If you are a regular reader here you might remember when I wrote about how I had gotten a bad A1c hemoglobin glycosylation blood test (6.2) putting me into the diabetic range.

It was scary and all this time I actually thought I was being considered “pre-diabetic” but in truth my doc viewed me as diabetic. He wanted to give me a chance to modify my diet and habits to get the number down before we tried meds.

I did, as you know. I have been doing my best to eat low glycemic foods and its been painless but I have not been a saint by any means!

Just for reference, a test result below 6.0 = not diabetic.

I was also registering a high blood pressure at the previous visit (something freaky like 140/110 I think, very weird for me).

Well, I am happy to say that I astonished both my doc and my new diabetes educator today when my A1c test came back as 5.6!

My blood pressure was 104/68. That made me a happy happy person too. I gained a pound .. I think it was a karmic balance pound to make up for the other good news .

My doc immediately wanted to know what the heck I was up to (he is used to me getting up to crazy things like running for political office and all manner of other rather stressful adventures). I told him it was the low glycemic diet but that I was not perfect (he can see that for himself .

So today is a happy day, just thought I would share that with you all.

Also, let me just say, low glycemic eating is absolutely effective for me in getting the diabetes monkey off my back.

I am now merely pre-diabetes and will have to keep a close eye on this so that I do not go there again.

Related Posts:

• Pre-Diabetes and low glycemic cooking
• Fast Glycemic Facts: The Second Meal Effect
• Irish Steel Cut Oatmeal sweetened with agave nectar and passion fruit gastrique
• Low GI Recipe: Whole wheat tortilla ginger tumeric tofu wrap with young spring peas
• Agave cubed: Partida Agave Nectar used three ways

I received a sample of the 100% Organic Partida Agave Nectar some time ago and it has been quite a journey as I developed recipes for this interesting product.

The Partida Tequila company makes their tequila, as you might expect, from blue agave plants, a succulent that dwells in the arid lands around Jalisco, Mexico. One can also make nectar from these interesting plants and let me assure you, this nectar is quite a wonder. For one, it is sweeter than table sugar. It looks like a thin honey as it is less viscous. It tastes a bit like honey although it’s flavor is not a dominant thing. The most important thing, ok – to me, is that it is fantastically low on the glycemic scale.

Get this, pure agave nectar has a GI of 11 while white sugar is 100. A 10th of the glycemic impact of sugar!

Today I have two drink recipes and one food recipe to show you just a very few possibilities for working with agave nectar.

The first is one I tested just today. Its a nod to the south of the border origin of the nectar as it uses chocolate and it’s consistency is something Montezuma would love – thick and potent.

Blue Agave Nectar Ghirardelli Hot Chocolate

Ingredients:

• 1/4 C chocolate powder
• 1/2 C hot water
• 4 tablespoons 100% Organic Partida Agave Nectar
• Pinch of cinnamon
• 3 squares Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Unsweetened Baking Chocolate
• 3/4 C Fat Free 1/2 and 1/2

Directions:

Combine agave nectar, cinnamon, chocolate powder and hot water in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Mix until incorporated. Add Ghirardelli chocolate squares and then the fat free 1/2 and 1/2, heat until its smooth. Froth with an immersion blender. Do not not add marshmallows if you want to keep the GI low.
I had my rather fussy toddler give it a try and she loved it, even though it was made with grown-up unsweetened chocolate. She liked it with and without the marshmallows.

The second recipe is one that you will see all over the web and I will repeat it here but, since I do not drink tequila, I have not taste tested it. Its not hard to imagine that it is delicious!

Partida Agave Margarita

• 1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
• 3/4 oz 100% Organic Partida Agave Nectar
• 3/4 oz spring water
• 1.5 oz Partida Tequila Blanco, Reposado, or Anejo

Mix it all up in a bucket (or your favorite container), and serve over ice or chilled in a margarita glass.

The third and final recipe is one I developed a couple of weeks ago and, as you likely remember, covered in more detail at this post here.

Irish Steel Cut Oatmeal sweetened with agave nectar and passion fruit gastrique

Ingredients:

• 2 passion fruits
• 3 unsulfered dried organic apricots, sliced thinly
• 1 tablespoon 100% Organic Partida Agave Nectar
• 1 teaspoon Alessi White Balsamic Fig Infused Vinegar
• 3 tablespoons water

Directions:

In a small pan over medium heat, combine the scooped out pulpy seeds of the 2 passion fruits, the sliced apricots, 1 tablespoon of the Agave Nectar, 1 teaspoon of the fig vinegar, and 3 tablespoons of water. Simmer this down until it thickens to your desire consistency. You may need to add some water to thin or simmer longer to get it thicker, up to you! I put the syrup through a strainer to get rid of most of the midnight black seeds (which have these very interesting little divots across their surface) as they didn’t seem very edible to me.

