Convenience Foods

[Deleted member 21371]

It is early days yet - don't worry as soon as you begin to sort out what you can and can't eat things will become clearer.
I have a grill which can be set to the level of cooking required and you just let it warm up, put the food in and it 'peeps' when it is done - the halogen oven can be set to the temperature required and the time - up to an hour.
There is a Tefal air fryer - tip in a pack of chicken thighs and set it to go for 40 minutes, take out the chicken and keep it warm in the halogen oven whilst you cook some stir fry in the Tefal device - very simple.
Most type twos will spike eating potatoes, however they are treated. I use swede instead, or cauliflower, or celeriac as they are lower carb.
I set my limit at 10 percent carbohydrate - that isn't 10 grams per item.

You do realise simply banging on about cooking from scratch incessantly isn't the answer?
The op has made that very clear.
Please can we answer the post?
However, I do agree on the ten percent.
That puts a lot of ready meals in the frame.

 

[silentsquirrel]

When away from home, instead of a meal dealfrom Tesco (sandwich, crisps and drink?) you could get cooked chicken from the hot counter or cold from the cooked meats section plus a salad, preferably without pasta. Any cooked meats eg ham, small packs of cheese. A pack of egg mayo sandwich filler?

No need to go really low carb all at once, perhaps aim for 120g to 150g per day, and then reduce further later on if that isn't working well enough.

 

[Docb]

Hi @jenpet. I see you are at "risk of diabetes" and to me that means a few tweaks in your diet should be enough to get on track. No need to go for a very low carb approach, something very difficult if your circumstances mean that cooking stuff from scratch is not a good option. The problem is that answering your question about what ready meals you can eat is difficult because there are so many, they are so variable and different people like different things. The saving grace is that ready meals all have nutritional values on the packaging and this includes the carbohydrate content.

My thought for you is that you take on board the idea that at the end of the day you need to reduce your carbohydrate intake and rather than aim for a low carb level (not easy with ready meals) you look for a reduction from what you eat now.

One way into this is to get a notebook and pencil and write down what you are eating now along with their carb contents. You will need to get to grips with labelling to make sure that you have recorded the amount you have eaten because sometimes carbs are recorded by amount per 100g, and you will need to look at your portion size and work out how many carbs are in it. You need to include any snacks and drinks you might have between meals.

After a week, look at the list and see where the high carb items are. Swap them for things on your list which have lower carb contents. When you are out shopping look for new things which have carb contents lower than the high carb levels of the things you are trying to eliminate. That way you can slowly and steadily reform your diet into something you can continue with.

Personally I am not keen on suggesting magic numbers (less than 10% carbs in meals or less than so many carbs per day) as a way forward for everybody. You have to find out what works for you and fits into your way of life. Being at "risk of diabetes" means you do not have to panic, so take your time to make adjustments to reduce your carb intake and see if they result in a lower HbA1c result next time you have a blood test.

What sort of ready meals do you go for now?

 

[Drummer]

You do realise simply banging on about cooking from scratch incessantly isn't the answer?
The op has made that very clear.
Please can we answer the post?
However, I do agree on the ten percent.
That puts a lot of ready meals in the frame.

I can't really class 'open lid, put in prepared whatever, close lid and set timer' as cooking from scratch.
I do have to turn over the joint if using the halogen oven but the the Tefal air fryer even stirs the food for me.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Hi @jenpet. I see you are at "risk of diabetes" and to me that means a few tweaks in your diet should be enough to get on track. No need to go for a very low carb approach, something very difficult if your circumstances mean that cooking stuff from scratch is not a good option. The problem is that answering your question about what ready meals you can eat is difficult because there are so many, they are so variable and different people like different things. The saving grace is that ready meals all have nutritional values on the packaging and this includes the carbohydrate content.

My thought for you is that you take on board the idea that at the end of the day you need to reduce your carbohydrate intake and rather than aim for a low carb level (not easy with ready meals) you look for a reduction from what you eat now.

One way into this is to get a notebook and pencil and write down what you are eating now along with their carb contents. You will need to get to grips with labelling to make sure that you have recorded the amount you have eaten because sometimes carbs are recorded by amount per 100g, and you will need to look at your portion size and work out how many carbs are in it. You need to include any snacks and drinks you might have between meals.

After a week, look at the list and see where the high carb items are. Swap them for things on your list which have lower carb contents. When you are out shopping look for new things which have carb contents lower than the high carb levels of the things you are trying to eliminate. That way you can slowly and steadily reform your diet into something you can continue with.

Personally I am not keen on suggesting magic numbers (less than 10% carbs in meals or less than so many carbs per day) as a way forward for everybody. You have to find out what works for you and fits into your way of life. Being at "risk of diabetes" means you do not have to panic, so take your time to make adjustments to reduce your carb intake and see if they result in a lower HbA1c result next time you have a blood test.

What sort of ready meals do you go for now?

