Tag: Food

Can food be "friendly"?

Chrystal Leary, Founder of SexyDiabetic.com, and a member of the diabetes online community, wrote a recent blog post in which she stated her desire for a "diabetes friendly" food label1. Chrystal received a few dissenting comments (mine among them) to her post and wrote a followup post clarifying her earlier writing2.

I received several comments back stating the preference for knowing the carbs in food versus the labeling diabetic friendly.  In my view  if a product was going to be labeled “diabetic friendly”  all the appropriate  nutrition facts would be in the proper range for a diabetic.  Thus being “diabetic friendly.”  I am sorry if I didn’t make this clear when I wrote my previous article.  This is the whole point of foods being labelled diabetic friendly.

While I agree with Chrystal's sentiment — diabetes management can be overwhelming — I feel that a diabetic friendly label might do more harm than good.

When I was first diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes I bought a lot of foods that the food producer promoted as designed for people with diabetes. The food producer usually just substituted sugar alcohol3 for regular sugars or high fructose corn syrup.  To my ignorant self the idea that I could eat cookies and ice cream and other "forbid-ables" was exciting.  I didn't have to give up the maple syrup for my pancakes or the Rita's summer ices.  I could have the "sugar free" alternatives.  Rock on!

However, after doing some research and eating these foods I realised that sugar alcohol still had an effect on my blood glucose and also did a real number of my digestive system.  Now, not only must the newly diagnosed person with diabetes (PWD) learn about this disease they also have to learn what sugar alcohol is and glycemic indices etc.  On top of that I kept getting ignorant advice from well meaning folk about some new food that would help my diabetes ( or better yet, cure it ) because they saw it was labeled for diabetics.  "Sugar free" really wasn't.

I am of the opinion that there is no such thing as "diabetic friendly" foods. There is just food. Every person with diabetes will have to learn about food and how it affects blood sugar and how to count carbohydrates.  Like I did, they'll have to learn to eat consciously.  My wife and kids took on the challenge and together we all changed the way we related to food.  We eat more organic produce and we also became members of the Honey Brook Organic Farm4, a local community supported agriculture collective. We pay more attention to where our food came from and how it was produced. None of this has anything to do with diabetes management but when you start paying attention to how your food is produced and what is going into your mouth then whether or not the food producer add a little sticker saying "gluten-free" or "for dialectics" does not matter at all.

Sometime there is a tendency in the USA to want to simplify everything.  Some things are just not simple.

  1. Diabetes Friendly Please?
  2. Carbs vs Diabetic Friendly?
  3. ALL ABOUT SUGAR ALCOHOLS
  4. Honey Brook Organic Farm

Six things I want you to know about diabetes

It's not my fault.

I can't speak for all people with diabetes but in my case, there was nothing I did to cause diabetes nor was there anything I could have done to prevent it. I have Type 1 diabetes. The doctors think &ndash, but are not certain – it's caused by a malfunction of the immune system. My immune system thinks some of the cells in my pancreas are a foreign invader and is doing battle. This means my pancreas is damaged and unable to produce sufficient insulin. Eventually, all those cells will be destroyed. In any case, I'm dependent on insulin injections for my survival. Without multiple daily injections of insulin, I die.

There is no cure

Some people after I tell them I have Type 1 diabetes, will get very excited to tell me, "You can cure diabetes.  There is a plant/treatment/spice/meditation technique that my Uncle uses.   His diabetes is gone now."   Um, really! And how long has this treatment been around?  "Years". Um, really!   That's odd, I've had diabetes for years now and my endocrinologist has never mentioned it and I have never read about any research like that.   Oh, they are keeping it a secret.   blood streamA secret that only you happen to know about.   recognisedYou know what, good for your Uncle, but I am going to keep taking my insulin and donating to the Denise Faustman Lab and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

It's about blood sugar, not food sugar.

