Note: I’m starting my list with luxury foods because I want to make a point that low carb does not equal hardship. Instead, I believe that enjoyment makes a low carb diet sustainable. I suggest embracing culinary fat and splurging whenever you can on luxury foods.
Cream – Low Carb Foods, Luxury, #4
Could anything be more luxurious? The word ‘cream’ signifies the best or something special – la crème de la crème, the cream of the crop, the cat that got the cream. Give me decadent Irish cream, and I’m like that cat. In Irish, ‘cream’ is ‘uachtar,’ and our president is ‘Uachtarán.’ I imagine the president has an abundance of luscious, thick Irish cream in the presidential fridge.
I do too – cream makes up for many foods I’ve put aside. Forget what you’ve heard about it being unhealthy – it has half the sugar of milk. Look for the highest fat content you can find – half and half means it has more sugar. Buy cream often, and rummage around the back of the shop fridge to make sure it’s the freshest. Use it liberally and enjoy every minute. Cream satisfies in a way that few foods do.
Some things I do with cream:
Add to coffee
Whip and eat with berries
Make pannacotta (see recipe)
Whip with pure cocoa
Make chia pudding
Add to omelette
Cream of mushroom to top chicken, fish, meat or to serve on its own
Add to soups and chowders.
Cream of spinach
Make butter
Tip: How to whip cream to make it truly delicious: 1. Buy the most local, freshest, and full fat cream you can find. 2. For the best consistency, whip it on medium speed – fast speeds aerate too much. 3. Stop mixing when soft peaks form. If you over whip, it will taste buttery.
Note: Using a stick blender with a single whisk attachment is my favourite method for silky cream. Use the narrowest jug you have that fits the whisk.
Pannacotta means ‘cooked cream’ in Italian, and it’s a dessert from the Piedmont. I love this dessert, and it doesn’t miss the sugar. I use vegetarian gelatine (from carrageenan) It’s naturally salty, which amplifies the flavour of the cream. You might have to play with the quantity, depending on the brand.
Panna cotta Recipe
Ingredients: 227 ml (1 cup) full fat cream. 1/4 teaspoon vegetarian gelatine. Vanilla to taste.
Method: Heat the cream and gelatine, stirring just until the gelatine is completely dissolved. Take off the heat. Pour into moulds or ramekins. Refrigerate until set. Gently transfer onto a plate and serve with berries, with a squeeze of lemon, or on its own.
Variations: 1. Add pure cocoa to taste. 2. Cook with a crushed cardamom pod. Strain after cooking. 3. Add cinnamon. 4. Add a shot or two of espresso. 5. Add marsala wine. 6. Add Scotch whiskey.
Why I’m writing a list of 103 Foods: When I changed my diet for health reasons, I spent the first weeks mourning the foods I could no longer eat. What’s the point in being miserable, though? By switching to focusing on the foods I could eat, and savouring every bit of them, I started enjoying food again. I also found hope for the future, especially as the weight fell off and my diabetes reversed. Now, I would love to help others who might find themselves in a similar situation. Finally, there are endless possibilities in terms of what to do with any food. Take that as a challenge, and let me know if you have any suggestions. I wish you happy eating.
Note: I’m starting my list with luxury foods because I want to make a point that low carb does not equal hardship. Instead, I believe that enjoyment makes a low carb diet sustainable. I suggest embracing culinary fat and splurging whenever you can on luxury foods.
Chocolate – Low Carb Foods, Luxury, #3
As a unrepentant chocoholic, chocolate is the treat I’d hate most to lose, and guess what? I haven’t. This mystery of the Mayans, the ambrosia of the Aztecs, tantalises and satisfies in a way few other foods do. Its melting point is the same as body temperature, which is perhaps why it is so beguiling in the mouth. If you weren’t a chocolate snob before, it is time to become one, for milk chocolate is full of sugar, and you’d do well to gravitate toward the dark varieties to keep the carbs down. Dark chocolate is low in carbs and high in fat, and a small amount goes a long way.
