Re: Grains at the root of NIDDM and the diseases of civilization

Gantlet wrote:
the difference between the 2 diets is not really in that low carbers eat more broccoli
or that those on low fat do not eat broccoli and other veggies.
the real difference is Fat vs Whole Grain.
fruits and veggies are carbs - for me that means I get about 130 carbs a day from just fruits and veggies
thats more than many low carbers eat.

That may be true for you, Gantlet. But I do not think most people doing low-fat eat 130g of carb in fruit and veggies. Most are more likely to get their carbs in bagels, pasta and sugar.

My SIL is the only person I know personally doing low-fat in a way that includes lots of fresh produce. I have more in common with her than I do with any of my other family members - that we use different salad dressings isn't nearly as different than the similarity that we both eat large salads every day.

And that brings up a very good point, in that I think eating large doses of fresh produce is much more important to health overall than the macronutrient content of the diet.

Look at a big bowl of mixed salad vegetables as an example. Those veggies have very few calories, so they don't count much towards macronutrient percentages. The dressing has most of the calories so determines the macronutrient breakdown. My SIL would tend to put a sweeter, low-fat dressing on it, so her salad would be a "low fat" meal. I would tend to put a dairy-based dressing on it, so my salad would be a "low carb" meal. The rest of our family would tend to skip the salad and eat something else instead. I don't think whether they'd eat a burger or potatoes is nearly as significant as the fact that they skipped the salad.


Wheat and oats is what I fed my chickens when we raised them (they also free-ranged so got lotsa greens and bugs too). I didn't eat the wheat and oats, I ate the eggs!

was that also before you became diabetic? what would you say you diet was like
in those heavenly care free days before diabetes.

No, we did not have chickens before I was diabetic, we've only lived in the country for 5-6 years now. It was two decades ago that I was first diagnosed.

I can remember individual things I ate, but not my overall diet as it's simply too far back. And I was busy raising a baby and being in college and paid almost no attention to diet except for the cost of groceries.

I know there was much less produce in my diet as we were very poor. Most fruits and veggies were canned or frozen as that's a lot cheaper than fresh.

I was in college as a single mom, so there's things like fasting for 6-8 days at a time in order to have enough to feed my daughter that occured periodically.

I know we didn't eat much sugar, cause I cooked mostly from scratch, cause I couldn't afford prepared foods much. Typical desserts for us were things like rice pudding or gingerbread, both made from scratch. Rice and flour are very cheap calories. But I didn't have a lot of time for cooking, between school and parenting, so desserts just didn't happen much.

We also did not eat nearly as much dairy as now as it was too expensive - I just bought a gallon of milk a week for my daughter. Yogurt, hard cheese and cottage cheese were much rarer whereas now they're every day menu items.

A typical thing I did at least monthly was cook a turkey, because it was so cheap and a big time-saver. I'd roast a turkey on the weekend, and layer it in a tupperware with stuffing, potatoes and gravy. That way I could cut off slices and nuke with frozen veggies for meals during the week. We'd eat this for over a week every month.

We did lots of casseroles - I could get an insane number of meals out of a single chicken. A typical recipe was a lb of noodles, a cup of chicken, a 1 lb package of frozen veggies, and a sauce made from milk and corn starch.

And a lot of hamburger-helper-type dishes, but with ground turkey instead, as that was dead cheap back then . It's more expensive now as it's become popular with the low-fat emphasis, but back then you could get it dirt cheap. I could make a HUGE pot of something to feed us for days out of only a pound of turkey.

I also know there are certain foods I shall never eat again because we overdid them then. Plain spaghetti is one - I can handle other pasta shapes, but not the one that. I shall also never eat bologna or hot dogs again for the same reason. But nothing is as bad as boxed macaroni and cheese, no degree of politeness could ever get me to eat even a single bite of that again.


One of the things that bugs me with the "whole grains" thing is that the studies were done on whole grains, but are used to justify selling products made from milled grains. Bread is not a whole grain, you can walk through any number of fields and never see bread growing! I think very few of the grain-supporting-contingent actually eat whole grains, except maybe some corn.

of course bread is not the wisest choice and is far from what places like the ADA recommend.

I do not see the ADA recommending actual whole grains though. People SAY whole grains, but then provide diet examples that have no whole grains in them.

And it's difficult to even find them. Of four grocery stores I frequent, each has a long cereal aisle, but none has wheat berries nor whole oats. I can usually find brown rice at the regular grocery, but the other whole grains I have to buy at health food stores (relatively expensive) or in bulk (cheap).

I buy them in bulk from a local Mennonite store, but have to keep buckets around for storage. Wouldn't work so well in a small apartment, I'd probably go with health food stores in that case.


i stopped cooking oat meal in the slow cooker and prefer it to be less mushy.
I now cook the steel cuts oats on the stove top.

Steel cut oats are not *whole* grains. They are *cut* grains. Granted, they are less refined than most grain sources, but they're not whole.

The "whole grains" studies specifically compared diets of whole grains to diets containing more refined grains and found that whole grains were better. This makes all the sense in the world as whole grains do not oxidize (which is also why they keep forever). Once you cut, roll or grind grains, the studies no longer apply - you're on the side of the study that was found less healthy, refined grains.

Though you'd never know that from the way products are advertised or the diets that are recommended based on these studies!

I don't think bread or pasta are so bad if the grain is ground fresh. If you're grinding it right before you begin cooking, the fats have much less time to oxidize so you likely get much of the benefit of whole grains. But I seriously doubt very many people do this. Even people who bake from scratch generally buy flour, which has been oxidizing for days, weeks or even months before it is used.


IMO, one of the advantages of a non-diabetic spouse is that you get to have tastes of things. I can eat one french fry if they're on his plate. ;)

for me whole grains = about 15 carbs, that is like having a taste when compared to
the amount of rice and bread I would have in the pre diagnosed days.

My tastes are much smaller, more on the size of 2-3g carb. I don't want to "taste" to the degree that I have to choose between cutting back on veggies, increasing insulin or having my bg out of goal. A single french fry or a bite of freshly baked bread is one thing, but I'm not going to have enough to have to trade my cup of blueberries for them!

I was thinking of you last night, Tom. I am reading the book "Pumping Insulin" which has a chapter on calculating the amount of carbs you need to add *or* insulin you need to reduce for various levels of exercise. They call these Excarbs. Very interesting stuff.

For me, as I heal up from the surgeries and increase my activity level, I'd rather reduce the insulin than increase the carbs though. I have hope of getting off insulin again someday, so that's more of a motivating factor than the ability to eat grain or potatoes, which are rather bland, boring foods anyways.

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/
.

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