Spaghetti and Meatballs

Can you change the name of everyone favorite pasta dish, comfort food from "spaghetti and meatballs" to "meatballs and spaghetti?"  By rearranging the name, you convert the dish from a high carbohydrate meal of spaghetti, to a high protein meal of meatballs.  This little trick of thinking, what psychologists call "reframing" can help a person change their perspective which leads to a behavior change.  If you are thinking about eating meatballs, you will eat meatballs, and the spaghetti becomes the side, which is where it needs to be for people living with Type 2 Diabetes.

Vegetable Soup

If you're like me, you buy fresh vegetables that you don't get around to cooking.  Our good intentions, to eat healthy food, do get side-tracked.   At one time or another, all of us have thrown away fresh vegetables that have gone bad.

French cooks have a use for vegetables hanging around the refrigerator.  Those limp zucchinis and wilting greens may not be pretty, but they are still edible.  Of course, you must throw out vegetable that are moldy or rotting.  But, before they get to the un-usable stage, they look unappetizing,  These are the vegetables that a French cook will use to make soup.  Even lettuce goes into the soup.  I've tried it.  It's tasty.

Vegetable Soup is a simple, tasty way to get your veggies and sooth your conscience about wasting vegetables.  Here's how to do it.

First, make the stock:

Add to a large pot:
1 carton chicken stock or broth, optional
1 can diced tomatoes, optional
Water to fill pot half full
2 carrots, scraped and cut into bite-sized chunks
3 ribs of celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
Any fresh herbs hanging around your refrigerator, chopped

Bring to a boil, turn down the heat to keep the water simmering until carrots are brightly colored and give slightly to pressure from a fork.  Add water to keep vegetables covered.  Timing depends on size of pot, size of carrots and your stove's ability to simmer.   

Taste the broth and adjust salt as needed.  You adjust salt by adding more water if its too salty or adding a little more salt if its too dull.

While the stock is cooking, peel and cut up vegetables, any vegetables you have or like.  When the carrots are ready, add your vegetables  in the order of their need for cooking time.

Start by adding the hard, root vegetables or winter squash that need time to cook.  Let the stock come back to a simmer and cook them for a few minutes, until almost tender.  After the hard vegetables cook, add vegetables like green beans, bell peppers, cabbage, broccoli, that need less cooking.  Let them simmer awhile until they are bright colored and tender.

Last to go into the pot, the delicate vegetables that cook very quickly.  Mushrooms, chopped greens, chopped lettuce, scallions, summer squash, tomatoes are examples of quick cooking vegetables.  Toss them into the simmering pot.  Stir and give them a few minutes to cook.

If you have leftover vegetables in the refrigerator, add them to your soup with the delicate veggies.  They will heat while the the others are cooking.

This is also a good time to add seasonings.  Dried thyme, basil, oregano or your favorite seasoning mix will taste great.  A Cajun spice mix, Italian or French herb mixtures will be good, too.  I like spicy food, so I add a few dashes of cayenne pepper.

When the vegetables are cooked to your liking, taste for seasoning.  Adjust salt, pepper and spices to your taste.

Serve your soup hot.  You can add a protein exchange by topping the soup with an ounce of grated cheese or a quarter cup of cottage cheese sprinkled with a little Parmesan.    

Soup: How to make the best comfort food of all

Diabetics do best when they cook for themselves.  When we cook for ourselves, we can control the ingredients and make the food to our tastes and to our needs.

It's been cold, so naturally thoughts go to warm, comfort food.  Most comfort foods are starchy or sweet.. bread, pie, donuts, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy.  They are also high in fat.  For diabetics, the comfort these foods give is dangerous.  Even soup can be dangerous comfort with cream and thickeners.  If it comes from a can, it will also slam your system with salt.

Homemade soup is easy to make and tasty.  Soup for diabetics has four main components:  broth, the liquid part; vegetables, like onion, carrots, celery; protein, usually meat, but also soybeans, dried beans or peas or cheese; seasonings, you know, salt and pepper, herbs and spices.  Soup can be made from canned, frozen or fresh ingredients.  Here are soup making techniques.

Easiest Chicken and Mushroom Soup Ever
Anyone can whip up this soup in minutes with a few ingredients you can keep in your kitchen cabinet.  Serve with a small salad and you have a tasty, diabetes healthy meal.

1 carton chicken stock
1 can mushroom stems and pieces
1 can chicken

Empty contents of all ingredients into a medium sized sauce pan.  Add your choice of seasonings from the list below.  Heat over medium heat.  Stir to break up chicken pieces.  The ingredients are all cooked.  So, just heat them.   No need to salt, but you might want to add pepper. 

Jazz it up with your choice of spices.  Here are some seasonings to experiment with.  The amounts are starting points.  You can always add more of seasonings you like:

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp each onion and garlic powder
• dash of cayenne pepper, more if you like heat
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• all of the above

Vary the basic recipe by adding other canned vegetables.  Diced tomatoes work well and basil is a good choice for seasoning when you add tomato.  Canned mixed vegetables have high carbohydrate vegetables, like corn, making them acceptable for people with good blood sugar control.   Green beans go well in this soup, too;  they go well with thyme.  Green beans and mushrooms together, seasoned with onion powder and thyme, make a tasty soup.  Experiment to see what you like best. 

Change the protein from canned chicken to canned shrimp, 1/2 carton of cubed firm tofu, or 1/3 c of canned chickpeas.  Use the same soup making technique to make an entirely different soup.  Think about adding 1/2 tsp of dill weed to this soup made with shrimp.   With chickpeas, top the soup with a teaspoon of grated Parmesan cheese. 

