Beware commercially processed food.

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I normally make my own curries from scratch and use only ingredients which I can tolerate. I take them with a small portion of sliced baby potatoes cooked through the curry or with a small portion of brown rice, cooked, frozen then thoroughly defrosted and reboiled. Occasionally I have a popadum. The effect on BG is normally very satisfactory, rarely rising by 1 after two hours, usually less. Today I made a curry with the usual ingredients but added two tablespoons of commercial Balti paste. I had it with the usual brown rice and was taken aback to find BG had gone from 5.4 to 9.6 after two hours. Lesson learned.

 

[trophywench]

Just had a look at Patak's Balti paste - they say the serving size is 36g weight and that there's 5g carb in that - so not huge. Sharwood's portion of theirs is 140g weight and is 10g carb. Gawd knows what's in it that has carbs.

The latter 10g CHO would send my BG up by 3.0 so the 4.2 yours increased by doesn't sound untoward really.

 

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Just had a look at Patak's Balti paste - they say the serving size is 36g weight and that there's 5g carb in that - so not huge. Sharwood's portion of theirs is 140g weight and is 10g carb. Gawd knows what's in it that has carbs.

The latter 10g CHO would send my BG up by 3.0 so the 4.2 yours increased by doesn't sound untoward really.

Hi Jenny, I’m not sure how the carbs relate to Type1 but comparing my two curries, I am surprised at the significant difference in BG effect. Curry 1 - Chicken 0 carbs. / sauce ( onions, tomatoes, celery, red peppers, spices, stock ). 36 carbs. / 100gms (cooked) brown rice ( frozen/recooked ) 30 carbs / and 1 papadum 6 carbs. Total carbs 72.
Yesterday’s culprit - basically the same meat/sauce contents but with two tablespoons Balti paste 6 carbs instead of my own spice combination. Same amount of brown rice but no papadum.
Curry 1 - 6.6 rising to 7.3 after two hours.
Curry 2 - 5.4 rising to 9.6 after two hours.

Maybe I am overlooking something but it doesn’t make sense to me.

 

[trophywench]

Well I was working on the assumption that the extra carbs had done it and whatever the original meal carbs had been exceeded by was the reason. ie the previous amount of carbs was your limit.

Personally though because 'stuff' nobody can explain just happens sometimes for no apparent reason - I'd leave it a bit and go back to the previous recipe - and then try the paste again. If the same happens again then bin the rest of the paste. But I bet it doesn't - it will be different cos that's diabetes.

Or wherever you got the carb count for the paste from, is fibbing. Or one of the individual ingredients of the paste simply does not sit happily into your body - that happens too. Or the moon isn't in the seventh house or Jupiter doesn't align with Mars …...

 

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Well I was working on the assumption that the extra carbs had done it and whatever the original meal carbs had been exceeded by was the reason. ie the previous amount of carbs was your limit.

Personally though because 'stuff' nobody can explain just happens sometimes for no apparent reason - I'd leave it a bit and go back to the previous recipe - and then try the paste again. If the same happens again then bin the rest of the paste. But I bet it doesn't - it will be different cos that's diabetes.

Or wherever you got the carb count for the paste from, is fibbing. Or one of the individual ingredients of the paste simply does not sit happily into your body - that happens too. Or the moon isn't in the seventh house or Jupiter doesn't align with Mars …...

Somehow I don’t think the extra carbs from the paste tipped me over my limit, but you may be correct. I think your suggestion that something in the paste was the ‘culprit’. Bottom line is that none of my own curries has ever given me an unsatisfactory spike, so the paste is for the bin ........ ah the vagaries and unpredictability of diabetes.

 

[Grannylorraine]

This is an interesting discussion, I eat the same thing for breakfast most days at work, 125g natural yog and 50g mixed berries, all weighed out, but the difference in my post bg levels can be astounding, from being lower than my fastin/pre levels, up to a rise of about 3. I can only think other factors have come in to play here.

I am however learning, to check all labels as I bought some pre-made spice mixes and then discovered they had sugar in them.

 

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As far as I can calculate, I am positive that my total homemade spice mixture, which I use in all my curries, actually has more carbs. than the portion of commercially produced paste, I used, so you would think that the paste might cause less of a problem. On the contrary, I am convinced that there was something in the paste which caused the spike. There is certainly a long list of ingredients but none to set alarm bells ringing. Bottom line seems to be that the combination of these ingredients was ‘harmful’ to my BG.

 

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Just to consolidate my suspicions on this issue, I had a homemade lamb curry with 100 gms. cooked weight brown rice and one papadum. For good measure I had a low carb homemade drop scone with 2 large strawberries and double cream. Pre prandial Reading was 6.2 and 7.4 after two hours.