(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Kos Diabetes Group: What Are You Eating Edition [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-06-16 Welcome to this week’s edition of the Kos Diabetes Group! It’s my week at the helm and as most of you know, it’s almost always food-based. For those who may not know me or why I’m passionate about low-carb food, let me give my usual introduction… In Jan 2016, after ignoring a rising “pre-diabetic” A1c (stupidly, thanks medical profession for not explaining just how dangerous it was) for four years, I was diagnosed a Type 2 diabetic with an initial A1c of 7.6. For 6 months I followed recommendations from my primary care doctor/diabetes counselor and the American Diabetes Association. My blood sugar remained high, and I realized while 15-50g carbs per meal was FAR less than the standard American diet it was going to be the literal death of me because my pancreas couldn’t read the bajillion articles saying Complex Carbs were Just Fine. With my doctor’s approval I embarked on a drastically limited carb intake aka a ketogenic diet. I absolutely understand this is not for everyone because all of our diabetic metabolisms, care strategies and outcomes are different, but this is MY way of handling my health. I maintained an A1c of under 6.1 until recently by eating keto and taking 500mg metformin every evening. However, in January my A1c was 6.5, likely a combination of stress eating (what, you’re not stressed these days?!) AND the reality that diabetes is a progressive disease. My doctor doubled my metformin dose (500mg morning & evening), and after watching more closely what I eat (too much low-carb food is still bad :)) my May A1c was down to 6.0 (YAY!!!). As a nice bonus, my cholesterol and lipid panels were GORGEOUS and I shall continue to eat bacon, cream and steak. However, my doctor still wanted me to try Ozempic or one of the other GLP-1 agonist meds to help me lose weight. I’m fairly medicine-averse unless absolutely necessary, and so I asked if we could up my metform dose once more to 1500mg (1000mg am/500mg pm) and see if that will help. I’m also being very consistent with increased water (yes, 10 cups/day) and continuing to eat as well as possible. As of today I’m down 5lbs and my fasting/pre-post-prandial numbers are the best they’ve been in several years. As I got ready for this diary, I realized I don’t have a gorgeous new recipe to show you. I’ll remedy that for the week before July 4th. BUT… one question I get sometimes is “Well what DO you eat if you don’t eat carbs? Isn’t it boring?” And so I thought that today I’d share some of the food I’ve eaten in the last week and hope that you’ll share some of YOUR meals in the comments! Breakfast My breakfast is the same every day. Boring maybe, but it’s been my habit for two years now and when I’m away from home I miss it. I make my own yogurt using my Instant Pot and Fairlife milk. Thanks to their ultrafiltration process it has half the carbs of regular milk, 6g/cup instead of 12g. I use two bottles of Fairlife milk, 2 cups of heavy cream to boost the fat content, and ½ of a cup of active culture yogurt, and follow the directions for my Instant Pot and get 14 cups of yogurt. I’ve found that a 12-hour culture gives me yogurt that absolutely does NOT spike my blood sugar in any way. I add some homemade lemon/lime curd, blueberry syrup, berries or keto granola to vary the taste. Paired with coffee the elixir of consciousness, it keeps me going all morning! What do I eat if I don’t have access to my yogurt? My go-to if eating out (either restaurant or hotel breakfast bar) is eggs in some form, bacon or sausage, and coffee. Whoever I’m with gets my toast/homefries :). Lunch If I’m not eating leftovers, often I’ll make an omelette for lunch, with cheese and whatever veggies we may have in the fridge (broccoli, peppers, a little onion, mushrooms, etc). If I have radishes or turnips around I’ll make a keto home-fries alternative frying those in bacon fat until tender and browned, and I’ll add a few slices of bacon (we ALWAYS have bacon in the fridge, preparing 2-3 pounds at a time in the oven). If I’m not in an egg mood, I’ll make myself either an almond butter, tuna, or grilled cheese sandwic… BRILLIG YOU EAT KETO HOW ARE YOU HAVING SANDWICHES??!!! Ahem. As I was saying, I make sandwiches using either commercial keto-friendly bread (my favorite brand is Sola with 2g net carbs per slice), homemade chaffles (CHeese wAFFLE) or low-carb tortillas. Lots of choices to mix it up, and it’s also portable. On my recent trip to Toronto I brought low-carb tortillas and was able to enjoy the lunch provided to our groupsimply by using my tortillas instead of the bread/rolls to make my sandwiches. Dinner Dinner is where things get varied, and yes, I have pictures to show!! Casa Brillig’s dinners are always Keto-Friendly, which we do by making a variety of foods and