Christy's coming home tomorrow

[rikibeth]

Or Tuesday.

But we all hope it's tomorrow.

They gave her the basic pamphlet with "how big is a carbohydrate serving" and "how many servings a day" and "substitutions."

GODS, it's depressing.

Especially the "substitutions" part. I have always been deeply suspicious of NutraSweet.

Honestly, a lot of what we'll be doing is monkeying with her portion sizes, rather than drastically altering what we eat -- and cutting out the sugared soda, and allowing ourselves less reliance on pasta than we previously did.

Food budget's going up, I can tell you that.

One thing, though, that I am NOT doing, is putting margarine on the list. Margarine is evil. Margarine is the enemy of both flavor and health. I will be more vigilant about substituting olive and canola oils where appropriate, but I am NOT going to stop using butter. I *will* stop making biscuits and cornbread as meal accompaniments to reduce the temptation to slather on the butter (and to take away one carbohydrate exchange) -- but if something needs butter, I'll use BUTTER.

Dammit.

Fat free sour cream is not nearly as onerous. That will be easy to deal with -- make a fat free sour cream dip to keep around and have that plus raw veggies be a snack-by-default instead of the less healthy snack foods. That's actually a good idea.

I'm a pastry chef. So much for taking my work home!

Comments

[gentlyepigrams]

Check before you cook with either. I don't cook the sort of things that require any sugar, but I know most of the sugar substitutes break down at high heat.

Cooking with splenda

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

You can bake with Splenda just fine. I do Atkins and The Beast has made a hell of a cheesecake with it.

[tryslora]

Splenda is good because it's a sugar derivative with a part of the molecule that turns right instead of left (or vice versa) and therefore doesn't bind or process like sugar. It can be cooked with. It is also SUPERsweet, and I always use less than it says.

I've learned it doesn't go in ice cream -- you lose the creamy consistency and it turns to ice. Blech.

I've found far better luck with just dropping sugar lower, or entirely. For example, most fruit pies have double or triple the amount of sugar needed, and simply using some cornstarch to thicken the juices instead of making them really sugary, works great. My mom's been making all the Thanksgiving pies with minimal sugar since I was diagnosed hypoglycemic ages ago.

No matter what, tho, the sugar substitutes can still cause some weirdness with sugar reactions because the body expects sugars and don't get them. I've seen hypoglycemics react with an insulin rush to nutrasweet or sucralose. I know if I overindulge in either, I drop blood sugar faster than without them, with normal carb counts otherwise.

Oh, don't mix splenda and chocolate. It tastes just utterly awful... toxic, IMO.

[gentlyepigrams]

mcroft and I generally avoid the problem by not cooking/eating desserts. When we go out or eat a holiday meal, I very occasionally have dessert and he has a bite or two.

The last time I had dessert was a piece of rich flourless chocolate cake. It wasn't a big piece of cake and I shared it with my mother and mcroft. I didn't want any more than that because I never eat dessert any more.

[mcroft.livejournal.com]

immlass eats a lot healthier since a diabetic moved in with her, as do I. I'm in much better shape than I was when she and I met. Diabetes makes you pay a lot more attention to what you eat, because things that are bad for healthy people are also bad for diabetics, but they take effect in 4 hours instead of 40 years.