Dessert for diabetics
My gran is just about to start receiving “Meals on Wheels”, which is a great service. In principle. Vulnerable people (mainly the elderly) are provided with a cooked nutritious meal at lunchtime. For many recipients, this will be the main nutrition they get in that day, so it’s really important that the meal provides the nutrition they need. Especially for those with conditions like diabetes, you'd think?
Each day (it’s even available on Saturdays and Sunday’s) they offer a choice of a main course and a choice of dessert. The main course choices, as you might expect are a traditional meat based meal, or a vegetarian option. And the desserts? Yep, hot, cold or diabetic.
I was really shocked to see diabetic desserts – and even more surprised to see what they are. You’d maybe expect low-carb options, like a cheese board perhaps. But no, they’re traditional sweet desserts, such as cakes and pies.
Looking at the definition I found on the web of what the diabetic options should consist of, it’s clear the providers of nutrition are stuck with conventional wisdom. “Desserts for diabetics must be sweetened with artificial sweeteners or sweeteners combined with a minimal amount of sugar”.
How about making desserts sugar (and sweetener free) entirely – or even swapping the dessert out for a starter instead!? Where did the idea that all meals must be finished with a dessert come from anyway?
As meals on wheels only provides one meal a day, they have some helpful recommendations as to what diabetics should eat for the rest of their meals:
That's right – diabetics should get 6-11 servings of bread and grains a day! DIABETICS! Also, note the low-fat recommendations. Those diabetics have got to steer well clear of anything so much as resembling fat, and instead go for low-fat options, that have replaced the fat with carbohydrates. Oh, and fruit – go right ahead.
I'd love to hear our comments on the diabetic nutrition for the most vulnerable diabetics in our communities. What meals do you think they should be offered?
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Complete nonsense. No wonder why diabetes rates keep increasing.
My Uncle started having delivered meals a few years ago, though he had a lot more choice,
This is lucky as he is diabetic, he often chooses an extra side dish, like salad. Or as you suggested cheese.
Wow! That’s a killer menu!
My thoughts exactly, Sally-Anne!
As someone who has travelled with diabetes since early childhood, it always makes me laugh when I see the diabetic choices from places from meals on wheels to airlines even in hospitals! I was 10 when I learned that not having a working pancreas meant I needed to make low or non sugar choices (I still feel completely uncomfortable after a plate of carbs) but the initial teaching of go nuts with fat and protein changed over the next 30 years to be more placating and ‘politically correct’ towards sugars. Along with new insulins came the doctrine of “eat crap – we can treat it better than before” and looking around the diabetes clinic I saw the same people as before but over five years they had moved from being the fit looking patients to heavyweights. I also fit the title of heavyweight and heading towards the usual plague of complaints that accompany (high cholesterol, blood pressure) so went back to my early medical literature and reread the advice which lines up to the paleo way of thinking.
– Eat more red meat
– Raw and unprocessed food is good
– Steer clear of the processed sugars
It’s really as easy as that. 3 kids agree; one wife… Well, we’re working on her.
While those who subscribe to the concept of primal and paleo might know that diabetes sufferers should stay away from carbs and sugar, the medical community in general seems not to have cottoned on to that idea. Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution is a read that should be on the menu for any diabetic, whether type 1 or type 2.
One way to cure diabetes, kill them off slowly. I have been diabetic for nearly 4 decades and all that bread and carbs only goes one way….breaks down to glucose eventually in body so raises blood sugar, so essentially toxic to our systems.