Having diabetes doesn’t mean you have to give up the foods that you
grew up with and the foods you love the most. Some parts of every
ethnic diet fit well in a diabetic regimen. You can find recipes to prove this
premise in Part II of this book.
You can also use all kinds of tricks to substitute good-for-you ingredients for those that won’t help your diabetes. That’s
what this chapter is all about. Even foods that seemingly have no business on
the plate of a diabetic can be enjoyed if eaten in small portions.
We wish we could eliminate the word “diet” from the diabetic vocabulary. The
word implies taking something away or having to suffer somehow in order to
follow it.
This is not the case at all. You can eat great food and enjoy the taste
of every ethnic variety, provided you concentrate on the amount of food and
its breakdown into the sources of energy, keeping fats and carbohydrates in
control. Perhaps the phrase “nutritional plan” would be better than “diet.”
Stop dieting and start eating delicious foods. It may take a lot of willpower,
but you can give up dieting if you try hard enough.
Following Your Eating Plan
Creating an eating plan that provides the proper number of kilo calories from
carbohydrate, protein, and fat (see Meal Planning) is particularly important when you have diabetes.
After you know how much of each you need, you can
translate those numbers into recipes and pick out the food that is the delicious end point of all the calculating.
Make sure that your choices come from
a variety of foods rather than eating the same thing over and over. You will
be much more likely to stay on your program if you aren’t bored with what
you eat.
Before you cook, make sure that the recipes fit into your eating plan. If you
have already eaten your carbohydrate portions for the day, make sure that
the food you’re about to eat has little carbohydrate in it.
The same is true for
protein and, of course, fat. If you think “moderation” as you make your meal
plan, you’ll keep to the portions you need to eat and no more.
Seasonal foods should play a primary role in your eating plan for several
reasons:
✓ Seasonal foods are the freshest foods in the market.
✓ They are the least expensive foods.
✓ The recipes you can prepare with these fresh foods are some of the
most delicious.
The recipes in this book show the tremendous influence
that fresh ingredients have had on the imaginations of the best chefs in
the United States and Canada.
In addition, time is an important factor in your eating plan. You may not have
a great deal of time to prepare your food, and some of the recipes in this book
may take more time than you can spare. Choose the meals that fit into your
schedule.
But remember that after you’ve prepared a recipe a few times, preparation is much faster and easier.
. Consider the time you spend preparing delicious, healthy food as an investment in your well-beipo Take the time to eat
properly now so that later you won’t have to give up your time being sick.
As a person with diabetes, especially if you have type 1 diabetes, you must
figure the timing of your food in your eating plan. You need to eat when your
medications will balance your carbohydrates.
This process is much easier
with the rapid-acting insulins, lispro and glulisine, but if you’re still using
regular insulin, you’ll have to eat about 30 minutes after you take your shot.
Another essential part of your planning is what to do when you feel hungry
but shouldn’t eat. You can prepare a low-calorie snack for such occasions, or
you can provide yourself with some diversion, such as a hobby, a movie, or,
best of all, some exercise. Examples of low-calorie snacks are baby carrots,
cherry tomatoes, a piece of fruit, and low fat pudding.
Your diabetes medication may require you to have three meals a day, but
if not, having three meals is still important.
This approach spreads calories over the day and helps you avoid coming to a meal extremely hungry. Try not
to skip breakfast, even though society doesn’t encourage taking the time for
this meal.
Making your own lunch as often as possible gives you control over
what you eat. The fast lunches served in restaurants may not provide the
low fat nutrition that you think you’re getting. For example, salads are often
covered with a lot of oil.
It may be the right type of oil, but it still provides a
lot of fat calories.
Eating the Best of Ethnic Cuisines
If you become diabetic, you don’t have to give up the kinds of food you’ve
always eaten. You can eat the same foods but decrease the portions, particularly if you’re obese.
People in ethnic groups who are normal in weight
are doing two things that you need to do as well: eating smaller portions and
keeping physically fit with exercise. Every ethnic choice also has vegetarian
foods, which will be mentioned as we describe the foods.
After you receive a diagnosis of diabetes, try to find a dietitian who treats many
members of your ethnic group. This person will be best trained to show you
how to keep eating what you love, while altering it slightly to fit your needs.
The alteration may be no greater than simply reducing the amount of food
that you eat each day.
Or it may involve changing ingredients so that a high-fat
source of energy is replaced by a low fat energy source with no loss in taste.
Valuing African-American food
African-American food,
sometimes called soul food, combines the food preferences and cooking methods of the African slaves with the available ingredients and available fuel found in the United States.
Slow cooking with lots
of vegetables and meats, eating lots of greens, combining fruits and meats
in main dishes, and deep-frying meats and vegetables were cooking traditions brought to the United States.
At the time, their foods, which contained
too much fat, cholesterol, sugar, and salt, did not hurt the overworked and
abused slaves because their daily energy needs were so great.
Today, the
more sedentary African-American population suffers from one of the highest incidences of obesity and diabetes, not to mention high blood pressure
and the consequences of those diseases. As their energy needs fell, African
Americans didn’t reduce their calorie intake.
The term soul food also points to the central place of eating in the African American population.
In the slave quarters, the preparation and sharing of
good food helped the slaves to maintain their humanity, helping those even.
Appreciating Chinese food
When you think of Chinese food, you think rice. But China is such a huge
place, and rice can’t be grown everywhere. In the north, millet is used
to make cereal. About 1500 BC, wheat was introduced from West Asia.
Vegetables such as soybeans and cucumbers were added to the rice, and
occasionally a little bit of chicken or beef was added.
Ginger became a favorite flavoring because it was so readily available.
The Thais gave chicken to China, and pork was already there, while Westerners
brought sheep and cattle.
The Chinese, mostly peasants, had little fuel and
little cooking oil. Consequently, they learned to cut their food into very small
pieces so it would cook rapidly, using little oil for their stir-frying.
Around 1000 AD, because Buddhists, who made up a large part of the population, wouldn’t eat meat, tofu or bean curd was introduced.
The Chinese also
learned to make long noodles from wheat and rice. Eating What You Like 51
Chinese cuisine is generally healthful.
It includes lots of vegetables, fruits,
and seafood, while keeping sugar and desserts to a minimum.
People with
diabetes need to avoid eating too much rice.
Chinese restaurants offer wonderful vegetable dishes, many with tofu as a protein source.
You can go into
any Chinese restaurant and find numerous dishes that have only vegetables
with tofu as a protein source.
When you cook Chinese food, use as little sugar and fat as possible, and steer
clear of making deep-fried dishes.
Welcoming French food
French food is always associated with the term “haute cuisine,” which means
fine food prepared by highly skilled chefs.
This kind of cooking derives from
Italy and was introduced to France by Catherine de Medici.
The French added
their own subtle techniques to the methods of the Italians from Florence,
adopting their use of truffles and mushrooms and preparing lighter sauces.
The French gave the world the technique of serving a series of dishes, one
after the other, instead of a large buffet where people helped themselves to
everything at once.
France has several distinct culinary regions:
✓ The north: Abundant forests provide game, and streams provide fish.
✓ The central area: The red wines provide the basis for much of the
cooking.
✓ The south: Goose liver, truffles, and Roquefort cheese combine with
Mediterranean olive oil, garlic, and tomatoes to produce the distinctive
cuisine that is loved throughout the Western world, especially in its new
lighter form.
You can go to Paris and find plenty of vegetarian restaurants. French chefs —
some of the best in the world — are geniuses at using whatever ingredients
are at hand to make delicious meals.
0 Comments