I made the vinaigrette.

Another first -- I've never used fresh cilantro before! I opted out of using salt as stated in the original recipe, and used black pepper instead. I forgot the cumin, but it doesn't seem to need it. I rough-chopped the cilantro, then added 3 cloves of garlic (yes, I cheated and got pre-peeled after my last rough go of it with fresh garlic), about 2 tsp of white vinegar, and about 2 tbsp of olive oil all into my baby chop-chop.

I wish this was scratch-and-sniff, cuz the smell is FANTASTIC. So much better than the picture.

Here it is! My finished carrot salad! Doesn't look that different from the original pic, eh? Guess what? It tastes pretty dang close, too! It's a teensy-bit too garlicky, but I'll keep eating anyway. This recipe is a keeper.