The majority of ready meals are around 10% carbs now.
There has been a lot of change in the ready meal market in the past few years, and a focus on the added sugars.
There isn't actually that much difference across the board, even cauliflower cheese and chicken jambalaya with rice are both around the 9% mark.
But you are certainly right on keeping a diary, recording the portion sizes, and watch out for the odd meal that may slip through the net. (A Chicago town deep pan microwaveable pizza is around 30g)

 

[Leadinglights]

Sometimes it is not the actual meals that are the problem, it is the extras that people add on and the in between meal snacks that are the going to add to the daily carb total.
The number of people who you see order pizza and chips or garlic bread, all high carb, whereas pizza and a salad or a few chips with a steak and salad might well be fine.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Sometimes it is not the actual meals that are the problem, it is the extras that people add on and the in between meal snacks that are the going to add to the daily carb total.
The number of people who you see order pizza and chips or garlic bread, all high carb, whereas pizza and a salad or a few chips with a steak and salad might well be fine.

I can't find a steak and chips, but the roast beef dinner (Sliced beef in beef gravy with roast potatoes, vegetables and Yorkshire pudding) is still only around 11g of carbs per 100g.

 

[jenpet]

If you go onto the Tesco website all the food has nutritional information on it.
Look at the carbs and anything that is fewer than 5g per 100g is pretty good.
Ready meals usually have rice and pasta and stuff added which pushes the carb content too high.

Tinned food is a bit easier to manage.
Tinned Danish ham, Premium cured chicken breast, corned beef, tuna, sardines - very low carbs.
Tinned hearts of palm, chinese bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, green beans, mushrooms - very low carbs.
Jarred gherkins - Dawtona, Stockwell pickled onions, Pickled eggs - vey low carbs

Mayonnaise - Hellmans Organic,
Cheese - most cheeses are ok - check each one - the harder the cheese the lower the carbs and many are almost zero

Very low carb vegetables - celeriac, cauliflower, swede, green beans, mushrooms.
Very low carb fruit - blackberries, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb

Double cream is your friend.
Zero carb sweetener that is least problematic - erythritol

If you can get hold of chia seeds (amazon if Tesco is out of stock) you can make jam by nuking a few berries in the microwave and then stirring in erythritol and chia seeds and then letting it cool and thicken. You can then have this in high fat Greek yoghurt.

I keep my carbs to fewer than 20g per day and I find that quite easy these days.

Konjac rice/pasta/noodles ( zero carbs) can be bought on Amazon and then you can use these instead of the carby ones.

 

[jenpet]

I am Jennie & it is my husband who started this thread & asked me to take over now. I understand you are all being helpful. Some of the advice is contradicting what is said on various Diabetic websites. for example: Avoid pickles, tinned veg, processed meats, pasta & pizza unless they are whole meal., I read sweetcorn is ok to eat, then another site did not recommend it. I also read that if potatoes are soaked in for an hour most of the starch will be out of them. I have not found any labels with carbs as low as 10g per 100g. For example: Gravy granules are 61.6g per100g. It is all so confusing. Until we see the practice nurse next week we remain confused.Thank you all again for your help & advice.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

I am Jennie & it is my husband who started this thread & asked me to take over now. I understand you are all being helpful. Some of the advice is contradicting what is said on various Diabetic websites. for example: Avoid pickles, tinned veg, processed meats, pasta & pizza unless they are whole meal., I read sweetcorn is ok to eat, then another site did not recommend it. I also read that if potatoes are soaked in for an hour most of the starch will be out of them. I have not found any labels with carbs as low as 10g per 100g. For example: Gravy granules are 61.6g per100g. It is all so confusing. Until we see the practice nurse next week we remain confused.Thank you all again for your help & advice.

The gravy granules thing is down to wording.
The granules themselves are 60g per 100g as sold.
That's just the granules.
In reality, you put (well I do) 4 teaspoons full into the jug, and add water.
So, that's actually around 4g per 100g of actual gravy as a liquid.

 

[Docb]

I am Jennie & it is my husband who started this thread & asked me to take over now. I understand you are all being helpful. Some of the advice is contradicting what is said on various Diabetic websites. for example: Avoid pickles, tinned veg, processed meats, pasta & pizza unless they are whole meal., I read sweetcorn is ok to eat, then another site did not recommend it. I also read that if potatoes are soaked in for an hour most of the starch will be out of them. I have not found any labels with carbs as low as 10g per 100g. For example: Gravy granules are 61.6g per100g. It is all so confusing. Until we see the practice nurse next week we remain confused.Thank you all again for your help & advice.

As I have said before, if I were in charge, I would ban the use of percentages. It is the amount of carb that you should be thinking about and not the percentage carb in any given product. Your comment about gravy granules illustrates the point brilliantly. Yes, they are 60% carbohydrate (sounds horrendous and totally unacceptable) but unless you are really weird and drink the resultant gravy by the bucketful you will only have a gram or two in the gravy on your meat and veg. The amount of carb involved can can be ignored.

The soaking potatoes thing I have never got to the bottom of so all I am interested in is the weight of raw spud. Experience tells me the amount of spud I can cope with and I can judge that by eye. Doing anything else, like adjusting for type of spud, age of spud and method of cooking is just is not worth bothering with.

The fundamentals are pretty straightforward. Understand them and trust your own judgement is better approach than trying to reconcile all the conflicting advice you will find on the interweb. Life is too short for that.