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

Anne-Marie Rousseau dailleurs at liripipe.com
Sun May 7 08:29:51 PDT 2006


Hye all from Anne-Marie
I don’t have diabetes but have family members and friends who do.

Each diabetic does a juggling act where they try to balance what they
eat, their activity level and their insulin levels. Some people do this
with medication, some people try and do it with diet alone. I know one
guy who swears by controlling blood sugar with the addition of cinnamon
and/or mustard powders to his food (makes restaurant staff crazy to see
him do this!). one gal swears that if she eats enough fat in the meal,
she can have bread.

For me, when I cook for my pancreatically challenged friends ;), I make
sure that there are non starch, non sugar (of any kind, including
fructose) options. Fruit, onions, carrots, squashes, potatos, breads,
some beans, all these have sugars or starches that are easily converted
to sugars. 

A lamb stew with apricots, even without honey has the potential of a
fair amt of fruit sugars (by the way, have you looked at mishmishaya?
It’s a lamb/apricot stew that's period :). I think its in cariadocs
stuff?)

I'd recommend instead doing a roast meat, kabob or other simple
preparation, with a fruity sauce on the side that people can use or not
as they need to. Mustards are tasty, period, and have a low glycemic
index. I'll sometimes have a dish of storebought Dijon style mustard for
those who cant/choose not to indulge in the fruit sauce.

If you have your heart set on stew, check out paste en pot or mutton
ystewd, etc. medieval stews of meat with onions. Beware, though...some
diabetics see onions as too starchy/sugary as well. 

For veggies, be sure to serve something that's not starchy or sweet. If
you're aiming for middle eastern, there's that lovely spinach sautéed
with garlic and sesame oil in caridocs recipes. Yum :). Serve a second
veggie (one of the eggplants ones?) and you're set :)

The key to dealing with dietary challenges is to make sure your meal is
balanced and varied enough that there will always be SOMETHING for
everyone. They may not be able to eat everything, but they wont walk
away hungry. Be sure that no one ingredient is in everything (how many
feasts have you seen where onion was in every dish? Or dairy? Or
almonds? Or meat? Or vinegar?). look for balance in textures as well as
flavors. (I had a guest once who couldn’t eat things too hard or chewy.
Bad teeth.) and balance your flavors and colors because its just nicer
that way :).

According to Chiquart, as a cook, sometimes the Liege's guests will
bring their own cooks to deal with their dietary needs, and we must
accommodate them. Personally, I'd rather try and work with my guests and
keep interlopers out of my kitchen ;).

Hope this is helpful...
--Anne-Marie, who is kinda wacky and thinks it fun to design a menu
around peoples dietary restrictions, as long as they let her know enough
in advance :)








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