When I am talking about my blood sugar being low/high I am not referring to icing on the slice of cake you just ate. I am talking about the chem bloodstream. I am talking about the metabolic process of converting food into blood glucose. Let's focus on the carbohydrates.

Macromolecules such as starch, cellulose or proteins cannot be rapidly taken up by cells and need to be broken into their smaller units before they can be used in cell metabolism. Carbohydrate catabolism is the breakdown of carbohydrates into smaller units. Carbohydrates are usually taken into cells once they have been digested into monosaccharides. Once inside, the major route of breakdown is glycolysis, where sugars such as glucose and fructose are converted into pyruvate and some ATP is generated. Pyruvate is an intermediate in several metabolic pathways, but the majority is converted to acetyl-CoA and fed into the citric acid cycle.

How was your high school biology and chemistry? Food goes through the citric acid cycle —  including proteins and fats —  and raises blood sugar. Carbohydrates get metabolized more easily and quickly than proteins and fats. So that slice of cake will raise my blood sugar just as much as the slice of pizza. It just might do it faster.

Insulin is not a cure.

"But you have a cure now, right. You can take insulin". See "There is no cure" above. Here's my research on the two words. I used a dictionary.

A treatment treats a problem and may lead to its cure, but treatments often ameliorate a problem only for as long as the treatment is continued, especially in chronic diseases.

Oops, I used a SAT word. Ameliorate means to "make better".

Cures are a subset of treatments that reverse illnesses completely or end medical problems permanently.

Insulin is a treatment. Not a cure. If I stop taking insulin, I die.

soldiers

Flickr image, soldiers, by [Heather Aitken](http://www.flickr.com/photos/feathy123/)

Anyone can get diabetes

There was a time when doc recognized two types of diabetes –  Type 1 or Juvenile diabetes and Type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes normally occurred in the young while Type 2 normally occurred in older overweight and unhealthy people. That's a load of crock. First, off Type 2 diabetes is now occurring at an alarming rate in the young. In fact, the rate of incidence is so high it's becoming an epidemic. As for Type 1 – well I am no Juvenile. I was diagnosed with Type 1 at the age of 38. Some people like to call that Type 1.5. Another call is LADA –  Auto-imAutoimmune Diabetes in Adults. Some women get diabetes only while they are pregnant –  gestational diabetes. So diabetes can affect anyone – old, young.

There is a Type 3

After I was diagnosed my wife decided that this was our disease. Together we learned about all the things I would need to do to stay healthy. She has been there through the scary lows (blood glucose) and the disappointing highs. We've raised our kids to read food labels and be conscious of the quality of the foods we eat. Type 3 is reserved for those special people in our lives that make living with diabetes easier. November is National Diabetes Month.

Our 2010 JDRF Walk for the Cure Team, Sir Lancet-a-lot and the Knights of Pokey Land

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Cool Vines — Princeton

Instead of arranging their wines by country of origin or grape varietal, Cool Vines arranges wines by taste — simplifying the complexity of selecting the right wine for any occasion.

Matching the wine to the preference of the wine drinkers, the occasion or event, the accompanying food, etc. - all serve to enhance the pleasure from the pour. Instead of demanding that our customers know the vagaries of every wine-producing region’s labeling conventions or the subtle differences of the each grape variety when grown in different parts of the world, using the myriad methods that are available to the winemaker, we provide a standardized taxonomy, represented in clear, simple and visual form that communicates the character of the wine with regard to its taste and its affiliation with food.

My wife and I went in — just to take a look. Five minutes later, the knowledgeable staff were helping my wife pick the perfect wine for dinner while I found a few new Belgian ales to try — Schneider & Sohn Organic Weisen Edel-Weisse.  I also picked up an unusual — at least to me — Belgian style ale called Hitachino Nest White Ale from Kiuchi Brewery in Japan.  Delicious and a fantastic thirst quencher.  I also picked up another Kiuchi Brewery ale, Red Rice Ale, a mixture of Sake, malt and strawberries.  What!