Tomorrow, I'll continue with soups that take a little more effort, but are still easy.
Fresh Vegetable Soup
Cioppino from the Freezer
Clam Chowder
Beef Stew

Three Little Things to Help Your Blood Sugar.. and keep you weight down

Anything you do that keeps your blood sugar low is likely to help you control your weight, too.  Here are some useful changes you can easily make.

1.  Drink Water
The best drink for us humans is water.  We need about 64 ounces a day.. 8 glasses.. 1/2 gallon.  Many of the things we drink instead of water load us with calorie and take water out of our bodies.  A example is beer.. lots of carbohydrates and calories.  The alcohol has a diuretic effect.  It extracts water from our tissue.  Drinking soda loads us with carbohydrates and calories, too.  Fruit juice comes from fruit, but it .. you guessed it.. carbohydrates and calories.  Coffe and tea, black, have no carbs or calories, but do have a mild diuretic effect.  Eliminate liquid carbs and calories.  Drink water, lots of it.

2.  Fiber Up
Most of us are getting between 10 and 15 grams of fiber per day.  We need more.  Fiber helps keep blood sugar low and a few other important things.  Fiber keeps our bowels moving.  It helps lower cholesterol.  Whole grains, vegetables and fruit are our best sources.   Oatmeal, made from quick cooking or steel cut oats, not instant oats, are a great source of fiber.  So is fruit.  With both, be sure to limit your quantity, because they are carb rich.

3.  Walk More
A daily walk does wonders for your health in many way.  20 to 25 minutes of walking burns about 100 calories.  Walking also helps your muscles utilize the glucose in your blood stream more efficiently.

Diabetes and the Blues

Many of us use food for comfort and most comfort foods are high carbohydrate, like mashed potatoes and gravy.  Ice cream and cheesecake are favorites for many people when the blues hover over us.  Chocolate, too, is a favored comfort food.  All of them are dangerous for diabetics.  When you have the blues, a spoonful of ice cream will not sooth.  It will intensify the yearning and make the blues worse.

Getting depressed, even mildly, is dangerous to our glucose control.  Most of us who have good control live a daily life feeling restricted and deprived of food pleasure.  We may be proud that we can keep ourselves healthy, but still.. we know we go without.  When we yearn for a little comforting indulgence, we know we will hurt ourselves to give in.

So, what can we do when we want to curl up with some comfort food?  The mainstream advice is to have whatever you want, just control your portion size.  Easy to say, hard to do even under the best of circumstances.  When the blues move in, a controlled port just feels like more deprivation.

I like soup.  Soups with unthickened broth, filled with tasty vegetables and chunks of chicken, fish or beef, give a warming satisfying feel.  A hot mug of bouillon can be a comfort, too.

Chocolate gives a lift to moods, its a natural antidepressant.  It works in your brain and in your mouth.  Dark chocolate is a good choice, if you must have something.  Sugar-free hot chocolate can bring a nice soothing comfort, just make it with water instead of milk.

There is no substitute for cheesecake or ice cream.  Even the no sugar added forms of ice cream have carbohydrates from milk and loads of fat.  Wish I could come up with something here.  Homemade cheesecake, made with sugar substitutes can be very tasty, but still are a load of carbohydrates.

And that's why diabetics get the blues.

It's working.  Getting my carbohydrates from vegetables is allowing me more satisfying meals.  I learned that I can eat a little bread without spiking my blood sugar.   

Here's how to find out what works for you.  Test your blood sugar 2-2 1/2 hours after eating to see what your food has done to you blood sugar levels. 

Remember, over 200 dl/mg, glucose is damaging nerves and organs.  Anything that spikes your blood sugar over 200 is dangerous.  Rice and white potatoes are in my "no eat" zone because carb for carb they send my blood sugar higher that foods of equal carbs.

Develop your personal "no eat" zone.  Test your blood sugar several times a day.  A dietitian's advice can help, but only you can personalize your food choices to fit the way your body uses carbohydrate.

Tofu, Good Food for People Living with Type 2 Diabetes

Tofu delivers high quality protein from a vegetable source, soy beans.  One half-cup serving of firm tofu, about 4 ounces or 1/3 of an average 14 ounces package, contains 10.1 grams of protein.   The recommended daily intake of protein is roughly 56 grams for men and 46 grams for women.

Here's how tofu stacks up against other protein sources.
     1/2 cup cow's milk contains 5.1 grams of protein
     one large egg contains 6 grams
     4 oz ground beef contains about 26 grams of protein


Tofu has few calories, 94 per serving.  Compare that to the 4 ounce hamburger patty with 331 calories; the egg, 70 calories; 1/2 cup of 2% milk has 60 calories: and 4 oz of cheese packs 320 calories.  You can think of it this way.  For every 100 calories, tofu gives you 11 grams of protein while ground beef gives you 8.9 grams of protein.  Meat has a little bit better fat to protein ratio than cheese.   100 calories worth of cheese is worth only 6.2 grams of protein.  The differences are in the fat.

Our one half-cup serving of firm tofu contains 5 grams of fat.  Low fat tofu is also commercially available, and contains 1.5 grams of fat per serving.  The fat in tofu is vegetable fat, soybean oil, and it is cholesterol-free.  Our 4 oz beef patty slams us with 15 grams of fat and 113 mg of cholesterol.
Another beautiful thing about tofu:  a half-cup serving of firm tofu contains about 227 mg of calcium or about 22% of the RDA.  Different brands and forms of tofu may have less.  Silken tofu contains approximately 133 mg, again depending on the brand.  Calcium is important for everyone.  For diabetics, it is essential for your body to make best use of blood glucose in your muscles