everyone picks and chooses what they can/will/like to eat: Steak, Spinach and Brocco-Cauliflower Rice If I could pick one food that’s the workhorse of my “starch alternative” menu, it’s cauliflower rice. Or in this case a riced broccoli-cauliflower mix that my grocery store carries in its frozen section. The fact it’s green adds color to my plate, and I think it tastes really good. On this night we had steaks rubbed with Penzey’s Northwoods Seasoning and grilled outside. Mr. Brillig and K2 (my 17yo son) had baked potatoes instead of cauli-rice; while I will always share, they prefer to leave it to me and eat their carbs :) :). We all like spinach (never thought I’d say that!); our favorite method is sauteed with garlic in olive oil until it starts to wilt. Chicken with keto mac-and-cheese (really!) K2 loves chicken, so we eat a lot of it. He prefers dark meat on the bone, while my favorite is light meat. We generally cook two or three bone-in chicken breasts (like the one pictured) and several pounds of legs and thighs for our athlete. We prepare simply, some sort of spice blend (usually from Penzeys, but Pixie Dust or Chick Magnet are favorites too. The menfolk had traditional Mac & Cheese, but rather than having cheese with broccoli or cauliflower, I indulged in a recent find: Perfect Keto’s Mac & Cheese. It’s not cheap but OMG is it nice to feel like my pre-diabetic days when I could make a box of mac & cheese. I have to be VERY careful with portion size and not have any other carbs but it makes those days when the rest of the house is eating cheesy pasta easy. Pork Chops with Vinegar Peppers over cauli-rice/bean sprouts This was probably my favorite meal of the week. K2 asked “Can we have pork” and I had pork loin chops from our meat CSA in the freezer. Mr. Brillig started to google pork chops and the first autocomplete was “pork chops with vinegar peppers” so that’s what we had! We used this recipe but didn’t have cherry peppers so substituted ½ cup of the jar of hot banana peppers we keep on hand. I had it with cauliflower rice mixed with bean sprouts, one of the nicest “volume stretcher” items out there because it’s virtually carb-free. The non-keto folks had it over egg noodles. It was out of this world delicious and I had the leftover sauce over cauli rice for lunch. Next time we make it, and there will be a next time, we’ll try cherry peppers for visual look and hopefully they’ll stay more intact, but the flavor on this was amazing. I suspect you could use chicken for it, too. Parmesan Paprila Tilapia with mushrooms and spinach Next is one of our standard go-to meals when time is short or inspiration is lacking. We always have tilapia filets in our freezer. It began with this recipe but has evolved a bit, so what we do is coat the filets (usually we make six at a time) with olive oil then dredge in a mix of ¾ cup Parmesan cheese, 1 Tbs paprika (either sweet, smoked or half-sharp from yes, Penzeys), and 2 Tbs almond flour to give it some structure. Bake at 400F on a foil-lined pan for about ten minutes until done. It’s easy, you can vary the spice based on what paprika you use, probably can substitute other spices too. It’s forgiving and quick! On this night we served it with sauteed mushrooms and more spinach. I suspect the men had either rice or pasta but I can’t remember :). Chuck steak, garlic scapes and mac-n-cheese Finally, this was dinner last night. We had a chuck steak that had marinated overnight in Briannas French Vinaigrette (known here as “the artichoke dressing” because of the bottle) and grilled it to perfection. While at the store earlier we saw garlic scapes and, knowing nothing about them, decided that’s what we were having with our steak. Mr. Brillig grilled them in a basket with olive oil, salt and pepper and the only thing we would do different next time is to trim the stem ends a bit. The rest of the house had rice pilaf or leftover baked potatoes, while I had the second half of my boxed mac & cheese. We got the steak inside mere moments before the heavens let loose with a dramatic thunderstorm that had us unplugging our laptops since Casa Brillig lost TWO of them to a storm while I was in Toronto! So that’s a week of food that kept me full, contented, and most importantly not spiking my blood sugar sky high. I haven’t included the small snacks during the day — a protein bar, or some berries, a second yogurt, etc. I do indulge in Lily’s chocolate but I’m trying to cut that down because it’s an easy way to add calories I don’t need. I generally have a drink with dinner, either red wine or a hard seltzer, as well. I believe the best way we can support one another is showing that it is possible to eat well on a low-carb diet, and there’s nothing I’ve shown that someone eating a Traditional American Diet couldn’t eat! So tell me what YOU eat to keep yourself happy and healthy!! 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