When I served this all up, I put some agave nectar in the oatmeal and stirred it up. I put the oatmeal into the bacon round (secured with a bit of wooden skewer) and then drizzled it with the gastrique and added a bit of apricot. The remainder of apricots were put into a passion fruit rind. Do NOT eat raw passion fruit rind (has cyanide compounds in it).

I hope that these three recipes opened your eyes to the possibilities of agave nectar.

I plan on doing more work with chocolate because when I was making the hot chocolate, I saw how perfectly agave nectar married/melded with the chocolate (I feared it might seize but it didn’t).

Low GI chocolate sauce, oh how thou callest my name.

Products of Interest:

• Partida Tequila Blanco, Reposado, or Anejo
• 100% Organic Partida Agave Nectar
• Alessi White Balsamic Fig Infused Vinegar
• Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Unsweetened Baking Chocolate

Sites of Interest:

• Partida Tequila

Technorati Tags: The Spirit World, Well Fed Network, 100% Organic Partida Agave Nectar, recipe, product, Partida Tequila company, tequila, blue agave plants, Jalisco, Mexico, nectar, lycemic, agave, glycemic impact, agave nectar, chocolate, Montezuma, Blue Agave Nectar, Ghirardelli, cinnamon, Ghirardelli chocolate, marshmallow, Partida Agave Margarita, lime juice, Irish, Steel Cut, passion fruit, apricot, Alessi White Balsamic Fig Infused Vinegar, oatmeal, gastrique

If you are diabetic, pre-diabetic, following a low carb diet, or simply trying to eat lower processed foods, breakfast can be one of the hardest meals of the day. So much of what we eat here in the US for breakfast is high glycemic.

If you want to eat on the go, it can be extremely difficult to find something that is not almost pure carbs and often highly processed carbs (breakfast cereal, oatmeals, juice, etc).

Before my recent blood sugar test results, this was my breakfast – French Roast Starbucks with milk and a LOT of sugar. (I buy the Starbucks coffee in the bag from the store so I am not talking about a coffee bought in one of their stores). Though this killed my hunger immediately this drink is bad on several levels!

Obviously, loads of white sugar first thing in the morning is non-nutritive and simply counterproductive.

Caffeine causes insulin resistance (Keijzers GB et al. 2002, Graham TE, et al. 2001), especially in skeletal muscle (Thong FSL. et al. 2002) (you can somewhat reverse this effect with exercise).

“Diminished response to insulin, but not exercise/contraction signals leading to glucose transport in skeletal muscle, is a major factor responsible for insulin resistance associated with type 2 diabetes.” (Thong FSL. et al. 2002)

This is a super negative thing because, if you “starve” the skeletal muscles of glucose then your metabolism is not going to be optimal and thus your weight loss efforts will be side-tracked. Further, if you reduce insulin responsivity then your blood sugar will rise. If you “poison” the skeletal muscles, taking them out of the sugar consumption loop to some degree, then blood sugar is even harder to control.

It is well known that a walk will decrease your blood sugar levels, drinking a cup of coffee before hand may not be the best idea.

Just as an aside, we use caffeine in the lab to do all sorts of nasty things to culture cells. It speeds up the cell cycle and can lead to aneuploidies or chromosome abnormalities. Fun stuff isn’t it!

I have to tell you, giving up caffeine is extremely difficult for me but this is just one MORE reason to reconsider cutting it out. The only time I have been able to cut it out has been during pregnancy and its easier then because you have an increased blood volume and all sorts of hormones that seem to help with the feelings of wellness that I use caffeine for.

Today’s breakfast featured here is McCann’s Irish steel-cut oatmeal, sliced star fruit, bacon, a passion fruit gastrique with dried apricots, and an egg.

This entire thing started out simply with the oatmeal and then grew into what you see here because this is what I had on had after going to the grocery store and buying little oddities like passion fruit, star fruit and Alessi White Balsamic Fig Infused Vinegar. I had to figure out a way to make the oatmeal look attractive and taste delicious while not going crazy on sugar. I also wanted to try my sample of Partida Agave Nectar which has a stupendously low glycemic index! I got my sample as a review product from the Well Fed Network but I can not seem to find ordering information online! Will update if I do find it.

Why steel-cut oats? It has a lower glycemic index than rolled oats. Why is that? Because rolled oats have been so processed (rolled, steamed, beaten within an inch of it’s life) that they have a higher percentage of simple sugars. Steel-cut oats are more whole and thus have not been “pre-digested” to some degree by the rolled oat processing.

