Food Advice For Prediabetics - Help Please!

[TheClockworkDodo]

My Mum's neighbour has been told she's prediabetic, and she doesn't know what she can/can't eat or drink, so Mum asked if I could do her a little chart.

She is elderly (90, I think), lives alone, has various other medical conditions, and I don't think she is up to doing much cooking, so I want this to be very basic - no stir fries or cauliflower rice! - I just want her to understand that it's not a good idea to live on pre-packed cereal, ready meals, and sugary squash. She's very petite so I'm sure she has no need to lose weight.

I also don't think she should test as she is already a bit obsessive about medical things, so I can imagine her testing every five minutes and panicking any time she got a reading over 7.

So, bearing that in mind, here is my chart so far. I've divided it into "Very good" (pretty much carb-free), "Good" (low carb); "Fair in small portions" (moderate carb), "Bad" (high carb); and "Very bad" (suitable to use for hypos!). I know some of the "fair" things aren't suitable for all diabetics, but she is prediabetic and I don't want to make this too difficult for her.

If anyone thinks I've got something in the wrong category (I don't mean things you personally can't eat but you know other diabetics can, like apples or oats, I mean glaring howlers) please let me know. And if you can think of anything else I can add without making it too much longer or more complicated, please let me know about that too! I've been trying hard to think of quick easy meals a very elderly person can do which aren't ready meals and I can't think of much, other than tins of soup. Does anyone know of a range of ready meals which are low carb?

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

Hmm, sorry, I don't know why the chart has come out so small - you may need to do control+ a couple of times to read it ...
If any admin are reading who might know how to make it bigger/clearer, please do!

 

[Contused]

Hmm, sorry, I don't know why the chart has come out so small - you may need to do control+ a couple of times to read it ...
If any admin are reading who might know how to make it bigger/clearer, please do!

Is this any clearer?

 

[karloc]

Tic-Tacs?? They are like 98% sugar 😱

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

Thanks, @Contused - not really clearer, but certainly bigger for those who can't read small print!

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

Tic-Tacs?? They are like 98% sugar 😱

But one Tic-tac, which is all most people would eat at a time, is about half a gram of carbs, so they are great if you are used to sweets and want to wean yourself off worse ones! I was also thinking of her other medical conditions, and I suspect she's likely to eat peppermints to settle her stomach, so wanted to suggest the lowest carb ones I could think of.

 

[karloc]

Really? I don't think I have ever had just 1 tic-tac, maybe just one box
Maybe that's just me 😱

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

I did put them in the "small portions" section, but maybe I should make it "1 or 2 Tic-Tacs" to be clearer!

 

[AndBreathe]

Whilst I eat LC, I'm not a full disciple of Diet Doc, but he does have some useful resources on there, including this printable chart: https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb#leaflet

He also has "full lists of.....", if you have a click around the site.

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

Thanks, AndBreathe - I think that chart would be a bit overwhelming for an elderly lady who isn't up to cooking though, and I very much doubt she's going to go very low carb, but I'll have a look through it and see if there's anything I can add to my own chart for her.

 

[Ditto]

If it was me I'd just say eat like you did during the war. The recent one not the last lot.

 

[Drummer]

As a formerly full blown type two, I would not eat anything in the 'fair' category other than small amounts of very dark chocolate occasionally. I don't know of any meat I should not eat.
No sunflower oil or spreads, either.
As she is prediabetic she might get away with some high carb foods - but their being brown doesn't make them any better, in my experience.

 

[rebrascora]

I think the chart you produced is great but at 90 years old is it really even worth the worry/effort for her to adjust her diet if she is only prediabetic. That may seem a bit callous but you surely have to balance quality of life with longevity and at her age it just seems sad to possibly limit things she might enjoy in the hope of possibly prolonging it a little more.

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

I know what you mean, @rebrascora and I'm trying to go for a balance between that and the advice I'd usually give, which is more or less what @Drummer said. The thing is, she is really going to worry about it if she doesn't have some information (and is probably going to eat all the wrong things thinking they are good for her - eg forcing herself to eat more fruit than she would have done before, the way some people do when they're first told they're diabetic or prediabetic, thinking it's good for them), but at the same time I wouldn't want to say not to eat the things in the "fair" group, because if she's anything like my Mum she's probably quite old-fashioned in her eating habits.

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

I've looked through the site @AndBreathe linked to, which was useful for drinks - I've added dry wine, sweet wine, milkshakes and smoothies to the good, fair, and bad sections respectively and I've also added onions to the very good section and put 1-2 before Tic-Tacs!

Anyone know anything about ready meals? That's the main thing I'd really like to know more about. I don't want to stick all ready meals in the bad section if there are some low carb ones. I don't eat ready meals at all, so I've no idea - I know they're not generally very healthy, but thinking of what Barbara said, if they're the main thing she eats I don't want her to think she has to give them up completely if there are low carb varieties available.

 

[rebrascora]

I don't know how able she is but omelettes are simple to cook and really good in so many respects, so I would promote those. Quiche is not too bad a choice as the pastry is only on the base, so quiche and salad and coleslaw might be an easy meal for her. You could recommend she cuts the crust off it and feed it to the birds instead, to reduce the carb content. Buying ready made cauliflower cheese and having it with ham or sausages might be something she would enjoy. Yes there will be a thickening agent in the cheese sauce but she is only prediabetic, so it is not critical and if she doesn't have potatoes with it then it should come in reasonably low carb. You can buy tubs of carrot and swede mash, so again that is something she could have with sausages or mince. I know you were probably thinking of a complete ready meal but I am struggling to think of any other than to encourage her to leave half of the potato, pasta or rice in any ready meal she buys. I am guessing that a 90 year old woman probably struggles to finish a normal ready meal anyway.

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

Thanks Barbara, and sorry - meant to reply before, but brain not working 😳
Yes, I thought cauliflower cheese would be a good option too, but I'm not going to see her to speak to, so just want to send the chart and a little note, so can't really give her suggestions for individual meals. I think I'll have to look at a few different ready meals and get an idea of the range of carbs in them and then say "go for ones under this amount of carbs if you can, and avoid ones over that amount of carbs" or something like that.

 

[belugalad]

I think the chart you produced is great but at 90 years old is it really even worth the worry/effort for her to adjust her diet if she is only prediabetic. That may seem a bit callous but you surely have to balance quality of life with longevity and at her age it just seems sad to possibly limit things she might enjoy in the hope of possibly prolonging it a little more.

Very true that,she would also want to keep an eye on not getting constipated with too much of a change

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

Yes, I hadn't thought of that.

Anyway, I've looked at a few ready meals on different sites, and it's quite an eye-opener to see how much they vary (and how many of the so-called healthy eating options are really high in carbs!). I've taken ready meals out of the chart, and put in a note to say that if she looks at total carbs per portion, if it's under 20 it's good and if it's over 50 it's bad, and anything in between is OK for a pre-diabetic, but the lower the better. Most of the ones I saw seem to be in the 40s, but I found several in the 30s and a couple in the 20s, so hopefully that will help her avoid the Sainsbury's "healthy" ones which are about 60!

 

[Veenorthants]

We had a lady on our diabetic course who was 93 years young, still quite active and still drove, the dietician said to her at 93 she really shouldn't make too many changes as it could cause other problems at their age. She just needed to be mindful and make small changes i.e white to brown bread, smaller amounts of potatoes or starchy foods.