My latest brilliant idea

[ghostjmf]

Every so often I have them. Never have been in a position to put them into production. Am very, very (very very very) far from it now.


Before the advent of the personal portable computer, one of my brilliant ideas was plasticized maps. You know, so they wouldn't rip & tear so easily & need to be replaced. Turns out there was, & still is, limited production of plasticized maps, but usually of maps that don't cover much detail anyway. I wanted this for real, large maps.

Nowadays, nobody but me is even carrying maps because they all have that that portable computer I still have to decide "ooh, which one of" to buy.


Anyway, lastest brilliant idea comes off of my very-sudden-onset diabetes diagnosis:


I've been trying to assemble the lowest-carb diet I can without feeling "food is not worth eating" because carbs are, to diabetics, literally poison; we keep dumping the glucose produced by digestion of them into our blood, but it doesn't get into the muscle cells it should get into because either the cells are resistant to it in some way or we're not producing enough insulin to get it in, or both. I wish my current set of doctors would test me to determine if it's one, the other, or both but they're taking the "let's assume its both" approach with no testing. So those big glucose crystals will damage my kidneys (which are trying to wash them out), eyes, peripheral nerves everywhere, its a mess. So carbs are literal poison. I have to keep telling myself that.

But anyway:

I'm way too familiar with low-carb diets from my ancient days (in my teens & early 20s) of dieting, as that's the kind of diet I was on. Also low-fat diet. Worked, too. With exercise. But I felt like I was starving all the time, which is why I eventually let carbs & some oils/fats back in to my diet.


OK, brilliant-idea time:


Most type II diabetics need to lose weight, myself included. I have the hope the condition will miraculously reverse itself if I lose enough weight. Happens for some people, but not all. And I weigh far less now than I did in 2010, when my blood sugar & A1c test (tests 3 months of blood sugar level, supposedly, by looking at the amount of glycation, i.e. glucose deposition, on mature red blood cells, which are mature at 3 months) were normal.


But in the short run, reducing carbs is more important than losing weight. So I really don't need to reduce fat until/unless I want to go for weight loss. I am therefore eating a lot more cheese than I used to. Which can make "mimics cardiac pain" digestive problems for me due to my gallstone-blocked gall bladder, but not every diabetic has that. And generally not cutting out oily stuff just because "its fattening". Which helps food taste a little more like real food.


(My cholesterol levels are normal, or at least they haven't yet told me they're not. So are my heart & circulation, they tell me, so those pains I've had sporadically for years, & have had heart-tests done because of, probably were gallstone-provoked; I wish more doctors would check that, along with checking your heart, but that's another topic.)


I can do this myself, but would sure like a little help from the food industry, which thinks all low-carb food should also be low-fat. It's kind of a "kill two birds with one stone" approach.


But my approach would be for marketing food to those people who feel the need for specially produced food to control their metabolic problems. There are a lot of them out there eating "Lean Cuisine" & so forth.


My product, which I don't have the wherewithall to put into production, would be "Diabetic Cuisine". Where only the carbs are reduced, not the fat/oil content. Gee, I'd sure love some ice cream made from real cream but with diet sweetener, for instance. I have to make due with with Fage Total (Greek) Yogurt mixed with diet sweetener & some fruit, for now. Which is great, but it ain't ice cream.


Yes, I know I could make it myself, but I really don't think an ice-cream-maker should be in my possession at present.


Hmm; "Diabetic Cuisine" not such a catchy name. "Di-II-Try?" Still wrong connotations with "di" in there. Oh well.

[ghostjmf]

Oh yeah; anyone capitalizing on my brilliant ideas, 2 of which you now know (there were more, which I currently can't even remember; maybe they will come back some day) isn't going to give me moolah for them, of course, especially since I just posted them on a public place, but I'd like an honorary mention, if you will. Name a coffee ice-cream flavor, preferably one that tastes like Starbuck's coffee flavor, not-too-sweet, as coffee ice-cream shouldn't be in my opinion, & with those expresso swirls, which I was living on this summer, which should have told me something about my body feeling it needed sugar, except it wasn't getting into those muscle cells, after me. OK?

[jarnon]

I've seen lo-carb products like Breyers® CarbSmart™ in the store. I ignore them, because fat is what I need to avoid, so I don't know if they're healthy enough for diabetics.

[Bob Juch]

You're right that no frozen meals are marketed to diabetics. Someone is missing the boat as there's suposed to be an increasing number of Type II diabetics. Anyone know someone who works for, let's say, Unilever?

[ksbirchtree]

When I was first diagnosed with Type II diabetes several years ago, the dietician stressed counting carbs. She said the fat portion wasn't as important (within moderation). And protein is really important.

I did pretty good for a few months, then fell off the wagon. I'm trying to do more fruit and veggies, and eat cheese for a snack sometimes for the protein. I have problems getting enough protein and veggies, and eat way too many carbs. I can tell when my BS is high because of the neuropathy pain in my toes!

I really like the Blue Bunny no-sugar-added ice cream cups -- come in individual servings -- about 150 calories. The individual serving part is the best, because no way can eat a "regular" serving of ice cream.

Good luck!

Christy
The other one who quilts

[ghostjmf]

jarnon, ksbirchtree:

Thanks for the suggestions. For the present I'm steering clear of anything with carbs, though, except fruit & veggies, some of which seem to have more carbs these days than I remember from when I used to count them, darn it.


I am hit with a multiple whammy as my urologist says my kidney stone of a couple years ago was uric acid, which is derived from protein, so I'm not supposed to eat more than 4 oz of any kind of meat protein, including fish (they said cheese was OK) at any meal. And of course they recommend I eat far less. (They never had a piece of the stone to analyze, but since it showed up a CT scan but not on an X-ray, they call it uric acid by process of elimination of what else it could be.)


And I'm supposed to watch out about fats because of the gallstone screwing up my gall bladder & therefore bile secretion (I know it's produced elsewhere, but it's stored in the gall blaldder), even though the "chest pressure" symptoms I have come from eating in general, proabably over-eating, not fatty foods specifically like they're supposed to.


(Fish are not meat by the kosher laws, but apparently they are by the Urologist Laws.)


I have, I admit eaten more than 4 oz of meat at a time since then, but also days have gone by when I ate no meat whatsoever. Plenty of coffee ice cream, though. Those days are over.


I'm so frantic about all this because my blood sugar was sky high when I was diagnosed, 350 as a 3-month average from the A1c test. I admit I probably wouldn't be if it had been just a little over normal.


BJ:

The lack of special marketing for diabetics is because the marketers assume we all fall into the larger class of dieters. Which most of us should, but I'm taking this one step, the more important step at a time.

There *is* special marketing for products, such as Glucerna, or however it's spelled, to prevent blood sugar spikes, but I'm staying away from anything that doesn't taste like real food unless/until told otherwise by my doctors.

[ksbirchtree]

Interesting article on this dilemma:

http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/t ... 00102.html

[christie1111]

You're right that no frozen meals are marketed to diabetics. Someone is missing the boat as there's suposed to be an increasing number of Type II diabetics. Anyone know someone who works for, let's say, Unilever?

But I don't work for the Foods division!

My body wash is zero carbs!

[Estonut]

My body wash is zero carbs!

But is it zero fat, too?

[Estonut]

Tangentially-related article (Sugar vs. Fat):
Twin Brothers Put Diet Crazes To The Ultimate Test