April 18, 2007 in , , , , , , ,
([tag]Bhutanese[/tag] [tag]red rice[/tag] [tag]onigiri[/tag] with [tag]tofu[/tag] and [tag]split pea[/tag] puree, [tag]recipe[/tag] towards the end of this post) Today’s post is going to have multiple personalities. I am going to cover three main topics: [tag]Low Glycemic Cooking[/tag] and why I care A recipe for the Bhutanese red rice onigiri you see above A how-to on making onigiri with my new [tag]gadget[/tag] – an onigiri form Low Glycemic cooking and why I care As a general rule, I respect everyone’s right to their own eating styles. I care that people eat the way they need to and I am no one to nit-pick others for that. My story that follows is like many of you. I can not say I have any answers and I am not an expert. I am sharing this story so that you can understand how I got into my current predicament – I am [tag]pre-diabetic[/tag], according to my [tag]doctor[/tag]. Like most of the over-developed world, I have had to [tag]diet[/tag] from an early age. Even though I swam 4miles a day for two different swim teams, I still had to watch what I ate. When I decided that the swimming was more than I could bear anymore I decided to quit at the end of freshman year (4:30 am every day for the State National team and after school every day for the high school team, I never stopped smelling of chlorine and my hair was blond at it’s tips – I have blue black hair mind you). Then, the weight FLEW on my body. At the tender age of 16 I was on [tag]Nutri/System[/tag]. I lost 50 lbs and was down to 117 lbs (was 5’5″, have shrunk since then). I was sort of happy but my body wasn’t. When I went back to school that fall, I went back to regular food and the [tag]weight[/tag] came back. Over the many years since, I have done Nutri/System many times, [tag]Weight Watchers[/tag] many times, all the while, killing my [tag]metabolism[/tag]. The only times when I maintained a loss after these diets was when I was working out excessively, running 3 miles a day and barely eating. Inmore recent times, I have tried the [tag]Atkins[/tag] diet (I saw my grandma try it back in the early 80s with some success) and it worked but it was [tag]unsustainable[/tag]. After a while, you can honestly get sick and tired of butter, bacon, steak, eggs, essentially any high protein food. The worst thing about the [tag]low carb[/tag] high protein diet is the imbalance in something about one’s hydration (must be the ketosis) such that when one goes off of this diet, the weight (both water and fat) comes back quickly and with a depressing vengeance. This has always seemed unfair to me because my dad and my little sister literally eat what ever they wish (or wished, my dad has passed away) and never get or got fat. So within my own family, there is the object lesson that if one’s body is [tag]genetically predisposed[/tag] to accumulate fat, IT WILL. In recent times, I have had to make peace with my body and not let the fat twist my entire self-worth. That is a very hard process and Iwould not say I had complete success. Doing this food blog and also, especially, doing the [tag]food photography[/tag] has helped me in ways that may not be intuitive. When I do food photography (and the cooking for it), I am not eating the food and I am not craving it. (I have never been obsessive about eating food nor binged on it so I do not have that dynamic) When I am cooking, styling, and shooting, I appreciate the food as an art form, as shapes, composition, as artistic statement, as cultural statement, as a sharing of my identity or my process of discovery. Same thing with the writing. I can not help writing about food the way I do because my curiosity leads me to ask questions and learn, just for the sake of learning. This is a bit of overflow from the fact that and life is about learning. ([tag]Insulin[/tag] hexamer: – public domain) All of this is fine and dandy but my doctor recently witnessed one of my [tag]hypoglycemic[/tag] episodes (have had them all my life, thin orfat), tested my [tag]blood sugar[/tag] which was fine, and so he sent out blood tests for something called the [/tag] ([tag]hemoglobin[/tag] [tag]A1c[/tag] [tag]test[/tag] or hemoglobin [tag]glycosylation[/tag] – an [tag]assay[/tag] that determines the amount of [tag]sugar[/tag]s that have been stuck on the hemoglobin molecules.. this is indicative of the levels of sugar in one’s [tag]blood[/tag] over a few months). The following is a down to earth description of this assay. “Sugar in the bloodstream can become attached to the hemoglobin (the part of the cell that carries oxygen) in [tag]red blood cell[/tag]s. This process is called glycosylation (pronounced gli-kos-a-lay’-shen). Once the sugar is attached, it stays there for the life of the red blood cell, which is about 120 days. The higher the level of blood sugar, the more sugar attaches to red blood cells. The hemoglobin A1c test measures the amount of sugar sticking to the hemoglobin in the red blood cells. Results are given inpercentages.” For those of you who are more scientifically oriented, try this abstract: “Glucose reacts nonenzymatically with the NH2-terminal amino acid of the beta chain of human hemoglobin by way of a ketoamine linkage, resulting in the formation of hemoglobin AIc. Other minor components appear to be adducts of glucose 6-phosphate and fructose 1,6-diphosphate. These hemoglobin s are formed slowly and continuously throughout the 120-day life-span of the red cell. There is a two- to threefold increase in hemoglobin AIc in the red cells of patients with diabetes mellitus. By providing an integrated measurement of blood glucose, hemoglobin AIc is useful in assessing the degree of diabetic control. Furthermore, this hemoglobin is a useful model of nonenzymatic glycosylation of other proteins that may be involved in the long-term complications of the disease.” Mine came back 6.2, which seems to indicate pre-diabetes and a cause of concern for my doc. I can tell you that I have figured Iwas [tag]pre-diabetic[/tag] for a long time but every time I asked for tests, they came back negative (they never gave me the glycosylation test before). My doc has told me that I have three months to control the blood sugars and if I do not, I will have to go on meds. I have a natural dislike for meds so it was not good news! I know that [tag]diabetes[/tag] is absolutely nothing to mess around with and I want to reverse this pre-diabetic thing with whole foods and moderate exercise. Let me tell you though, when you start looking at what is recommended for the diabetic diet you find one commonality: there is NO [tag]consensus[/tag]. I also found that diet recommendations for diabetes and pre-diabetes seems to be a dumping ground for ALL of the vague advice, all that stuff you have heard over the years and found didn’t work for you. Things like: Eat food X because so and so study says to! Yikes. Things like: eat only low fat foods, eat only fish, eat TONS of [tag]omega-3[/tag]s, eat no
