[Sca-cooks] Diabetes and Honey - substitute or not?

[marilyn traber 011221]

> I've been asked/volunteered to prepare a dinner at a local non-feast 
> event for the crown and other visiting nobles. There isn't a kitchen 
> on site so I was looking at prepare ahead recipes. While it isn't 
> necessarily period, there is a great recipe for a lamb with honey 
> and apricots tagine in the latest Cooking Light magazine. Since our 
> current crown has a North African/Muslim Spain (not really sure 
> which) persona, I thought I'd try a tagine as one of the dishes. 
> However, they also request a diabetic friendly diet...so what do I 
> do about honey? I don't think Splenda makes a good substitute so any 
> other ideas? How does honey fit into the diabetic diet? Should I 
> just try something else?
> 
> I'm sure there are other cooks on the list that have prepared food 
> for TRMs Mahdi and Valeria...any suggestions?
> 
> Thanks,
> Ysabeau

Honey is just as sugary as sugar is, and apricots almost as much so. It would 
be an acceptable dish, if the apricots and honey are a sauce served 
seperately from the lamb, so THEY can determine how much they add, but I 
think this isn't the case with a tagine.

Fruits are pretty sugary, and will up any diabetic's sugars, but the sugars 
in fruits take a bit longer to be processed that something like honey or 
refined sugar, so the spike is a bit slower. Carbohydrates of any type will 
have this effect.

A diabetic diet is a diet that the rest of us should be eating- lean meats, 
high fiber, and low carbohydrate, but if you read and understand some of the 
websites, you'll discover that diabetics can eat anything, but it MUST be _in 
moderation_ , and moderation for, say, a packet of sugar is one packet of 
sugar in a full day's  meals.

My suggestion is to present the recipes to your Crown, and ask their advice. 
They'll know more about whatever program they're on, and can guide you a bit 
better about what sorts of things they can and can't have. Personally, I'd 
opt for a recipe with more savory flavorings, but if I just HAD to have that 
recipe, I'd make sure there wasn't, say, a lot of rice and bread as well, and 
have lots of fresh vegetables as sides.

Phlip