Choose a square or two of 85% or higher chocolate and pour all your mindfulness into the experience. Cocoa nibs are worth seeking out; they add a nice crunch. Pure cocoa gives tremendous flavour to cream or puddings and in small amounts adds few carbs (make sure you’re not buying cocoa with sugar added). Cocoa butter is a luxurious fat, a guilt-free way of adding chocolate flavour, and by adding vanilla you can make sugar-free white chocolate.
My favourite brand of eating chocolate is Valrhona – I took a chocolate course in their factory in France and have never forgotten it. Their Abinao is surprisingly fruity for such high cocoa content. It’s so satisfying that I have no trouble eating it in moderation. Their cocoa is also worth the money if you can find it. Artisan chocolate makers will welcome the support you can give them, so seek out any in your area. Since chocolate is a case where quality is more important than quantity, why not set yourself a goal to find your favourite chocolate in the world? I could think of many worse ways to spend time.
Some things I do with chocolate:
Savour every instant of it.
Eat it dark and sparingly (3gm).
Add 25g pure, organic cocoa butter to a cup of coffee. Blend.
Grind cocoa nibs with chia.
Add shavings to fresh mint chia.
Make delicious, satisfying mole sauce – no sweeteners, of course.
Eat a bit with a small handful of raspberries and whipped cream.
Recipe: Chocolate Pudding
Ingredients: 100 ml full fat cream. 30gm 90% chocolate. 15gm butter. 15gm cocoa butter.
Method: Melt the chocolate, butter, and cocoa butter together. I use a dry coffee mug in a bowl of hot water. Heat the cream just to a simmer. Add to the chocolate in small parts, stirring until it is smooth and glossy. Pour into little glasses. Cool.
Variations: 1. Add pure vanilla to taste. 2. Add cinnamon. 3. Add a splash of whiskey. 4. Top with cream. 5. Decorate with cocoa nibs or berries.
Why I’m writing a list of 103 Foods: When I changed my diet for health reasons, I spent the first weeks mourning the foods I could no longer eat. What’s the point in being miserable, though? By switching to focusing on the foods I could eat, and savouring every bit of them, I started enjoying food again. I also found hope for the future, especially as the weight fell off and my diabetes reversed. Now, I would love to help others who might find themselves in a similar situation. Finally, there are endless possibilities in terms of what to do with any food. Take that as a challenge, and let me know if you have any suggestions. I wish you happy eating.
Note: I’m starting my list with luxury foods because I want to make a point that low carb does not equal hardship. Instead, I believe that enjoyment makes a low carb diet sustainable. I suggest embracing culinary fat and splurging whenever you can on luxury foods.
Caviar – Low Carb Foods, Luxury, #2
If you eat caviar every day, it’s difficult to return to sausages. — Arsene Wenger
Next time a friend mentions how abstemious you must be to live on a low carb diet, whip out a jar of caviar. Roe (fish eggs) are among the most expensive foods in the world, and roe of the sturgeon — caviar — are the most costly of all. Russian caviar is considered the best. Other countries, including China, Iran, and the US, produce caviar. It’s important to note that most sturgeon are endangered or critically endangered in the wild, so do not buy wild caviar or caviar that has been poached. Luckily the fish are now farmed and no longer killed to extract the roe.
Caviar is salted, which improves the flavour and helps with preservation — the more salt, the better the preservation but worse the taste. It is perishable and must be refrigerated when opened and consumed quickly. Since caviar is a treat, buy the best you can afford, although other varieties of roe can be quite tasty. These include roe of salmon, trout, and the bright orange lobster roe usually discarded (I love to fry them briefly in butter, which gives them a pleasing crunch).
American Osetra — the white sturgeon. Illegal if poached.
Beluga — the beluga sturgeon. It’s considered the highest grade. Do not buy illegal wild varieties. It is farmed, and wild populations are starting to recover.
Hackleback — the shovelnose sturgeon in the US.
Mallosol — means little salt, so it’s more perishable and considered the best.
Ossetra — the ossetra sturgeon is near extinction in the wild. It is second only to the beluga in price.
Paddlefish — cousin to the sturgeon. Common in the US.