The other ingredients are listed below with their GI values or cal counts:

• Steel cut oatmeal – 52 (Rolled oats oatmeal – 75)
• Agave nectar – 10 (White sugar – 100)
• Passion fruit – 30
• Star Fruit – 40 cals – tastes sort of melon like but brighter and its juicy too, delish and not JUST a garnish! See note at the bottom*.
• Egg and bacon – zero (though protein is insulinic)

I followed the package directions for the oatmeal (a bit more than 30 minutes of cooking)

The passion fruit gastrique is something I made up so I will provide the recipe below.

Passion fruit Apricot Fig Gastrique

Ingredients:

• 2 passion fruits
• 3 unsulfered dried organic apricots, sliced thinly
• 1 tablespoon Partida Agave nectar
• 1 teaspoon Alessi White Balsamic Fig Infused Vinegar
• 3 tablespoons water

Directions:

In a small pan over medium heat, combine the scooped out pulpy seeds of the 2 passion fruits, the sliced apricots, 1 tablespoon of the Agave Nectar, 1 teaspoon of the fig vinegar, and 3 tablespoons of water. Simmer this down until it thickens to your desire consistency. You may need to add some water to thin or simmer longer to get it thicker, up to you!

I put the syrup through a strainer to get rid of most of the midnight black seeds (which have these very interesting little divots across their surface) as they didn’t seem very edible to me.

When I served this all up, I put some agave nectar in the oatmeal and stirred it up. I put the oatmeal into the bacon round (secured with a bit of wooden skewer) and then drizzled it with the gastrique and added a bit of apricot. The remainder of apricots were put into a passion fruit rind. Do NOT eat raw passion fruit rind (has cyanide compounds in it).

* A note on star fruit: If you have renal disease, and especially if you are on dialysis, please do not eat star fruit. You can not clear a substance or toxin (oxalic acid) found in it. This is called star fruit intoxication.

Star fruit, belonging to the Oxalidaceae family, species Averrhoa carambola, is a popular fruit among Orientals. There have been reports of hiccup, confusion, and occasional fatal outcomes in uraemic patients after ingestion of star fruit. An excitatory neurotoxin from star fruit has been implicated although the exact nature of this toxic substance has not been identified. A group of seven patients is described from the dialysis centres at Queen Mary and Tung Wah Hospitals who developed symptoms including hiccup, confusion, vomiting, impaired consciousness, muscle twitching and hyperkalaemia shortly after ingestion of star fruit. Symptoms of most patients resolved after intensified dialysis or spontaneously, and no mortality was observed. The close temporal relationship of ingestion of star fruit and onset of symptoms strongly suggests the existence of a causal relationship between the two. It is recommended that uraemic patients should totally abstain from star fruit due to these rare but potentially fatal complications. The clinical manifestations of other reported series and current evidence for the possible candidate(s) of the neurotoxin are discussed. (Tse, KC et al. 2003)

References used:

• Keijzers GB et al. Caffeine Can Decrease Insulin Sensitivity in Humans. Diabetes Care 25:364-369, 2002
• Graham TE. et al. Caffeine ingestion elevates plasma insulin response in humans during an oral glucose tolerance test. Can J Physiol Pharmacol. 2001 Jul;79(7):559-65.
• Thong FSL. et al. Caffeine-Induced Impairment of Insulin Action but Not Insulin Signaling in Human Skeletal Muscle Is Reduced by Exercise. Diabetes 51:583-590, 2002
• Tse, KC et al. Star fruit intoxication in uraemic patients: case series and review of the literature. Intern Med J. 2003 Jul;33(7):314-6.

Sites of Interest:

• Blood Type Diet TYPEbase4 database of relevant data on foods you likely eat!

Related Posts:

• Low GI Recipe: Whole wheat tortilla ginger tumeric tofu wrap with young spring peas
• Fast Glycemic Facts: The Second Meal Effect
• Pre-Diabetes and low glycemic cooking

Technorati Tags: diabetic, pre-diabetic, low carb diet, breakfast, high glycemic, cereal, oatmeal, blood sugar, French Roast, Starbucks, sugar, Caffeine, insulin resistance, skeletal muscle, insulin, exercise, glucose transport, type 2 diabetes, metabolism, coffee, pregnancy, McCann’s Irish steel-cut oatmeal, star fruit, bacon, passion fruit, gastrique, dried apricot, Alessi White Balsamic Fig Infused Vinegar, steel-cut oats, rolled oats, passion fruit gastrique, Passion fruit Apricot Fig Gastrique, Partida, Agave, nectar

I am continuing to explore low GI cooking that not only appeals to me but also must pass the very rigorous and often fickle family test. I like to cook with tofu but my 10 year old has decided she doesn’t like it while the rest of the family will eat it happily. When I set out to cook the above wrap for yesterday’s lunch, I was aiming to make tofu in a way that my daughter likes and will eat because she has my body type and needs to develop better eating habits and likes. Previously, I have served her tofu, stir-fried in many different ways, but never as part of a wrap like you see above. Its the tortilla that I think made all the difference. Below, I am going to share my “recipe” for this relatively simple and very low GI lunch and the results of the Family Voting Panel.

