Good puds for diabetics?!

[stuart1919]

Hi all. I'm a baker, not suffering from diabetes, though I have a different problem with eating fat (faulty upper stomach valve). The point of my thread is - whilst I see plenty of foods in my local supermarket labelled "low fat", I see virtually nothing good to eat with low sugar (and fat), suitable for diabetics.

How do you sufferers EAT without spiking your insulin?? I am thinking of developing a brand new range of delicious puds with this Paraguyan sweet herb spoken a lot about in USA. I am certain I can put together some fantastic low sugar, low fat (only unsaturated) puds and get them out there into the market - but am I reading all this wrong? Are you all satisfied with what you can buy in the supermarkets already?. I need some feedback to get started - what do you all think? Stuart

 

[trophywench]

It ain't just the sugar - you can easily substitute sweetener - that bits easy. It's the carbs in the flour that causes the biggest prob and it's a matter of experimenting with eg ground almonds to substitute for that.

Or of course Soya flour, but that ain't simple to just swap to either.

Most commercially produced cakey products are FAR too sweet for me these days after 40+ years anyway TBH.

Best thing is to wean yourself off em since they certainly aren't staple foods and then it ain't a problem. Still shedloads of stuff to eat. And then when you occasionally do 'just fancy' something - it's special and a treat.

 

[stuart1919]

Thanks for that. I thought however that most of the synthetic sweeteners still created insulin spikes? if wholemeal flour is used, is that a help also? I am interested in what you say, because when I do tasting events for my products (cakes and puds) round the country, I notice every time how many decline because they tell me they are diabetics. Hence my interest in you guys as a food group to try to produce products for spec?ally for you. If there ain't a problem, I certainly won't try to fix it!

 

[Northerner]

Hi Stuart, welcome to the forum 🙂 Personally, I just eat what non-diabetics eat, in moderation. I am on insulin so I can simply match my doses to the carbohydrate in the food. I may also need to adjust the timing of my injections so the insulin peak more closely matches the food digesting.

Generally, it would be worth looking at producing low GI (glycaemic index) stuff, and what would certainly be helpful would be to include an accurate carb count of each item. Often, for freshly-baked foods, it's virtually impossible to guess at the amount of carbs in (for example) a chocolate muffin.

 

[stuart1919]

Great feedback - thank you! Presumably this is why there are so few specialist products for diabetics - you are all well disciplined because you have to be, and a treat isn't a treat unless it tastes fantastic (harder to achieve with low sugar, sweet carbs and fat etc).

 

[Northerner]

Great feedback - thank you! Presumably this is why there are so few specialist products for diabetics - you are all well disciplined because you have to be, and a treat isn't a treat unless it tastes fantastic (harder to achieve with low sugar, sweet carbs and fat etc).

I have a theory that so-called 'diabetic' foods are produced so that relatives and friends think they are doing their diabetic friends or relations a favour by giving them as gifts etc. However, they usually have a price premium and whilst they may not contain sugar, the sweeteners used may cause gastric problems. Sweeteners are still carbs, but they are in fact 'left-handed' versions of sugar (molecularly-speaking!) and are not processed by the body in the same way as ordinary carbs so they don't spike blood sugar levels 🙂