Let A Diabetic Live A Little

Good topic, and I hope it stays active for a long time.

My own contribution is Dreamfields pasta products. They claim 65% lower glycemic index than others, and 5 grams digestible carbs per 2 oz serving. When I first discovered this stuff, I did my closest possible comparison with American Beauty spaghetti and identical measures of the same batch of sauce. The glucometer confirmed their claim.

This was a one time comparison, and all variables were not necessairly held constant.

Rog I've been getting whole wheat pastas from Whole foods. Is the Dreamfields better?

As long as your A1C is kept under control, you should be OK.

on white, whole wheat, mixed content, and durum semolina pastas, by web md

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/healthier-bowl-pasta

A slightly strange database for pastas that is useful for, among other things, cooking times -
http://www.gilisting.com/2004/05/glycemic-index-pasta-noodles.html
Trying to imagine boiling pasta for 22 minutes. . .

My own take from reading up on this (from other sources but these too, that I can't find just now) is that whole wheat durum semolina cooked only to al dente is the best re glycemic index. Me, I like italian produced durum semolina pastas cooked al dente, but haven't changed over to the whole wheat kind of durum semolina. I like brands found only occasionally in the stores near me. There was one brand I loved a year or two - unfortunately I forget the name but would recognize it) that was unusually dense for the diameters of the pasta and cooked up very toothy (al dente). Loved it - almost a different animal than regular storebought pasta. The store quit carrying it - it was a little more expensive than the other brands and of course tasted different.
I also prefer my pastas not to be pumped with nutritional additives (see for example Maestri pastai specs for none at all), that's ms. picky at her best.
http://www.maestripastaiusa.com/

edit - oops, that nutritional additive information (0%) is on the package, not the website, far as I looked just now.

I enjoy going to the gym and working out, I always try to eat the rights foods. Once I picked up fat free ice cream and I’ll never do that again, gross!

I've no way of knowing, but I understand Dreamfields uses a different variety of wheat than most pasta and other wheat products.

Ask ossobuco. She knows about this kind of stuff.

Watch it! Fat free dairy doesn't have a thing to do with glycemic index. Well, in a way it does, but maybe not what you're expecting. Fats tend to slow digestion, so have the effect of lowering glycemic index. Skim milk has the same sugar content as whole milk, and raises blood sugar faster than any other conventional food I know of.

Exercise does wonders for type II diabetes, and is helpful with type I. Whether it's more important than diet, or not, I couldn't tell you.

That's useful info there, Roger.

I avoid skim milk, which was the first white milk I liked at all as a teen (whole milk made me gag back then, which I know now was psychological) - because I read somewhere, probably NYTimes back a few years ago - that milk needs fat to have the added vitamin D be processed in our bodies. (who knows if that's true? but now I like whole milks anyway.)

I gotta go look up Dreamfields.

Love Dreamfields and I'm not diabetic, I just watch my carbs. My father is diabetic and he has eaten Dreamfields for years without any negative effects. It's the only low carb pasta that really cooks and tastes like pasta. It is a bit pricey.

Ok, the Dreamfields claims are on the iffy side to me - but of course I don't just know the claims won't pan out if they are ever peer reviewed in a double blind study in the future.

link - http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/products/a/Dreamfields-Pasta.htm

Roger - I know you often don't like to look at links - the ones I've given in this thread don't seem a problem re clicking on. Can't remember if you don't like links because of the bother, or because of internet dangers. (I happen to hate checking news videos myself, because of the bother. I particularly hate videos on news sites that suddenly start blaring.)

Anyway, the claim is that yes, Dreamfields uses semolina, but somehow protects a large amount of that carbohydrate by some patented secret process.
(Let me guess it is some chemical adherent.)

My first thought is "I have this bridge" - but the company ran some tests on some local college students; gave them glucose tolerance runs after their ingesting either Dreamfields or white bread, and found good things with the Dreamfields results.

The link goes into the inadequacies of that.

I'll still stick with well produced durum semolina, I gather preferably whole wheat, cooked only to al dente. So, I'm 2/3 the way there. Gotta work on liking whole wheat. I like it in coarse hearth breads now, but not yet in, say, Sara Lee's whole wheat loaf (yaaaack).