Even though you see various recipes posted here that doesn’t mean I am a recipe-following kind of cook. Its a strange dichotomy.. its more like I am a recipe creator because I want to share some of my ideas, not because I like recipes in and of themselves. I love cookbooks, not because of the recipes so much as the photos, the anecdotes and the notes written by the author.

Because I do not do the recipe thing, I don’t go to the store with a list of things to buy. Rather, I go to the store and, within the budget, buy things that I find interesting. This makes the shopping trip last longer but I promise you, I spend less time shopping and cooking than the average Rachel Ray fan spends watching her show on how to cook in the least amount of time (that has always seemed oxymoronic to me).

Sometimes, I come to the checkout with foods that the cashier has never seen someone buy. Thats sort of odd but I guess that the grocery store TRIES to have new and interesting things but probably many people do not deviate from their usual list.

In the most recent trip, I noticed a product I had not seen before (I was also shopping in a store far from my home and a new one at that, Hannafords), La Tortilla Factory low carbo low fat high fiber whole grain tortillas (they also have gluten-free tortillas). I picked these up as an alternative to the white flour ones we tend to buy for quesadillas.

I bought them with some trepidation because when I have bought whole wheat ones previously (different brands, not this one), I have been unhappy as those tortillas had several problems: they can be really dry or dry out very quickly or they can be really excessively gummy in an unpalatable way. I found these La Tortilla Factory tortillas to be hardy, able to retain their moisture during the foil-wrapped warming up process I put them through and also while sitting on the plate. They are not only tasty and a robust product, they are just fantastically good for you. They are high in fiber so that they have only 5 effective carbs on board per tortilla.

There are a variety of ingredients in this wrap that are low GI, are tasty, and will be really good at inducing the “Second Meal Effect.”

Some of them are:

• Soy beans have a VERY low GI – something like 18. As you might imagine, tofu is also very low in the glycemic index, if any carbohydrate at all.
• Chickpea Hummus (with sesame tahini) has a GI of 6!
• Low Carb Low Fat Tortillas (5 effective carbs, not likely specifically tested yet
• Fresh sweet peas have a GI of 3
• The side of grapefruit slices – GI is around 25.

I did not have to try very hard to put these ingredients together. I mostly went with what caught my eye at the store and what I have been craving.

One more note before I get to the recipe, I used tumeric in my tofu stir-fry. Like tofu, I tend to crave tumeric. Not only is it amazing in it’s ability to perk up the color of any food but it is also deserving of your respect on the grounds that it is a potent medicinal agent.

I am going to do a post on tumeric in the future but suffice it to say that tumeric is a very good thing to cook with. Anecdotally, but relevant to my life, I really feel an increased sense of well-being when I eat foods with it. I hope you will give it a try and also come back for the post on tumeric to learn more about this amazing spice.

Ingredients:

• Homemade hummus, made as you desire
• La Tortilla Factory tortillas
• 1 block extra firm organic tofu
• 1/2 small spanish onion, sliced thinly
• 1/8 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon sliced ginger (leave in large chunks, remove at end)
• 1/4 teaspoon tumeric
• pinch of sea salt
• 3 tablespoons organic soy sauce
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil (add sesame oil if you have it and like it) to saute
• 1/2 C frozen sweet peas
• fresh basil leaves

Directions:

Turn the oven on to 200 F, wrap your tortillas in foil and warm them while you prepare everything else.

Rinse the tofu block and then wrap in paper towels. Put it on a cutting board and put another one on top. Put weights on the upper board to press out excess packing liquid. Watch the boards so that your weights do not fall off and scare the child, cat or dog that is at your feet in the kitchen. After about 20 minutes, unwrap the tofu and slice into cubes, set aside.

Make your hummus the way you prefer it and let it sit in the fridge, covered, while you make the rest of this. I make hummus like this: in a food processor dump in 2 cans organic chickpeas, 3 tablespoons sesame tahini, 3 tablespoons lemon or lime juice (or both!), pinch of sea salt, 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic. Mix and then add a dribble of water until its the consistency you like it. I also added some basil leaves. Taste for seasoning and then store cold and covered.

In a low-medium heat saute pan add the olive oil, onions, ginger, and tumeric; heat through to begin cooking the onions. Turn up the heat to medium and add the garlic and then the tofu chunks. Saute until the tofu gets some color. Add the frozen peas and then add the soy sauce, allowing it to simmer down to a thicker sauce. Turn off the heat.

