The First Step …. Buy the best Diabetic Cookbook!
One of the first steps new diabetics take is to seek out a good diabetic cookbook. The problem many find, however, is that there are hundreds out there. Each one states that it is the top and sells itself as the best thing since high-fibre, low-GI, sliced bread. It is important for a new diabetic, or pre-diabetic, seeking a good resource for cooking to learn their body’s reaction to certain foods and ingredients so adjustments can be made as needed.
Unless you like doing math in your head; it is equally important to make sure it’s an Australian book with our metric weights and measures and available products. With a base of 300M people, they have many more diabetic products sitting on supermarket shelves!
[see that GI label!]
One of the first lessons everyone learns early on in the disease is that they may not react to all foods the same as other diabetics. Some diabetics can eat high fibre, low sugar foods and have no rise in blood sugar levels. Some people have no response to sugar alcohols (such as maltitol, sorbitol, or xylitol.) Part of this response has to do with the current level of pancreatic function, while medications also affect the body’s ability to handle some substances. No single diabetic cook book can take all of the variables into account but good ones allow for substitutions and adjustments for people with varying levels of carbohydrate tolerance.
When looking for a diabetic cook book, it is important to find one that explains the recipes in detail and also supplies alternative ingredients for those that may cause problems for people. Some recipes may call for the use of sugar and the recipe should offer alternatives (and proper conversion amounts) such as Equal, alternative sweeteners (sucralose, etc.), and sugar alcohol products. Some recipes even give combination alternatives such as adding cinnamon and Equal to replace sugar. A recipe that calls for flour should offer alternative suggestions for those people who react adversely to processed flour.
Offering alternatives in the diabetic cook book is important, but it is also essential to offer conversion amounts. For example Equal (and some other sugar alternatives) are much sweeter than sugar itself. Knowing this, recipes that call for a certain amount of sugar may need less Equal, however the bulk needs to be made up for with other ingredients. Some flour alternatives can only be substituted for a portion of the whole flour amount. Heavy cream can be used in place of milk but must be mixed with water, and therefore amounts need to be adjusted. A good diabetic cook book must take these adjustments into consideration.
Lastly, a good diabetic cook book must have recipes for foods that an individual would enjoy making and eating. Any nutritional plan is doomed to failure from the start if the meals selected are forced or do not offer variety. A person who ate a lot of sweet and Hi-GI food before being diagnosed with diabetes may find it difficult to adjust to a bland diet. In this case, a diabetic cookbook with recipes for low-GI, sweet snacks will be beneficial. Flip through the pages of a diabetic cook book that you are interested in and see if it holds recipes that you are interested in, and if those recipes offer alternative ingredients and adjustments it may be the right fit for you.
Pick of the Australian Diabetic Cookbooks
There are several available from the GI Team – make sure you are looking at the Australian section – including Low GI Eating - Made Easy … a beauty for new comers to the field…. The Low GI Diet – Cookbook with offerings even from the great Margaret Fulton. These have the obvious advantage of having all the GI ratings built into the recipes. 
Even their handbooks – this is the brand new one: Diabetes & Pre-Diabetes handbook- include good recipes and food hints – such as feeding diabetic toddlers!
From Australian Women’s Weekly and endorsed by Diabetes Australia comes The Diabetes Cookbook. It stresses menus for people with diabetes and their families! “Every delicious recipe has been selected by an expert nutritionist and is endorsed by Diabetes Australia so ALL the ingredients are on the ‘allowed’ list.”
It is a good staple and can usually be found for under $13 making it good value for money.
A little harder to track down but worth the effort is an Australian treasure called: The Ultimate Diabetes Cookbook by Virginia Hill and Lorna Garden. Now it is important to check the author’s name as there is an American book with exactly the same name but not the same Aussie recipes! A bit of history: the first version was published as ‘Simply Delicious’ in 1996 and ‘Sweet Sensations’ in 1999 …. Just in case you spot one at the school fete.
Remember, it may be better to eat several small meals during the day instead of one or two big meals.
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It’s a subject that divides the political landscape, a medical debate that flows through to the whole community. Unless you are diabetic!
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