Monday, February 12, 2018

Add a creamy dipping sauce and a rich little dessert to your life to lower that insulin spike after a meal

It looks like it, but no, it's not hummus.
I've been reading everywhere about how insulin is what drives obesity. When your blood sugar gets high, it spikes the insulin response. Bringing down blood sugar is key to reducing insulin and thereby losing weight.

Is that not scrumptuous looking?
When you're diabetic like me, blood sugars can get high even if you eat no sugar at all. I was fasting the other day, hadn't eaten in a couple of days, and I checked my blood sugar and was amazed to see it was over 150. AFTER NO FOOD IN DAYS.

That's just downright wrong - but it runs in my family.

So that means even if I'm eating no sugar, I have to find other ways to bring down my blood sugar.

Since I always have a tendency to overeat, even if I'm eating protein, too much protein actually converts to glucose. Even if I'm eating vegetables, veggies have small amounts of carbs but those carbs add up if you eat too many.

I know, I know. Eat less. That's the root of my problem. I have a hard time eating less. After 55 years, it's a given, I think. So it's important I stay away from sugars and carbs.

Besides, even if I'm eating NOTHING (as we've already seen), my blood sugar is high. So no matter what I eat or don't eat, I need to come up with hacks to limit blood sugar spikes and insulin response, especially after meals.

From all my research, I've learned there are four hacks that will help with this:

(1) ceylon cinnamon during or after a meal will markedly lower your blood sugar (not cassia cinnamon or common cinnamon you buy at the store because it can dangerously thin your blood and cause other health problems if eaten in excess)
(2) nuts (especially almonds) before a meal will lower insulin response by 30%
(3) apple cider vinegar before a meal will lower insulin response by a whopping 40%
(4) fiber fiber fiber in the meal is also key to lowering insulin response

There are also certain foods that seem to be especially good for diabetics that you should eat ALOT of to lower blood sugars and limit insulin response:

Vegetables but especially Cruciferous Vegetables - I've read so much research on these, it's too much to summarize (just eat them). If you have thyroid issues, though, there is some concern about cruciferous vegetables hurting your thyroid (especially if you have an iodine deficiency). Cooking seems to minimize that risk. Brussel sprouts are one cruciferous veggies that studies say don't seem to have that affect on your thyroid. I have a hypothyroid condition, so I focus on eating brussel sprouts (cooked) just in case.

Raw cacao powder - Eaten 5 times a week, this stuff can lower risk of heart event by 57% (most diabetics die of heart attacks). It is a major source of magnesium (which most diabetics are deficient in) and is good for blood sugar control all around. It's also brain food. Dark chocolate is all the rage. This is the source. No sugar, no dairy, no added ingredients, no processing. Just 100% raw cacao. We're not talking cocoa powder (that's heated and processed). Cacao.

Healthy fats from avocado and coconut - I also limit olive oil because I've read that so much of it is fake. Plus even if it's real, you destroy it's value by cooking with it. I eat olives instead. Can't fake an olive. So coconut and avocado are my go-to healthy fats. I did recently decide to splurge on a high-end expensive extra virgin olive oil to use raw in my special creamy sauce in this post. Email me if you want to know where I got it and why I think it's the real thing. As for butter, I love butter but limit butter because I don't really trust that butter sold as grassfed really is grassfed butter, then there's the whole issue of A1 vs. A2 milk...it's all too much for me to sort out.

Okay, so what's the takeaway?

Well, I need to eat nuts preferably almonds right before a meal. I also need to put some apple cider vinegar into a cup of water and drink it right before a meal. I need to eat brussel sprouts every day. Cinnamon after every meal. Fiber, fiber, fiber. Cacao powder at least 5 days a week.

Should be simple, right? I never do any of it. I hate the taste of ACV. I never want to eat a handful of almonds right before a meal. Cacao powder? Have you tasted that awful, bitter stuff?

So I had to come up with a plan to make it enjoyable, palatable, enticing... Moreover, it had to be do-able, easy, like clockwork.

So I came up with a master plan:

(1) Avoid processed, packaged or fast food. Always.

(2) On a daily basis, eat mostly veggies (focus on greens and cruciferous veggies) and limited fish/meat with healthy fats.

(2) Only eat fruit a couple times a week and focus on low-carb, low-glycemic index berries like raspberries and blueberries. Occasionally, have fig, red grapefruit, green papaya, melon, kiwi or plum.

(3) Eat half an avocado mid-morning, every day, to make sure I get it in. I love avocados, so that won't be hard to do.

(4) Mix ceylon cinnamon in MCT Oil (a derivative of coconut oil that is most easily digested and super good for diabetics) and keep it in the fridge. Take a tablespoonful of it after every meal. Easy-peasy.

(5) Write down a meal plan that includes all the things you're supposed to be eating that are good for you and that you like. I'll share my meal plan with you in my next post.

(6) Make as many of these meals in advance and freeze them. For instance, I want to try to eat cooked mixed greens several times a week. I can take out individual portions when I want to eat them, which means I'll eat them more frequently. There are certain soups I want to eat once or twice a week, so I can make batches in advance and freeze.

Still left with the problem of how to get in that blood-sugar lowering apple cider vinegar and that awful bitter cacao powder. How to make SURE I eat almonds and brussel sprouts on the regular.

So I decided I'm going to cook a big batch of brussel sprouts every week and keep them in the fridge. I'm going to eat a few of them at the start of every meal. I'll just pull four or five of them out of the storage container and heat them in the oven.

