Diabetic-friendly diet with taste?

[Keith]

My partner is on a special (Type II) diabetic diet and she gets very discouraged with it due to lack of taste.

Basically the diet is low-carb, and especially no high-GI carb (ie. no bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, most beans etc.), as well as low-fat (esp. saturated fat). She can't eat most fruits because of the simple sugars, either.

To make things more difficult she doesn't like the taste of most herbs (spices are generally okay).

Often we end up just falling back on lean meat/fish and salad or lean meat/fish and grilled vegies. She also tends to use more cheese and mayonnaise than she should probably have in order to add flavour to the salads. (Sometimes she gets frustrated and falls off the bandwagon altogether ).

We live busy lives and don't have a huge amount of time available for food preparation. [EDIT] Clarification: I wasn't thinking of instant meals - just nothing that takes more than 30-60 minutes active cooking time to prepare.[/EDIT]

Can anyone please recommend some ways to make our diet tastier and more enjoyable?

Thanks.

[WanderingOak]

You are saying that she doesn't like most 'herbs'. Does that mean that spicy food is out as well? Does she like Italian, or Mexican for example? If so, then something like an Italian red sauce over beans/fish and saute'd vegetables might work, as would chili made with ground turkey (for example). Most commercial 'spaghetti' sauces have lots of sugar, so it might be best to learn how to make your own out of canned tomato sauce. A (lofat) yoghurt curry sauce might be a good idea as well. As far as cooking time goes, I can't help you there. Most 'instant' food is garbage, IMHO, especially if you are on a restricted diet. Somebody may have to change their schedule to take time out to cook.

[Keith]

Thanks, Wandering Oak. I've edited my original email to clarify a couple of points (esp. what I mean by "not a lot of time to prepare food").

Beans are out unfortunately, due to the high carb content. Yoghurt is great, and we do use it for dressing fairly often (We haven't used it as a curry base though - we'll give that a try, thanks).

Breakfasts are a big problem too. Once you take cereals, fruit and bacon out of the equation it's hard to know what to make for breakfast. My partner generally falls back on chopped rockmelon and strawberries (the two fruits she can have) but she's getting a bit sick of it now.

Lunches are a problem too (all meals are problems!), mostly due to portability. She can't take a sandwich to work 'cos it contains bread. She falls back on salads mostly but that's getting repetitive too.

Thanks.

[WanderingOak]

Originally Posted by Keith

Breakfasts are a big problem too. Once you take cereals, fruit and bacon out of the equation it's hard to know what to make for breakfast. My partner generally falls back on chopped watermelon and strawberries (the two fruits she can have) but she's getting a bit sick of it now.

Lunches are a problem too (all meals are problems!), mostly due to portability. She can't take a sandwich to work 'cos it contains bread. She falls back on salads mostly but that's getting repetitive too.

Thanks.

If strawberries will work, then a mix of lofat plain yoghurt, chopped strawberies and crushed nuts might make a good breakfast. I've been known to eat just yoghurt and honey for breakfast at times (I'm not sure if honey is on her list or not). For lunch, you could make dinner for 3, and take one portion in the next day for lunch in a corningware container.

[openeyes]

Berries and steamed veggies with butter are both fairly low carb and high flavor. Also if you're into artificial sweeteners consider stevia, it actually helps normalize blood sugar.

[HolisticWellness.com]

Really the best, most sensible, and interesting thing you can do is add veggies to the diet--all kinds. Your partner may have lost a taste for veggies being on the standard american diet, but really this is what keeps primates healthy--and we are primates. Try some fun stuff--artichokes and asparagus, stewed tomatoes and mushrooms, lots of leafy greens--add some lemon or some garlic. Your partner's condition will reverse and you will feast on all the colors of the rainbow.

Kristin
Holistic Wellness - Your Virtual Wellness Center

[DQueens]

"Beans are out unfortunately, due to the high carb content."

Keith,
is this a diet that your wife's doctor has prescribed to you? Most diabetic diets are based on low GI, which rates foods on their tendency to increase insulin levels. High-carb foods that have a lot of fibre are generally good to eat, because the fibre slows the rate of the carb absorption and doesnt spike insulin. I dont want to go against what your doctor is tellign you to do, but carbs with more than 2 grams of fibre per serving are usually benefical for a diabetic diet.

