What’s HFPB stand for? All I can think of is “high fat peanut butter.”
I only use olive oil and, aside from cooking, really only put it on popcorn and salads. I do sometimes use vegan butter (Earth Balance) for baking. I do eat nut butters sometimes as well, but I’m not sure they have much more fat than the nuts themselves (I eat the ones that are just whatever nut they’re made from, nothing else added). I practically never eat out (a couple times a and when I do it’s only after having a week-long conversation with the chef about meal preparation, so even then I eat basically the same way I do at home and know everything in my food and how it’s prepared (usually it’s simple, like plain rice and salmon or a basic salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing).
I did make some black bean patties a few weeks ago and was not a fan of their taste upon first trying one. But I think that’s because I tried it as a lettuce wrap. I have a recipe for some buns that, if they turn out, might make it taste more like a hamburger.
The big challenge for me with any diet that is even more restricted than my allergens (aside from the fact that I find the extra restriction hard because I’m already super restricted compared to everyone else) is travel. I travel a lot for work and bring all my own food with me even for week-long trips, since eating out is usually not an option. (A week ago I tried it, but when I told the server I have life-threatening food allergies, her response was, “I can let the kitchen know, but we’re really hectic tonight, so I can’t guarantee anything.” So I took a pass, and that is not an unusual experience for me.) I think I could make low carb, or vegan, or low-fat, or any other diet work. But when it comes down to travel, I take whatever is easiest to pack and prepare in a hotel room, so that’s when all diets aside from necessity seem to break down for me.
No, not raw food. I mean, I eat raw food, but mostly cooked. The diabetes doctor most closely associated with this is Barnard. Plants only, and only whole, nothing removed.
I’m not recommending this, I’m just saying you can be successful eating this way. My A1Cs are high 5s/low 6s. I do supplement B12 which, in our clean food culture, isn’t found on plant food (it’s manufactured by bacteria).
I did moderate/high carbs, moderate protein, and low fat (10-15%) back in 2006 when I was on the pump it was one of the few times I had a washboard stomach ( 6 pack ).
The body will turn a fair amount of carbs into fat.
Diabetics burn and create more fat regardless of diet type due to exogenous insulin along with mitochondrial/metabolic issues.
We are obligate fat burners compared to the normal population this is well documented in research. We burn a higher percentage of fat at rest and while exercising.
I’m high protein, high/moderate fat when not working and shift to high protein carbs and fat when I work ( Amazon Driver ) I do notice that if lower fat in favor of protein or carbs over a long stretch I lean out but tricky due to being on R and NPH.
I used olive oil as main fat as it is easy to burn and stimulates thyroid and epinephrine which increase fat burning vs storage.
You may need to work on gut/autoimmune issues if you’re experiencing strong reactions. Diabetes is so much more then just blood sugar
If you can get it where you are and if it works with your allergies, I highly recommend Melt—I think the flavor is better than Earth Balance. Just had a GF/NF/DF cake made with Melt for my partner’s graduation party this past weekend, and it was so good. We also use it at home as a substitute for
non-baking butter purposes (I’ll eat butter, but my partner tries to avoid dairy).
Cashew fake dairy products are the best! My partner can’t do nuts though (she recently tried again specifically hoping to be able to eat cashew cheese but nope), and they are iffy for me too because of histamines (though walnuts seem by far the worst offenders, almonds seem not so bad, and everything else somewhere in the middle). I tried walnut milk a while ago because it sounded delicious (and it was, I bet it would have been great in cocktails), and it felt like the closest I’ve ever been to have my throat closing.
Yikes, yeah, I’d definitely avoid nuts then. Do you have an epipen just in case? Are nuts something you should be able to eat again once your system calms down? Hope that happens soon!
I’m fairly sure I’ve read that you can make fermented cheeses from things like sunflower seeds as well. Maybe an option for your friend, if you can find any. I’d like to try making some for a friend of mine who has an anaphylactic tree nut allergy and an intolerance to all dairy.
Due to my traveling occupation, it’s not uncommon at all for me to end up in places where I’m eating at restaurants every day for a week or two, etc… so I go through periods of substantially more carb intake than I do at home… during those periods I seek to become more insulin sensitive… I think in the long run my levels would probably equalize out if I did it for long enough so that my TDD would be about the same
Do you mean that you become more insulin sensitive when you’re eating carbs? Or when you’re eating low carb?
I’d be curious which diet you’d prefer if you could stick to one all the time.
Travel definitely makes these dietary choices more challenging. Although I think just low-carb is fairly easy in most restaurants as long as you’re not dealing with allergies or other types of restrictions.
The less carbs I eat the more insulin per carb I end up needing to adjust to… over the course of a few weeks, it seems…
So if I eat 2x as many carbs for a few weeks after a week or so I might only be taking 1.5x the insulin… and after a few more weeks I suspect maybe only 1.25 and eventually maybe nearly 1.0
I probably should! I’m planning to see a recommended allergist who specializes in MCAS finally, so will ask her about it. Not super worried in the meantime because it only happened after a very high concentrated dose (basically drinking liquid walnut), so as long as I avoid most nuts (almonds seem ok for some reason), I don’t think I’m at high risk from accidental ingestion/cross-contamination. And thanks—I really hope I go back to my relative normal post-pollen season, although I suspect now that I’m attending to it more, than I function better on lower histamine diets all of the time. But maybe I can do it less strictly when my total histamine burden is less extreme.
Hmm, I’ll keep an eye out for that! Could be an interesting home project as well (she already has coconut milk yogurt on her to-make list). We are in the process of moving (just bought a house!) and she’s looking for a new job, so I’m guessing it’s all going to wait a bit, but I’ll let you know if we try it!