Then I had a thought. What if I had a delicious sauce to dip them into. I'd be that much more likely to eat them. Then I pondered: what kind of sauce could be rich and creamy and tasty and incorporate all kinds of healthy ingredients that I need to be eating anyway? Like almonds and apple cider vinegar? Then if I ate the brussel sprouts with the sauce before each meal, I'd be getting fiber, ACV and almonds all in to lower my insulin spike after eating.

Now when I say I'm a modified keto/paleo meal plan, it's because I eat more carbs than they allow. Granted, it's in the form of low-carb veggies, but it still adds up to more than the 20 carbs recommended for pure keto. I am more slow-carb than strictly low-carb. I only eat the carbs (like veggies) that are so full of fiber they produce a slow and low blood sugar rise.

I'm also different from keto in that I believe we need fruit. Not often - and erring on the side of lower-carb fruits, but fruit nonetheless. Couple times a week.

I also am a proponent of the musical fruit. I like the idea of beans, but very small amounts, I also believe beans must be soaked and sprouted to neutralize anti-nutrients. Perfect time to eat those beans is before a meal (all that fiber to blunt your insulin response) for that slow-carb idea.

So I wanted to incorporate beans into this mock hummus sauce. But not strictly chickpeas. They are so high in carbs. So I did some research and decided yellow lentils were a better choice. They rank second highest among all beans for high ORAC (antioxidant) levels, but they are among the lowest in carbs. So I put both chickpeas and yellow peas into this recipe. I buy my lentils and chickpeas already sprouted and keep them in my pantry. I boil and mash them as needed for recipes like this one.

By the way, there are 45 total carbs in a cup of chickpeas, but only 40 in lentils. If you subtract fiber and look at net carbs, you have 33 net carbs in a cup of chickpeas and 24 net carbs in the same amount of lentils. Less carbs, more fiber. Eliminate those carbs wherever you can. Black beans have 41 total carbs and 26 net carbs and have the best nutritonal profile probably, but I didn't want a black hummus. I make black bean soup occasionally. Green split peas are even higher in fiber and lower in carbs, so I make a split pea soup occasionally. I like white beans too, but they are higher in carbs, so I make white beans very rarely. They're so wonderfully high in fiber. One cup of white beans provides 75% of your daily fiber needs.)

Most people think you need beans and rice to make a complete protein, but beans and nuts also make for a complete protein. So normal hummus - and my mock hummus - are almost like eating meat. :)

Creamy Mock Hummus Dipping Sauce for Veggies

4 tbsp organic sprouted raw almond butter
4 tbsp organic sprouted raw tahini
1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil (make sure it's the real stuff)
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 small garlic clove chopped fine (or more depending on how much garlic you can handle)
1 cup mashed cauliflower
1 cup mashed sprouted organic yellow lentils
1/2 cup mashed sprouted organic chickpeas
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp paprika
1 tbsp dried or 2 tbsp fresh parsley

Mash with a fork or mix in a food processor until creamy.

Email me at primadonnagail@gmail.com if you want to know where I order these ingredients.

I have no trouble eating this as an appetizer before every meal. This recipe should be divided into 4 servings. So you can eat some before lunch and before dinner one day, then again the next day. I can't imagine you'd want it before breakfast. Double the recipe if you want it to last you four days. You can dip our roasted, carmelized brussel sprouts or ANYTHING in that. Any meal you eat after that will register lower blood sugar and a lower insulin response. Tons of ACV, nuts (almonds and sesame seeds), fiber and healthy fat.

THEN COMES THE MEAL. Can you believe it? We get to eat MORE.

A sample meal after this might be a piece of wild-caught salmon with asparagus and homemade hollandaise sauce. Or how about caesar salad and a seared herb-crusted chicken breast?

Now, for dessert. End you meal with a spoonful of cinnamon/MCT oil we talked about earlier. That will break your savoring of your savory part of your meal. It will help you to stop eating actually. Shortly after that, you will be wanting something dessert-ey. But we don't want sugar of course.

That's where that awful, bitter cacao comes in. I was determined to fit it in somehow.

Dark Chocolate Mint Berry Ball

8 tbsp (1/2 cup) organic sprouted raw coconut butter (melt on low heat)
8 tbsp (1/2 cup) organic sprouted pumpkin seeds, ground
1/2 tart apple pureed with skin (eat the other half while you're making this)
6 tbsp organic raw cacao powder
6 tbsp raw unsweetened coconut flakes (optional)
2 tbsp organic blackstrap molasses
1/2 tsp ground stevia leaf (the real thing, it's green)
1/8 cup fresh chopped mint leaf or 1/2 tsp dried mint or 1/8 tsp mint extract (optional)
1 tsp real vanilla extract

Extra coconut flakes ground to powder for rolling the balls (optional)
Blueberries or raspberries (optional)

Mix all the ingredients together and form into into little balls wrapped around a blueberry or raspberry and lightly roll the ball in ground coconut flakes. Then freeze them on a cookie tray. If it's too "wet" to form into balls, add more ground pumpkin seed or coconut flakes into the mix (whichever you enjoy more). It will firm up once it freezes. Once they are frozen, throw them into a freezer container or bag for storage and pop one out when it's time for dessert.

If you don't like mint, leave it out. If you don't like coconut, leave out the flakes but still use the coconut butter. You won't taste the coconut as bad. If you don't like berries, just roll up a chocolate ball and leave out the berry in the middle.

Everything in there is good for you. It isn't very sweet but it makes you feel like you've had dessert (and chocolate dessert at that).

I can live with this kind of eating if it keeps me from getting my feet amputated from diabetes.

Just sayin.



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