Remember that fresh pasta I made once for you and Dys and Diane? Now that was likely of higher glycemic index, basically just unbleached white flour and egg. Whooosh into the bloodstream.


There's another pasta that's made with buckwheat - I wonder about that for glycemic index. I have buckwheat in the cupboard for some of my breadmaking, but have never made pasta with it. Buckwheat's not even wheat, is made from buckwheat groats. No gluten in the flour. Maybe it's on one of my earlier links re glycemic index.
The pasta is call pizzoccheri . . I have an old thread on it, too bad I never made fresh pasta with it. Another link (oh, never mind) says that the buckwheat pasta is usually made with 20% white flour, so then the pasta wouldn't be sans gluten.

Re diabetes and buckwheat, wikipedia says "Buckwheat contains D-chiro-inositol, a component of the secondary messenger pathway for insulin signal transduction found to be deficient in Type II diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome. It is being studied for use in treating Type II diabetes.[36] Research on D-chiro-inositol and PCOS has shown promising results.[37][38]

I see that was just one site that said pizzoccheri pasta is made with some white wheat flour plus the buckwheat flour -
http://cookinginlucca.blogspot.com/2011/02/pizzoccheri.html
This link has it as just made with buckwheat and water.. so for no-gluten people it would be good, depending on if you made the noodles yourself or what brand you bought.

It's probably like rye bread, then. Around here, the principle ingredient in rye bread is, guess what - wheat flour. Yet, I've been reliably informed on a2k that real rye bread is indeed made from rye flour.

On the Dreamfields, I made my own comparison two days in a row. Not a well controlled test, but I'm satisfied with the results. It is pricey. About $3.00/lb in stores compared to something over $1.00/lb for other brands.

Okay, I read the link. David Mendosa's site also notes some variance between individuals, but I'll keep buying the stuff. Every little bit helps, especially if I can have a more or less normal diet.

My father has been professionally monitored on it and it doesn't seem to cause a problem. It might help that he tends to eat it with a protein like chicken breast and/or cheese. He also likes to mix it with vegetables like broccoli, mushrooms and peppers. The recommended serving size (2oz for 5 carbs) I find to be enough, but I think most men prefer a larger portion and that is why he stretches it with other foods,

Well, you guys, what ever works that you like.

I've been off making gelato and am now exhausted - I'm never sure the "custard" is thick enough but don't want to let the thing boil and ruin it. Tension!

But, I was thinking, re sugar and milk as you were saying earlier, Roger - maybe actual gelato, which preferably uses eggs and cream in the making, is a better thing for diabetics than low fat ice cream or sherbet. Dunno, just musing.

Probably is. Anyway, eggs are great for not leaving one hungry after an hour or so. Sometimes breakfast hands around till dinner time.

Good to hear that Green Witch. By an oddity of regulatory ruling, foods can be advertised in terms of effective carbs, or something like that, but calories must be determined by carbohydrates X 4 calories per gram. The whole thing suggests that some stuff might have less 'effective calories' than indicated on the packaging. Just speculating, you know. I'm not pushing spaghetti for serious weight loss.

I injured my back AND neck permanently awhile back and now I'm only able to work out sporadically. I do the best I can and I know it's good for the blood sugar, cholesterol and well being period. I used to work out almost every day and ride my bike 100 miles a week. Now I feel like 150 lbs. (up from 138) of mushy **** in a 100 lb. bag. I hate it, but as an uninsured scumbag I can't afford to buy insulin and glaucoma meds AND pay for physical therapy and I guess being out of shape and alive beats working out and leaving a good looking corpse, although I'm beginning to wonder.

I've heard that the body reacts the same to artificial sweeteners the same way it does to sugar.

No?

Replying to self with a further thought -
As with me and a lot of other people, I've observed one tends to get only a small scoop or set of scoops of gelato from a good gelateria at a time, as it's rich tasting and richly flavored, a less is more thing. None of that eat the whole carton business that happens with a lot of people and store ice creams, low fat or full fat.
I haven't tasted a good grocery store-gelato yet, gave up on them, so I don't have any idea about whether people want to finish those off in one fell swoop.