Yes by those standards - we are all arguing the virtues of low carb or not but I think we are all low carb !
Most Americans have 100g for breakfast and go on from there probably topping out at 500g on a bad day and at least 300g on a good day - ( sandwich / chips and chocolate bar for lunch followed by Starbucks Frappuccino and then pasta and tomato sauce for dinner or a pizza or a plate of fries and a hamburger and to make sure that they think they are being healthy a couple of apples and a banana
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True. Honestly, I ate pretty healthily overall before my diagnosis, and it was still staggering for me to see the carb counts of meals I was eating regularly.
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One wonders if there will ever be a time when a Coke can will have stamped on it
Warning - surgeons general warning - drinking this product may cause heart disease, Blindness, amputation and kidney failure
I hope so but doubt it
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I wouldn’t be surprised if 70% of my diet comes from carbs, as I eat relatively little protein and am not a fan of fatty foods. But I don’t eat anywhere near 300 g of carbs a day – I think the total amount of calories we’re eating also plays a role.
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Good point. I guess since that diagnosis (almost 5 years ago), I’ve spent a good majority of that time pregnant or breastfeeding, so my caloric intake has been pretty high. 
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The food lobby is too strong.
The food industry “creates” food that causes us to want to eat more by modifying texture, flavor…etc. Some of it causes diseases for some. The helpful pharmaceutical industry comes to save the day with medications. It’s a perfect partnership between corporate food companies and corporate pharmaceutical companies. There doesn’t seem to be a vegetables lobby group. This may be one of the reasons that vegetable consumption is lower than it could be. Advertising is huge. I may have seen an Andy Boy broccoli ad some years ago. When was the last time anyone has seen an ad for lentils? I see ads for Coke/Pepsi/chips much more frequently 
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I think about that too…the breakfast cereal loaded with sugar mostly. my favorite was Frosted Flakes. I was a kid…I believed :“Grrrrreat!” 
Recently
I’ve been eating quinoa, different types of beans and sweet potatoes (after having experimented with rice and pasta.). The less “modified and processed” (I don’t think it’s considered to be Paleo) foods have more fiber in them than processed pasta. If I eat 20g carbs of black beans, the effect on my body is different from 20g of spaghetti. I would be starving from only 20g of spaghetti! I still have to bolus for beans. To be full, I probably need about 90g+to carbs of pasta and much more insulin; which may lead me to have more insulin resistance. I noticed during my recent “experiments” with mini cannoli and rainbow cookies (that I enjoyed enormously) to correct highs, I seemed to have needed more insulin. Maybe I was becoming insulin resistant. It felt great when I was eating the treats. However, Afterwards, I felt a bit “sugar overloaded”. The Sugar overload sensation occurred AFTER the fact. For me, it seems like wheat flour is an addiction. The more I eat it, the more I crave it. The same with bread. I have not noticed a craving for quinoa or beans. After I have a reasonable amount of carbs ~ 20-30g from either quinoa or beans with vegetables and protein, I’ll just have some fruits. It’s a very different feeling. Do I miss pizza? Absolutely. I also remember that as I was eating a slice, I would notice how wonderful the texture, the taste (salty, sweet and starchy, glutinous), they next thing I knew, I may have eaten 2+ slices. That’s possibility 80+ g carbs that
is not easy for me to bolus and digest. Do I miss donuts? Yes. But oddly, after eating donuts, I often felt sluggish and sugar overloaded. It’s difficult to not encounter a Dunkin Donuts- they’re ubiquitous.
I hope to read Fast Carbs, Slow Carbs. Health issues may be closely associated with what we eat. The challenge facing us as consumers is that we are being bombarded with marketing messages from corporate food companies, much of which is to benefit the corporate bottom line, not to benefit our health.
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^
My goal in eating is to enjoy tasty, delicious yummy, satisfying, nutritious foods that are easier to bolus for. It’s clear that taste is important to me because they are the first thoughts (4 words!) that come to mind. Long long ago I focused on taste only. When I think about my obsession with sweets : cannoli, chocolate almond croissants, biscotti, milky way, etc - it’s based on taste, not nutritional value. Shaking my head . I was easily convinced by TV ads 
, and my friends.
Nutritional value from plants such as broccoli, kale…etc include vitamins, some carb, fiber. I try to look for plants that taste and look good and have nutritional value, looking for reasonable amounts of carb, fiber, protein, vitamins When it comes to protein from plant source, I can only think of beans/legumes, soy beans, lentils, nuts etc. Are there other plant source proteins? Am I forgetting something? I would love some help in this area.
I tend to classify my foods into 2 groups only animals, non-animals. It’s easier
Are sweet potatoes and yams “devoid” of, or very low in nutritional value?
Starch/grains like rice pasta are mostly carbs with not a lot of fiber or protein. I settled on quinoa for a few reasons:
-
it spikes my BG less - somehow more manageable compared to the other starch
-
compared to rice, pasta, it has more fiber and protein - maybe this is why I can eat a lesser carb amount compared to pasta and still feel full. And therefore #1. It would seem to me that it has more nutritional value compared to other starches.
