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

[Cera ingen ui Chonaill]

I've read some of the other comments, since none of them indicated that they 
themselves were diabetic or cook for a diabetic, I will give you my give you 
a couple of titbits of what I have to actually look at when cooking for 
myself or when choosing to eat feast as a diabetic.

First, it is not about avoiding sugar, it's about the total carbs in a meal 
that we need to look at and what form the carb is (starches, refined sugars, 
fruit based, etc). If you look at a lot of the diabetic cook books you will 
notices that a good number of recipes call for real sugars, just in smaller 
amounts. Each of us should at some point have/are consulting with a 
dietician who, knowing our glucose levels and working with our doctors, have 
told us how many grams of carbs we can have for each meal/day.  So what is 
key, is know, what the ingredients are in any meal and in what proportions 
(i.e. don't just mention honey if it's the primary ingredients say lots of 
honey) this way we can adjust things accordingly.

Second, yes as someone mentioned, it is about proportions, moderations and 
variety. To regulate our glucose levels we are supposed to eat smaller meals 
more often (~ very 4 hrs, again different for each person).  Having a 
variety of dishes at feast (or alternatives for dinner) gives us more 
options to avoid (or eat much less of) the foods we know may cause us 
issues. A suggestion of variety, consider vegetables like cabbage, spinach, 
broccoli, kale, and the like, as most of these are considered freebies in 
our diets (no bad carbs). Carrots, peas, tomatoes and the like, all have 
sugar based carbs and while better then straight refined sugars still count 
against our total carbs. A high fibre low carb bread option is not bad 
either since the fibre actual helps and the bread is a starch base which is 
a "slow releasing" sugar (the most preferred of all the types).

The sad reality is that of all the type 2 diabetics in North America only 
~5% are actually doing what they need to to control their levels for the 
long term, so there are many that ignore, or just don't know, and eat 
whatever and whenever assuming their medication will control it all.  I for 
one am one of those 5%, I have to see a feast menu before I choose to 
reserve a space and if any questions pester the cook for details. I really 
appreciate when the feast menus list the ingredients under each item,  that 
is helpful not only to the diabetics in the group but also those with food 
allergies.

So my advice is plan a nice balance meal with variety, give a menu with the 
ingredients to your guest and give them a set time to get back to you if 
there are going to be issues. If they don't get back to you, then there 
shouldn't be a problem, you did your part in giving them a chance to 
respond.

Honey is not a bad thing, my dinner tonight, recipe from a diabetic cook 
book, has honey in the sauce.

Hope that helps,
Cera


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ysabeau" <ysabeau at mail.ev1.net>
To: "'Cooks within the SCA'" <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>


> 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?
>
> Thanks,
> Ysabeau