Saturday, August 7, 2010

106 Papa, 78 Me, and 95 Grandma




The morning after eating last week’s meal, these were the blood sugars that my Papa, my grandma (who controls her type 2 diabetes with diet and exercise), and I woke up with. Diabetics constantly check their blood sugars. A three-year old friend of mine recently asked, “why are you always doing your diabetes?” (translation: checking my blood sugar and giving myself insulin) – I explained to him that my diabetes never goes away so I always need to check how much sugar is in my blood. If there is too much sugar in my blood, I give myself a shot of insulin; if there is too little sugar in my blood, I eat an orange-flavored glucose tablet or two; and if there is just the right amount of sugar in my blood I smile, nod my head, and contain the urge to get up and dance in celebration.

Getting one’s blood sugar (also called, “blood glucose level” – will use “BGL” here for short) into the healthy range and keeping it in that range can be a heated battle for diabetics, especially those with type 1. A person’s BGL can be affected by: stress, exercise, hormone levels, menstruation, pregnancy, food, insulin, medication, illness, alcohol, etc. One of the first things I had to wrap my head around when I was learning about diabetes as a kid was the fact that a diabetic could have too low a blood sugar. I remember my Papa having yet another high blood sugar and saying to me, “too high, again” to which I, as a not-yet-diabetic 8 year old, replied, “I wish your blood sugar was 0”. This comment prompted my Papa to say, “oh – no, no, no, no, don’t wish that – you need to have some sugar in your blood.” I was baffled that BGL could be too high and too low – this disease suddenly seemed completely impossible.

The numbers listed in the heading of this entry are perfect. They are those beautiful, hard-to-attain, numbers that diabetics wish they could see every time they stick their finger and put blood on a test strip for their glucose machine to read. If I were to grade BGL in a traditional A-F academic style, it would look something like this (keep in mind, each diabetic would probably set these grades slightly differently):

200 and above: F

180-200: D

150-179: C

120-149: B

70-119: A

60-69: B

55-59: C

45-55: D

45 and below: F

My grandma has woken up with A+ blood sugars for the past four days and has not eaten meat for 5 days. This prompted my grandma to email the following question: “would no meat affect my blood sugars?” I think the answer to this question is that the foods she’s been filling up on in place of her usual meat intake have been affecting her blood sugars. It takes a lot more vegetables to satiate a person than it does meat. While abstaining from meat my grandparents have been eating more vegetables – zucchini pancakes with zucchini from their garden is their latest discovery. I am thrilled that my grandparents are both eating more veggies. I’m also thrilled that they feel motivated to continue cooking these weekly menus because of the immediate effects they’ve seen on their blood sugars. I’m proud to share that I too have been experiencing some impressive results. I’ve been cooking more often, eating more veggies, running more, and practicing yoga ever since starting this blog. The result is that my BGL logbook is filled with far more A’s and far fewer F’s than I’ve seen in years J

This week’s meal is the first meal for which each recipe was completely new to me. Two of the recipes came from my new cookbook, “Fast, Fresh and Green” by Susie Middleton. I invited over the Wunkler family, which consists of two foodie friends who love playing ultimate Frisbee and their awesome dog, Kaya. They brought over a beautiful bouquet of flowers (photographed above with my dog, Abby). This week’s meal had a citrus theme that I didn’t notice until partway through dinner. The potatoes were flavored with lemon and the green beans with orange. I made the green beans a second time this week and placed them on top of brown rice – the result was delicious.

This week’s menu:

Tomato Basil Salad

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Tomato-Basil-Salad/Detail.aspx

Caramelized Green Beans and Sweet Onions

http://allrecipes.com/PersonalRecipe/62424541/Caramelized-Green-Beans-and-Sweet-Onions/Detail.aspx

Oven-roasted Baby Potatoes with Creamy Lemon Dressing

http://allrecipes.com/PersonalRecipe/62424536/Oven-roasted-Baby-Potatoes-with-Creamy-Lemon-Dressing/Detail.aspx

2 comments:

  1. great post Alyse. do you have any advice on using kombu or other sea weeds?

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  2. I use kombu when I cook beans because it helps make the beans more digestible, adds a bit of flavor, and adds some minerals. You can soak a piece of kombu with the beans before cooking them or add the kombu to the water and beans while they boil, then remove the kombu before eating.

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