Take out one warmed tortilla, spread a layer of hummus, put down a laye of basil leaves, add the tofu stir-fry, wrap up, and enjoy!

I served this with a couple slices of sweet ruby red grapefruit and tangerine iced tea with sugar free ginger ale.

Results of the Family Tasting Panel:

• The 10 year old LIKED it and wanted more, said it tasted like meat
• The Husband said a similar thing and that it was pretty filling
• The 3 year old said “Mommy, can I have some more please?”

Ingredient Information:

• La Tortilla Factory Low Carb, Low Fat tortillas

Sites of Interest:

• Glycemic Index Food List
• La Tortilla Factory

Related Posts:

• Fast Glycemic Facts: The Second Meal Effect
• Pre-Diabetes and low glycemic cooking

Technorati Tags: low GI cooking, tofu, wrap, stir-fried, tortilla, low GI, recipe, cookbook, Rachel Ray, Hannafords, La Tortilla Factory, gluten-free, quesadilla, whole wheat, effective carbs, Second Meal Effect, Soy beans, tofu, glycemic, index, carbohydrate, Chickpea, Hummus, sesame, tahini, GI, sweet pea, grapefruit, craving, tumeric, medicinal, Ingredients, onion, garlic, ginger, sea salt, organic, soy sauce, olive oil, basil

If you choose to read The Glycemic Index site, you may briefly run across something called the Second Meal Effect (SME).

As I understand it and in short, if one eats a low GI food at one meal, there is a carry over effect to the next meal in terms of “buffering” the impact of eating sugar during that second meal.

This has actually been known for some time. In 1982, Jenkins, Wolever, and Taylor reported this in their seminal paper “Slow release dietary carbohydrate improves second meal tolerance” (Jenkins et al. Am J Clin Nutr 1982 35:1339–46).

This phenomenon was further explored in 1988, in a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that eating a low GI meal (even mixed with other higher GI foods) at dinner improved carbohydrate “tolerance” at the following breakfast.

“We conclude that the difference between the glycemic responses of mixed meals at dinner can be predicted from the GI of the individual foods consumed. In addition, breakfast carbohydrate tolerance is improved when low-GI carbohydrate foods are eaten the previous evening. This provides evidence for a sustained metabolic effect of slowing the absorption of carbohydrate.” Second-meal effect: low-glycemic-index foods eaten at dinner improve subsequent breakfast glycemic response.” Second-meal effect: low-glycemic-index foods eaten at dinner improve subsequent breakfast glycemic response Wolever TWS., et al. Am J Clin Nutr 1988 48: 1041-7.”

The mechanism for that effect has not been well understood until recently, when in 2006 Brighenti et al found:

“In conclusion, our results show that fermentable carbohydrates, independent of their effect on food GI, have the potential to improve postprandial responses to a second meal by decreasing NEFA (nonesterified fatty acids) competition for glucose disposal and, to a minor extent, by affecting intestinal motility. The potential of fermentable carbohydrates in the management of metabolic disorders linked to insulin resistance may warrant further study.” Colonic fermentation of indigestible carbohydrates contributes to the second-meal effect. Brighenti et al Am J Clin Nutr 2006 83 (4): 817-822.”

This is great news because it tells us that fermentable carbohydrates, whether low, medium, or high GI, have the ability to support a better insulin response in those experiencing insulin resistance.

What are “fermentable carbohydrates”? Foods that contain high-amylose starch are “slowly digested, some … starch would escape small-intestine digestion and be fermented in the colon.” (Ibid) Things like apples, broccoli, other fiber rich foods.

Its the fermentation in the colon that is important. Fiber that just goes right through you will not have this effect. The starch needs to be digested in the colon and thus some time AFTER the meal has been eaten, resulting in a longer period of sugar delivery and the minimization of a spike in blood sugar.

There are likely other effects, other mechanisms, that are yet to be discovered.

References used:

• The diabetic diet, dietary carbohydrate and differences in digestibility Jenkins et al. Am J Clin Nutr 1982 35:1339–46
• Second-meal effect: low-glycemic-index foods eaten at dinner improve subsequent breakfast glycemic response Wolever TWS., et al. Am J Clin Nutr 1988 48: 1041-7
• Colonic fermentation of indigestible carbohydrates contributes to the second-meal effect. Brighenti et al Am J Clin Nutr 2006 83 (4): 817-822

Technorati Tags: Second Meal Effect, GI, sugar, paper, low GI, meal, carbohydrate, glycemic response, mechanism, fermentable carbohydrates, postprandial, nonesterified fatty acids, glucose disposal, intestinal motility, metabolic disorder, insulin resistance, blood sugar

(Bhutanese red rice onigiri with tofu and split pea puree, recipe towards the end of this post)

Today’s post is going to have multiple personalities. I am going to cover three main topics:

• Low Glycemic Cooking and why I care
• A recipe for the Bhutanese red rice onigiri you see above
• A how-to on making onigiri with my new gadget – an onigiri form

Low Glycemic cooking and why I care

As a general rule, I respect everyone’s right to their own eating styles. I care that people eat the way they need to and I am no one to nit-pick others for that. My story that follows is like many of you. I can not say I have any answers and I am not an expert. I am sharing this story so that you can understand how I got into my current predicament – I am pre-diabetic, according to my doctor.

