@lh378, if you’ve been relatively restrictive of your carb intake up to now, it’s not surprising you’d get less fiber. In general, fiber tends to come packaged with other carbs or in starchy foods.
That said, I’m not low carb and it’s still tough to get that fiber in! I think I get maybe 10 g of fiber on a bad day and closer to 30 on a good day. The thing is, not every fruit and veggie in our industrialized world has a ton of fiber. Artichokes have a lot, for instance, but I don’t think bell peppers have much.
The very fiber-rich foods include things like beans, lentils, nuts and grains (such as oats). In the veggie realm, artichoke, beets, carrots, avocado, squash are good and when it comes to fruit, a lot of the thorny, seedy berries like blackberries and raspberries and things like figs. None of those are super low carb though, and the ones that are low carb, it would take a ton of volume to get to that fiber requirement (broccoli is a good source but you don’t typically eat like 3 bowls of it!)
I read somewhere that people in East Africa from a hunter-gatherer tribe who eat a very high carb diet nevertheless are eating between 150 and 100g of fiber a day.
There are lots of low-carb fibre sources, such as flax, hemp, and chia seeds, as well as things like psyllium husk. I tend to eat a ton of fibre when I’m eating lower-carb (like 10-30 grams per meal) than when eating more carbs.
Sure, there are low-carb fiber sources. But I think the assumption most people have is “if I eat fruits and veggies, they’ll have lots of fiber and I don’t have to worry, I’m covered.” But that is not the case. Most foods that are not supplements, even fruits and veggies, don’t have tons of fiber.
Yes- I’ve noticed that too! Beans are high carb, contain fiber, protein. Except for the high carb, I think beans are a pretty good food group. Nuts, my favorite one is walnuts, are almost perfect in that they are satisfying, tasty, filling and are ok for carbs and decent fiber, protein for the carbs. A quarter cup is pretty filling. Nuts are high fat - that may be a downside. Although the high fat is what makes it so satisfying!
Some days, I just have walnuts for breakfast. Although, I wouldn’t eat a cup of nuts - that would be too much to eat. As you pointed out - how much broccoli does/can a person eat realistically?
I add flaxseed meal, or hemp to yogurt. I don’t know of other ways to incorporate these seeds to foods/meals. I don’t bake, and don’t do smoothies (I’ve heard that people add the seeds to their baked products and smoothies). Are there creative imaginative ways to eat flaxseed + other seeds that I’m missing out on?
I don’t eat yogurt (haven’t found a safe dairy-free one, and haven’t dove into trying to make my own). I put ground, toasted golen flaxseed on my oatmeal (I do steel cut oats slow cooked overnight). I also use flaxseed and chia seed as an egg replacer when I do baking. There are probably lots of ways to use them. My meals as of late have been very basic without much baking or even cooking. During the summer when I’m not working, I plan on experimenting with a lot of new recipes. (I say that every year and then always end up working or doing school, but this year there definitely won’t be anything).
What is steel cut oats? (The only oatmeal I am familiar with is Quaker Oats oatmeal. I used to eat it, but have not in about 6+ years.)
ETA
I just GOOGLED steel cut oats and came across the below. I’m pretty sure that I’ve only eaten the instant/rolled. They were all very mushy and even the plain ones raised my BG by a lot very quickly.
Yes, rolled oats do get very mushy. Steel cut oats don’t get nearly as mushy (although slow-cooking them overnight does cook them down quite a bit). I need double the insulin for rolled oats than I do for steel cut oats. I also prefer the texture of steel cut oats. And they are supposed to have a lower glycemic index because they’re not as processed.
Also, I’m trying to lower my after-breakfast spike, and I’m too lazy to pre-bolus. I also want to incorporate more protein into my breakfasts. So tonight I’m going to try a steel cut oat and hemp heart mixture (probably half and half) cooked as porridge overnight (with homemade almond milk). I’ll see how that tastes and affects my blood sugar.
The problem we’ve found with some of the dairy-free ones (like coconut milk-based) is that they end up being mostly sugars/carbs, with some fat but minimal protein, which defeats some of the desired function of them. I can’t eat much yogurt right now (cultured foods typically mean elevated histamines), so it’s moot for me, but my partner tries to limit dairy and has sampled a bunch of the coconut and oat yogurts (she can’t eat nuts, so none of those).
For some of us, like me, I’m trying to have decent BG by lower carbing, not LCHF. Does it mean that it’s basically a veggie and protein diet? Sure there’s some carbs and fats…but looking at a plate, it would look like mostly veggies with protein.
Yup, I agree with the above. There aren’t too many carbs when I eat green leafy plants, and animal.
Processed, packaged, “modern, convenience” food pack a lot of carbohydrates into a serving. It’s mind boggling how many carbs are in, for example, Trader Joe Pad Thai!