That being said it usually takes a week to recharge your taste buds. I'm sure that your wife will find that after a number of days, she will start to notice that the food she is having has more flavour.

Something i swear by is campbell's chicken broth (for vegetables, rice, potatoes) instead of butter, or to add a nice flavour for little calories, one-step seasonings, which are relatively calorie-free. (I cant think of the company but they come in flavours such as Greek, Garlic and roast peppers, Tex Mex etc) and creamy cuccumber calorie-wise salad dressing (by Kraft) for dipping vegetables, especially carrots.

Tell your wife to keep up the good work. If eating healthy was easy, McDonalds and Coca Cola would not be making billions of dollars and also tell her that diabetes or not, adapting these eating habits is only doing her good in the long run. Tell her to focus on the other things besides the flavour, does she feel more energized, healthier, less fatigued? Has she lost any weight?
Hope this helps.

[Cathy]

I tend to generally follow a Paleo diet which seems to be close to what your wife's doctor recommended. You can find tons of recipes and meal ideas here, here, or in the books "The Paleo Diet" or the "The Paleo Diet for Athletes". I tend to relax some of the recommendations pre/post workout by adding some Yam or Oats but the original plan is great for eating well (high nutrient density) with out a major impact on blood sugar. I'd also recommend eating 6 small meals a day. If you are eating constantly, it does not feel like you are depriving yourself by making healthy food choices.
Before I got allergic/intolerant to dairy, a great breakfast meal for me was low/non-fat cottage cheese + some mixed berries (blueberry, raspberry, blackberry). You can add cinnamon to sweeten or perhaps some splenda or stevia to make it more like a "sugary" breakfast.
Another great nutrition resource for creative meals which should be OK with your wife's plan is Precision Nutrition which basically recommends multiple small meals each day with each meal having a protein (fish, chicken, etc.) plus a green veggie plus or minus a more sugary carb (fruit, brown rice, etc.) depending on when your workout for the day was.

Edit to add: I highly recommend as much as possible cooking for the week or at least prepping the cooking items for the week (i.e. chop veggies, portion out your fish/meat into single serve & freeze, etc.) . I generally fix at least 1/2 of my meals for the week on Sunday. So I prep tons of lean meat or fish, veggies, and mix them in small microwaveable containers to take to work with me. Since I eat 6 or 7 times a day this is a lot of meals. But it is far cheaper than eating out and removes any of the risk of being tempted by non healthy menu choices.

[thadroe]

Keith,

I hope the diet she's on was not recommended by a doctor. If so, I'd find a different one. Anyone telling a type 2 diabetic not to eat beans or fruit is crazy.

I'd recommend reading this. Dr. Fuhrman - Type 2 Diabetes Article

I had type 2 diabetes and was on 3 different medications at one point...and it was only getting worse. I completely reversed it, got off my medication, and lost 50 lbs by following Dr. Fuhrman's advice.

What's interesting is that I actually eat a wider variety of foods now than I ever did before, and I enjoy it. It was a major shift in thinking for me...and a major shift for my taste buds, but I'm so glad I did it because it's definitely not boring. And I eat lots of beans and fruit.

Thad

[Rosi]

Kieth,

I'm by no means an expert on Diabetes but some of these ideas might help to increase the taste and enjoyment of salads.

If you use a vinegrette dressing: mustard, vinegar, oil you can use lots of variations on all 3 ingredients
Mustard: dijon, grainy, taragon ...
Vinegar: apple vinegar, red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, raspberry vinegar...
Oil: olive, walnut, hazelnut, macadamia nut ...

You can also add a bit of yoghurt to any of these mixes.

Try varying the type of salad leaves you use to include, for example, chinese leaves, rocket, oak leef lettuce or baby spinach.

Another good idea is to lightly toast some seeds and grains and add them to the salad. The toasted flavour is really delicious. I use mainly sunflower or pumpkin seeds.
Other possible salad ingredients which can really improve the tastiness are olives, chopped red onion, small pieces of feta, thin strips of smoked ham, grated lemon peel.

I hope some of those are allowed in her diet and that she likes at least a few of them.