Like most of the over-developed world, I have had to diet from an early age. Even though I swam 4 miles a day for two different swim teams, I still had to watch what I ate. When I decided that the swimming was more than I could bear anymore I decided to quit at the end of freshman year (4:30 am every day for the State National team and after school every day for the high school team, I never stopped smelling of chlorine and my hair was blond at it’s tips – I have blue black hair mind you).

Then, the weight FLEW on my body. At the tender age of 16 I was on Nutri/System. I lost 50 lbs and was down to 117 lbs (was 5’5″, have shrunk since then). I was sort of happy but my body wasn’t. When I went back to school that fall, I went back to regular food and the weight came back. Over the many years since, I have done Nutri/System many times, Weight Watchers many times, all the while, killing my metabolism. The only times when I maintained a loss after these diets was when I was working out excessively, running 3 miles a day and barely eating. In more recent times, I have tried the Atkins diet (I saw my grandma try it back in the early 80s with some success) and it worked but it was unsustainable. After a while, you can honestly get sick and tired of butter, bacon, steak, eggs, essentially any high protein food. The worst thing about the low carb high protein diet is the imbalance in something about one’s hydration (must be the ketosis) such that when one goes off of this diet, the weight (both water and fat) comes back quickly and with a depressing vengeance.

This has always seemed unfair to me because my dad and my little sister literally eat what ever they wish (or wished, my dad has passed away) and never get or got fat. So within my own family, there is the object lesson that if one’s body is genetically predisposed to accumulate fat, IT WILL.

In recent times, I have had to make peace with my body and not let the fat twist my entire self-worth. That is a very hard process and I would not say I had complete success. Doing this food blog and also, especially, doing the food photography has helped me in ways that may not be intuitive. When I do food photography (and the cooking for it), I am not eating the food and I am not craving it. (I have never been obsessive about eating food nor binged on it so I do not have that dynamic) When I am cooking, styling, and shooting, I appreciate the food as an art form, as shapes, composition, as artistic statement, as cultural statement, as a sharing of my identity or my process of discovery. Same thing with the writing. I can not help writing about food the way I do because my curiosity leads me to ask questions and learn, just for the sake of learning. This is a bit of overflow from the fact that we homeschool and life is about learning.

(Insulin hexamer: Wikipedia source – public domain)

All of this is fine and dandy but my doctor recently witnessed one of my hypoglycemic episodes (have had them all my life, thin or fat), tested my blood sugar which was fine, and so he sent out blood tests for something called the HbA1c test (hemoglobin A1c test or hemoglobin glycosylation – an assay that determines the amount of sugars that have been stuck on the hemoglobin molecules.. this is indicative of the levels of sugar in one’s blood over a few months). The following is a down to earth description of this assay.

“Sugar in the bloodstream can become attached to the hemoglobin (the part of the cell that carries oxygen) in red blood cells. This process is called glycosylation (pronounced gli-kos-a-lay’-shen). Once the sugar is attached, it stays there for the life of the red blood cell, which is about 120 days. The higher the level of blood sugar, the more sugar attaches to red blood cells. The hemoglobin A1c test measures the amount of sugar sticking to the hemoglobin in the red blood cells. Results are given in percentages.” Diabetes Tool Box

For those of you who are more scientifically oriented, try this abstract:

“Glucose reacts nonenzymatically with the NH2-terminal amino acid of the beta chain of human hemoglobin by way of a ketoamine linkage, resulting in the formation of hemoglobin AIc. Other minor components appear to be adducts of glucose 6-phosphate and fructose 1,6-diphosphate. These hemoglobin s are formed slowly and continuously throughout the 120-day life-span of the red cell. There is a two- to threefold increase in hemoglobin AIc in the red cells of patients with diabetes mellitus. By providing an integrated measurement of blood glucose, hemoglobin AIc is useful in assessing the degree of diabetic control. Furthermore, this hemoglobin is a useful model of nonenzymatic glycosylation of other proteins that may be involved in the long-term complications of the disease.” The glycosylation of hemoglobin: relevance to diabetes mellitus. HF Bunn, KH Gabbay, and PM Gallop. Science 1978: 200(4337):21 – 27.