What about roots and fruits? Potatoes, fruits seem natural to me. Yet they are so Carby! There are proponents of plant based diets. I believe that they advocate plants and fruits, no animals. That could be a lot of carbs. How do the plant based diet folks manage the number of carbs? For those on a plant based diet, are you eating a large number of carbs, like in excess of 150+ g carbs, maybe 200+?
I definitely noticed a huge difference in blood sugar management between eating commercially-processed products and my own homemade recipes. Crackers that I buy, even those with few and clearly-listed ingredients, spike my blood sugar far more than homemade crackers with similar ingredients. But it may just be that I eat more of the former than the latter, because I know with the latter I’ll have to put a bunch of work into making more rather than just buying more. So I savour what I make more than what I buy. Or maybe it’s that the commercially-processed foods are just far more processed (mixed, heated, etc.) with industrial equipment than anything I could do at home, and maybe that changes how quickly they’re digested.
I am still trying to find a balance with carbohydrates and control. When I was eating a truly low-carbohydrate diet, my control was a bit better, but not night-and-day better. But I really did not enjoy eating that way without dairy and eggs (and I’m not a huge red meat fan, and avoid processed meats). Eating more carbohydrates, I enjoy eating a lot more, including fruits, which I just have a hard time seeing as “bad” even though they do contain carbohydrates. Part of it is a question of control, too. Some people see ultra-tight control as really important. But I am not convinced that eating a diet I hate is worth it just to get an A1c that’s a few points lower than what I’d get while eating a diet I like. But I am continually trying to move my diet towards unprocessed foods, which is not hard because I already ate few process products. The things I’m finding hardest are things like pasta, that are difficult to make at home. But I find my blood sugar is quite reasonable eating the chickpea and lentil pasta I buy along with homemade, dairy-free, cauliflower-based alfredo sauce, even though it contains something like 60 grams of carbohydrates in a serving. To me, with measuring and pre-bolusing, whatever slow spike may happen from that meal is worth it compared to depriving myself because I can’t find any low-carbohydrates, unprocessed alternative (spaghetti squash is fine, and I do enjoy that, but it’s just not pasta).
I do plan on looking into making my own pasta at some point, but it also comes down to space for me. Only so much room for various pieces of equipment in my tiny apartment. I did recently buy a Vitamix, and love that thing, use it daily and totally worth the cost and space.
Yes…I agree. Spaghetti squash tastes just a little sweet, doesn’t it?
Yup, me too.I too have a hard time seeing fruits as bad. I don’t want to have an unhealthy relationship with foods because I’m a diabetic. I’m not aware of many people who have to count, measure, weigh foods like we do because we have to adjust insulin dosage. Afrezza makes it a little easier. Some estimating is still required- is it the 4 unit or the 8 unit?
Yeah, and a low-carbohydrate diet, for me, didn’t eliminate the need to weigh and measure… It actually made it even worse, because I had to account for protein and do complicated combo boluses to cover it properly.
Spaghetti squash doesn’t taste sweet to me. Maybe it would if I were eating a really low-carbohydrate diet. But compared to other fruits and vegetables I eat (strawberries, sweet potato, apples, oranges) I’d say spaghetti squash is one of the less sweet-tasting ones.
I agree. I want to clarify : before tasting spaghetti squash, I expected it to taste like pasta. After tasting it for the first time my reaction was : Spaghetti squash didn’t taste like pasta. Compared to pasta, spaghetti squash appears to taste sweet. Does that make sense?
It seems like both LCHF and HCLF (high carb low fat), when followed strictly, can essentially hack the body’s metabolism in different ways to produce tight control. LCHF does it by consuming little glucose-producing foods and (for some) inducing low levels of ketosis; at the same time, it tends to increase insulin resistance/carb sensitivity, so that if you normally do LCHF and then eat a bunch of carbs, you’ll spike a lot, and thus assume carbs just do that. In contrast, HCLF works by limiting fats and dramatically reducing insulin resistance/carb sensitivity—people who do that plant-based diet report being able to eat lots of carbs with much much lower insulin: carb ratios because of that. However, if they increase fat consumption, that will stop, so lots of plant-based foods many vegans enjoy are off the table or severely limited (nuts, oils, olives, avocados, coconut, etc).
Both of these approaches seem to work, although it’s possible it may vary by individual which works best and also causes fewer other problems (nutritional deficiencies, inflammation, strain on body systems etc). They also only work super well in as much as people stick to the restrictions. Personally, I am both uninterested in and unable to restrict my eating sufficiently to do either, thanks to other considerable dietary restrictions. Also even before I had my current restrictions, I liked variety in food too much to do either full time.
I find the same, with almost all products. Bread is an obvious one, but canned baked beans send me higher than homemade, and same with packaged flatbread crackers, pre-cooked polenta, canned soups, even relatively low-carb varieties like cream of mushroom. The one I will never understand is canned chickpeas versus dried ones I soak and cook myself. If it’s packaged, I can pretty much guarantee I will need a higher or longer bolus.
