A brand new book to help people with diabetes manage their diet but still enjoy good food has been launched.
Successful Diabetes, a UK company who specialise in diabetes education, will publish their new recipe book Carb-counted recipes for diabetes to provide healthy and enjoyable recipes to people with diabetes.
Successful Diabetes, set up in 2002 in Northampton, is run by former diabetes specialist nurses Rosie Walker and Jill Rodgers. They educate people about diabetes and aim to change health professionals' consultation styles through workshops, to help them work more effectively with people with diabetes.
They have provided over a decade of training for health professionals and have worked with international experts to develop effective approaches to education. They also work alongside with Diabetes UK the UK’s leading diabetes charity, to offer skills training for their volunteers and carers.
Their new recipe book has 70 recipes for tasty treats on offer from spicy eastern dishes to British classics. All the recipes (samples HERE) are simple and easy to prepare so you can choose something delicious to meet your needs each day.
If you prefer to eat out this new recipe book can also help you calculate the carbohydrate content of difficult foods, like Chinese food and pasta dishes, by applying the general principles of what a dish is likely to contain even if you haven't used the actual recipe.
Jill Rodgers, of Successful Diabetes, said: “The aim of this book is to provide people with diabetes with recipes that they can enjoy, in the safety of knowing that the nutritional values per serving have been worked out for them, so taking the hard work out of 'guesstimating' what they contain.”
She added that each recipe has the carbohydrate, calorie, fat and saturated fat content worked out per serving, which is important for people with diabetes to manage their condition.
Diets and Diabetes
Diabetes is a long-term condition which can occur at any age and is linked to the production of insulin. Insulin is either absent or works ineffectively depending on which type of diabetes a person has.
People with Type 1 Diabetes have a complete lack of insulin due to the beta cells in the pancreas being destroyed by the body’s own immune system. Those with Type 2 diabetes generally either don’t produce enough insulin or they have 'insulin resistance', where insulin is present but the body cells are resistant to it.
Many people with Type 1 diabetes are taught ‘carbohydrate counting’ so they can adjust their insulin dose to their food. The amount of fat in a dish also affects how quickly insulin is absorbed, so these recipes can help people with diabetes time their injections effectively.
For those with Type 2 diabetes, carbohydrate calculations aren't really used, and their main issue is usually weight control, so they can use the calorie and fat content to choose healthier recipes.
Jill said: “In our view, eating with diabetes isn’t any different from eating without diabetes. Yes, healthy eating is important, but it is important for all of us, and it's not a single meal but everyday food choices that make the biggest difference.”
Successful Diabetes also hopes to show that people with diabetes can eat a range of food and tackle potential psychological issues that can arise.
Jill added: “People with diabetes often get asked 'what have you eaten' as the first question when they get a high blood glucose reading. So they tend to have a bit of an abnormal fixation on food.
“They also often encounter what we call the 'diabetes police'. These are people who sit and eat with them and feel it's okay to critique what they have on their plate, so they often come out with defensive statements such as 'I don't normally eat this sort of food, it's just a treat' – when in fact they shouldn't have to face that type of thing.”
Psychological issues that can occur include:
- A diagnosis of diabetes can cause guilt - implications that it might have been prevented but has been self-inflicted by an unhealthy lifestyle. People with Type 1 diabetes are often questioned why they have the condition when they are not overweight, which is a misconception, about people with diabetes.
- A feeling of failure – diabetes is often described as condition of ‘failure’: failure of beta cells, failure of diet, failure of medication. This can often lead to the person themselves feeling a failure
- Health professional attitudes can be difficult - trying to make people change their behaviour and manage their diabetes better - with the best of intentions, can lead to frustration on both parts and may result in unhelpful consultations.
- Depression is more prevalent in people with diabetes than in people without, mainly due to the burden and often guilt faced daily.
Jill said: “There is also an increasing amount of UK health policy supporting what we at Successful Diabetes do - so recognising that it is actually quite difficult to live with a long term condition, that health professionals need to change the way they work, that people need help and support rather than criticism - so there is more pressure on health professionals to do things differently, and our training courses help them do that.”
Carb-counted recipes for diabetes is available to buy now from www.lulu.com
FOR SAMPLE RECIPES FOR PEOPLE WITH DIABETES CLICK HERE
For further information on Diabetes you can visit it in our Health section HERE