Mine came back 6.2, which seems to indicate pre-diabetes and a cause of concern for my doc. I can tell you that I have figured I was pre-diabetic for a long time but every time I asked for tests, they came back negative (they never gave me the glycosylation test before). My doc has told me that I have three months to control the blood sugars and if I do not, I will have to go on meds. I have a natural dislike for meds so it was not good news!

I know that diabetes is absolutely nothing to mess around with and I want to reverse this pre-diabetic thing with whole foods and moderate exercise. Let me tell you though, when you start looking at what is recommended for the diabetic diet you find one commonality: there is NO consensus. I also found that diet recommendations for diabetes and pre-diabetes seems to be a dumping ground for ALL of the vague advice, all that stuff you have heard over the years and found didn’t work for you. Things like: Eat food X because so and so study says to! Yikes. Things like: eat only low fat foods, eat only fish, eat TONS of omega-3s, eat no fish, eat no carbs, eat only a few carbs, eat .. yadda yadda yadda.

Excuse me, but I am getting flash backs and they are not fun ones. I despair at the mediocrity and vagueness of the diet recommendations one finds for this condition. Its all a recipe for unsustainablity. Food is inherently associated with the desire to become satiated, even if it is through food porn.

If my life is on the line, I want something more than the flavor-of-the day diet recommendations.

I want some metrics.

This is where the low glycemic cooking comes in. I am going to explain this quickly because I have already yammered on WAY too long.

(Glucose: Wikipedia source – public domain)

The word “glycemic” in “glycemic index” comes from the word glucose, which you may know is sugar. A glycemic index is a measure of sugar. In this case, its the measure of sugars released into the bloodstream after the ingestion of a certain food. To determine a glycemic index, they have people drink a solution of 50 gm of glucose in water and then, after a certain period of time, they pull blood and test the sugar content of the blood. They set this value to an arbitrary 100. It is the index against which other foods are compared. To determine the GI of a food, like white bread, they gather a group of test subjects (people) who eat a slice of bread and then get the blood tested. They average the results (each person has their own unique food processing profile but we tend to have similar ones, within some sort of predictable range of variability) and then set the GI for white bread according to the results (its 70 for white bread produced in the US). They have tested 500 foods so far (its very expensive), tho you may come across foods in the store that claims to have a GI, it is likely not tested in humans but calculated predicated on the types of ingredients it has. Thats the rub, foods may be predicted to have a certain GI but the body may do something completely different with it.

Case in point would be white rice, sticky jasmine especially, which has a GI higher than glucose. This is because this rice is almost pure starch and starch, when it hits our bodies, is almost instantly broken down and dumped into our blood as sugars (there are enzymes in your saliva, namely amyloses, which start the process the moment you put the rice in your mouth). The sugars in the glucose solution are somewhat slower to pass into the bloodstream.

When you eat something with a high GI, like that rice in sushi or similar starchy foods, almost the entirety of that mass of starch goes into your blood like a race car, as a bolus in medical speak. You might as well inject several milliliters of sugar straight into your veins. Why is this a problem? Your body as not evolved to handle huge boluses of sugar. It “scrambles” to pull the sugar out (insulin is the messenger to the cells to let the sugar inside) because high sugar in the blood is “toxic” to the vessel walls, causing damage over time. When this happens and the body has put out insulin enough to deal with this sugar overload, it overshoots and then blood sugars drop. Low blood sugar is bad news too because the one organ in your body that is a sugar-freak is your brain. Low blood sugar equals stress to the brain and even coma and death.

The key to a healthy body and a healthy life lies in one huge word – BALANCE.

Eating high GI foods pushes your system out of balance. Over time, with a diet consistent in sugar boluses, your insulin response becomes impaired and you develop pre-diabetes and then diabetes and then your systems begin to fail.

I am going to begin to integrate low GI cooking into my family’s diet. We all need to lose weight too so the diet will also tend towards less fat but I do not want to be a fat nazi. I also do not want to be the food nazi either. I want the family to enjoy the food while also, hopefully, appreciate trying new foods and in the end, lose some weight.

If you are interested in doing this there are several things to do: learn about GI, learn about the GI rankings of your favorite foods, access your diet, find a way to do some exercise every day (walking lowers your blood sugar, another tool in your management of sugar-rich living).

Learning:

I went to Amazon and got these two books below, there are MANY others. You will have to decide whats right for you. In the future, I am going to try to give lists of relevant blogs, for your educational pleasure.

• The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index – the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health (Glucose Revolution) $10.68 and £7.76 UK
• The Everything Glycemic Index Cookbook: 300 Appetizing Recipes to Keep Your Weight Down And Your Energy Up! (Everything: Cooking) $9.42 and £6.94 UK

There is A LOT more to learn, especially about glycemic loads and how protein rich foods have high GIs. Read and read some more.

