An archive of well tested recipes that have been gathered over 40 years of married life! Some are originals, others have been found in books & on the web (both often modified) with a special emphasis on diabetic needs. Please read further if diabetic recipes are of particular interest.
Since mid 2009 I have been challenged to create & find a selection of recipes suitable for a household where one of the 2 people needed a diabetic diet & the other a healthy gradual weight loss diet.
My diabetic spouse had done an immense amount of research upon learning of his condition (type-2 diabetes) & after trial & error found that the standard Diabetes Association diet did not seem to control the sugar levels to that which he realised were best for his health. He came across an alternative diet scheme that appeared to have very good scientific backing - web site: http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/diabetes.html & also a very helpful blog: http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/ (newly diagnosed diabetics should look especially at the early blogs).
From there on I sought to feed him as best I could by adhering to the ideas he had discovered with a main evening meal & plenty of leftovers suitable for lunch. One thing was instantly clear, any form of white flour or any wheat based flour was right off the menu except maybe a teaspoon of cornflour as a thickener. On the other hand, many items that I thought would be banned or very limited turned out to be perfectly O.K. for him. Even a small amount of sugar proved far preferable to flour. In short, it was: use lots of vegetables including potato & other root vegetables in moderation, a wide variety of protein including much dairy (cream, sour cream, yoghurt), & don’t spare the olive oil or butter in the cooking.
Many old faithful recipes I had originally thought as “no go” proved suitable as his twice daily checking of sugar levels proved. Using these “High Fat - Low Carb” principles he has managed to reduce his consumption of tablets from 3 a day initially to 1 a day after a while on the diet and will soon be back to none - “managed by diet”!
So, I have now added an extra item to my recipe list - a simple (D) indicating “recipes suitable for diabetics” that have been tested multiple times on him & proved to NOT inflate his sugar levels unduly and have contributed to a steady improvement in his Blood Glucose Levels over a couple of years. I stress that these recipes are NOT necessarily approved by the various National Diabetes Associations and many dieticians will frown at the amount of saturated fat included, but medical studies of “High Fat - Low Carb” diets * have shown that they can be effective weight loss diets, lower fasting Blood Glucose Levels, and have a beneficial effect on lowering LDL - the ‘bad’ cholesterol.
PS: I am not a food scientist, so these recipes will not be getting all the break downs as to various levels of dietary needs / aspects. They are simply based on good old fashioned observation! What nutritional values (kjoule/kcal and carbohydrate) that do appear have been inserted by himself and represent his standard serves! He has decided to put some of his own recipes down in a separate page: From Ian’s Kitchen.
Copyright © 1997-2012, Helen South & Ian Graham