I would love to see more discussions on food, and nutritional value. The saying “you are what you eat” affects us immediately : impact on BG . For non diabetics, the food choices affect their health.
A naturally occurring food that has taste, protein, fiber and vitamin and some carb - that would be the magic or miracle food!
What are your top nominees for foods that taste great, has protein, vitamin fiber and reasonable carb amounts?
My nominees:
- Walnuts
- I like walnuts a lot! It’s crunchy. You can chew it. Walnuts are better nutritionally than potato chips.
Unfortunately, I cannot imagine having walnuts as the main component of a meal. Too bad. - Quinoa / chickpeas for main starch. Fills me up without to many carbs. Decent balance of carb, fiber, protein.
broccoli florets. . I love broccoli and may be able to eat this all day:wink:; well… definitely eat it often.
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Oh, I dunno. I’ve made a meal out of Laurie Colwin’s Rosemary Walnuts. With a whiskey sour on the side. Not a balanced meal but damn good.
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Cauliflower and Celeriac mash is wonderful and really easy to prepare. I actually enjoy the flavor of this more than potatoes.
Zuchini noodle lasagna with hot italian sausage is really tasty.
Any vegetable soup made with home made bone or chicken broth. (pressure cookers rock!)
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We used to have a butcher who sold bones. I can’t find bones at my nearby stores; perhaps I have to gar quite a distance.
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I may have asked this previously, (apologies, if I did)- where do you buy celeriac? Do you have a photo of it? Google has photos. I’m also curious as to what a "non- staged"
real celeriac looks like.
This is what celeriac looks like:
Peel the skin with a knife and the insides make a wonderful lower (not super low) carb treat. Great flavor.
Our super market sells bones, but we have a robust population of hispanic’s who love their bones for making some of the traditional soups. So bones are available in our freezer section for a reasonable amount.
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Oh I see…so I have to find the suitable neighborhood 
.
Thanks for the photo of the celeriac.
In my city, bones are widely available from butchers and supermarket meat sections, regardless of neighbourhood ethnicity. You may have to ask for them because they’re not always in the display case.
Celeriac is also called celery root. It’s one of my favourites. Delicious raw (such as in a classic celery root rémoulade salad, simple like this one or complicated with gherkins and capers and whatnot), or mashed, creamed, roasted whole, or on a pizza.
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We also get bones from the farmers market, both pork and beef, organic, too.
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I purchased my first EVER celeriac today!
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Can’t wait until you taste it. It adds a really nice flavor to a bunch of other dishes. Back in the high carb days, I used to make a potato and celeriac gratin with cream and parmesean cheese. mmmm.
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One of the benefits of Carb Manager is that I am able to see how much fiber I consume daily. Cleveland Clinic recommends ~ 25 g of fiber daily. I get about 15 g fiber. I was a bit surprised because I eat vegetables and fruits, nuts and flaxseed meal (and have been working on increasing my legumes). I guess I need to add more fiber slowly. Compared to the “average” American, I eat a lot more veggies. I’m scratching my head a little because I am surprised by my low fiber consumption number. Do many you get 25 g fiber?
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So in my experience there is a substitution for everything, and being able to make those substitutes that taste similar to the real thing and meet your dietary needs is a big part of feeling satisfied with a diet, at least for me. Not to be eaten every day, obviously, but I have on occasion made pizza and Caesar salad and lower-carb versions of other things I can eat. I really enjoy being able to bring my version of pizza to an event where everyone else is eating pizza, rather than be stuck eating salad while they get to indulge. Of course, many times I do end up eating salad in such situations, but there are just times I feel like making and bringing a pizza I can eat. The one I make uses almond flour and psyllium husk (which I grind from the fresh ingredients) and I top it with chicken, spinach, and homemade dairy-free cheese (haven’t found a good tomato sauce replacement recipe that I like).
The one thing I haven’t found a substitute for is cereal. I experimented last night cooking steel cut oats with homemade almond milk overnight, and eating it with strawberries this morning. I bolused for 35 grams of carbohydrates, and spiked to 10 mmol/L, so may have underestimated a bit. But it was so good. I’m going to experiment with making cauliflower fritters as another breakfast option, and tofu scramble, and maybe a granola for the cereal craving, although granola has never cut it for cereal for me. I crave that ultra-processed light cereal (not necessarily sweetened, as I never ate sweetened cereals growing up), that seems impossible to make an imitation copy at home.
I recently bought the Against All Grain cookbooks, which are paleo cookbooks. I’d been avoiding them because I figured that they’d use ingredients I couldn’t eat. But paleo actually seems pretty close to the diet I eat, except that paleo uses a lot of eggs, which I need to avoid. I’m just going through the book now to mark all the recipes I’m interested in trying. I have an utterly enormous stack of to-try recipes from various low-carb, vegan, and paleo cookbooks that I just need to find the time to get to.
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