GI ranking:

The authors of the GI book above also have a fantastic website that will help you understand GI but also to find your favorite foods (if tested) in their GI database.

• The Glycemic Index

Diet tracking:

If you are so inclined, you can track your food intake and calorie expenditure over time at various websites. The only one I have experience with is Fit Day.

• Fit Day

I wish you all the luck if you too are having to deal with this. Its a process, it can be depressing, it can be overwhelming but it can not be ignored.

Recipe: Bhutanese red rice onigiri with tofu and split pea puree

In our family, we eat potatoes (high GI) only rarely. We tend to eat rice as our starch. The problem with that is that white rice (sticky is my all time favorite) is very bad when it comes to GI. To keep rice in our diet, an easy peasy starch, I am going to introduce rices that are lower GI. This would include brown rice, red rice, and wild rice. It also means introducing rice-like alternatives like pearl barley and bulgar wheat.

(The Rice Plant: Wikipedia source – public domain)

The GI rankings for several types of rices (and alternatives) are:

• Jasmine rice, made in rice cooker 109
• White rice, boiled 45
• Brown rice, steamed 50
• Red rice 59
• Wild rice 54
• Pearl barley, boiled 35
• Bulgar wheat 47

I picked up some Bhutanese red rice (produced by Lotus Foods) recently and wanted to test it in a recipe where I would have normally used sticky jasmine rice.

Bhutanese red rice is:

“An ancient colored-bran short-grain rice grown 8,000 feet in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. Irrigated with 1,000 year old glacier water rich in trace minerals, this exotic rice has a nutty/earthy flavor, soft texture and beautiful red russet color.” SOURCE

Lotus Foods has lots of very interesting wholesome products as well.

Visit the Lotus Foods site for more information.

I decided to make onigiri, a Japanese food that is essentially a ball of rice with one’s favorite bits added to it. Often, it is wrapped with nori but I didn’t have any on hand so I used, as a substitute, the Vietnamese rice paper used to make spring rolls (spring roll wrappers).

I also served tofu (essentially zero GI) and a split pea puree (25 GI) to increase the green and protein.

Ingredients:

• 1 C Lotus Foods Bhutanese red rice
• 3 C cold water
• sea salt, pinch
• 1 spring roll wrapper
• basil leaf, sliced into ribbons
• black and white sesame seeds
• Roasted chicken slices, about an ounce
• extra firm tofu, cubed
• olive oil to saute
• minced ginger
• minced garlic
• sea salt, pinch
• 1 C green split peas
• 4 C cold chicken stock
• sea salt, pinch

Directions:

In a heavy stock pot put 1 C red rice and 3 C cold water, bring to a boil. Cover rice and put on low for about 1 hour. This will cook it longer than the package directions so that the grains pop a bit and the rice is easier to form later. When done, uncover, fluff, and allow to cool.

At the same time, put 1 C dried split peas in 4 C cold chicken stock, bring to a boil, and then simmer on low (loose cover) for about an hour. You may need to remove some of the liquid toward the end to make the puree your desired thickness. Keep warm but covered.

Once rice is cooked, spoon some into an onigiri form, leaving some room for the chicken slices in the middle. I have some pictures of the onigiri form below.

This type comes in two halves and this one makes two onigiri at the same time.

The top is pushed down over the rice, compressing it into the cake like shape desired.

The bottom half of this form has some little openings that you can use to push the onigiri out.

Using this mold transforms onigiri construction into a dream. To see how you make onigiri by hand visit this site – How to make onigiri.

Because I did not have the nori to wrap the onigiri, I improvised and added a strip of hydrated spring roll wrapper around it. This isn’t necessary but I wanted to approximate it. I trapped some basil leaf ribbons and black sesame seeds between the wrapper strips and the rice.

Wrap your tofu block in some paper towels and press with something heavy to remove some of the water it comes packed in. Cube the tofu and cook as you like. The way I like is with some oil (sesame or olive oil or both), some garlic, ginger, and some onions. I saute to get some tan color and then add some soy sauce. I simmer the tofu a bit longer and then serve warm.

Serve as desired and enjoy!

Products of Interest:

• Lotus Foods Bhutanese red rice
• Spring roll wrappers (rice paper)- 12 oz

Books of Interest:

• The New Glucose Revolution: The Authoritative Guide to the Glycemic Index – the Dietary Solution for Lifelong Health (Glucose Revolution) $10.68 and £7.76 UK
• The Everything Glycemic Index Cookbook: 300 Appetizing Recipes to Keep Your Weight Down And Your Energy Up! (Everything: Cooking) $9.42 and £6.94 UK

Sites of Interest:

• The Glycemic Index
• eGullet discussion on onigiri
• How to guestimate the GI of whole grains
• Onigiri Wiki entry
• Hand-forming onigiri

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