Payusnaya — pressed. It’s caviar that’s not intact as eggs. OK for recipes.
Sevruga — also known as the ‘starry sturgeon.’ It’s critically endangered in the wild.
Sterlet — Once considered the finest. Now virtually extinct.
Vegan — Yes — it is possible to find caviar made from kelp.
Why I’m writing a list of 103 Foods: When I changed my diet for health reasons, I spent the first weeks mourning the foods I could no longer eat. What’s the point in being miserable, though? By switching to focusing on the foods I could eat, and savouring every bit of them, I started enjoying food again. I also found hope for the future, especially as the weight fell off and my diabetes reversed. Now, I would love to help others who might find themselves in a similar situation. Finally, there are endless possibilities in terms of what to do with any food. Take that as a challenge, and let me know if you have any suggestions. I wish you happy eating.
Thanks to Robert Anasch for making the photo available freely on Unsplash.
Note: I’m starting my list with luxury foods because I want to make a point that low carb does not equal hardship. Instead, I believe that enjoyment makes a low carb diet sustainable. I suggest embracing culinary fat and splurging whenever you can.
A. Luxury Foods
1. Butter
Butter might seem a simple thing to list as a luxury, but it makes almost everything taste better and more luxurious. For example, lobster without butter is good, but lobster with butter is fantastic. The same is true with many foods. Green beans are fine. Green beans drenched in butter, with crunchy, sliced almonds toasted with butter, are exquisite. If you can find real Irish butter, then it will be even more amazing (in my biased opinion).
Before I started a low carb diet, butter played a part in most of my favourite foods — croissants, mashed potatoes, cookies, cake, toast with melted butter and so forth. Sometimes I wonder whether those foods were just an excuse to eat butter, and I can still do just that. When I mash cauliflower with enough butter (and cream), I don’t miss the potatoes too much. It’s like losing the wrapping paper but keeping the present.
Some things I do with butter:
Add to coffee
Cook vegetables
Cook fish
Add to sauces
Make ghee – clarified butter
Add to toasted nuts, especially pecans
Spread on low carb psyllium bread
Make garlic butter
Make herb butter
Whip it (see below)
Fat is fabulous
Fat is one of the micronutrients that keep us alive. Without fat, we would not survive. Fat has been unfairly demonised, although it is coming back into fashion now that there is more understanding of the role of sugar in obesity. Fat helps us feel full when we aren’t stuffing ourselves with carbohydrates, and it makes food more luxurious. In case you are worried about your heart, the often-repeated warning that it’s unhealthy doesn’t seem to have any validity. Butter does not make you gain weight, and it does not clog your arteries. So dump the margarine and add butter for more enjoyment in life.
I definitely suggest making butter yourself. It’s a simple process, and not strenuous if you have an electric mixer. I never tire of witnessing the miraculous transformation of cream into golden goodness. Old, soured cream (as long as it’s not mouldy) can be repurposed as butter – in fact, it will taste better. I like to whip the butter, since whipped butter is not usual here in Ireland. I grew up with it in New York, and I miss it. One of the benefits is that it is a joy to spread, even when cold.
Recipe: Homemade whipped butter
1. Beat full fat (35+%) whipping cream.
2. After it is whipped, it will then begin to clump and turn yellowish.
3. Periodically scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl to make sure every bit’s included.
4. When the liquid separates, beware of splashes. Stop the mixer and discard the liquid.
5. Rinse the butter with cold water, then mix to push any fluid out. Discard the liquid. Repeat until the water stays clear.
6. Add salt if you prefer it (2% is usual in Ireland).
7. Whip the butter on high speed until airy and light in colour.
From ‘Churning Day,’ by Seamus Heaney
…Their short stroke quickened, suddenly a yellow curd was weighting the churned up white, heavy and rich, coagulated sunlight that they fished, dripping, in a wide tin strainer, heaped up like gilded gravel in the bowl…
Why I’m writing a list of 103 Foods: When I changed my diet for health reasons, I spent the first weeks mourning the foods I could no longer eat. What’s the point in being miserable, though? By switching to focusing on the foods I could eat, and savouring every bit of them, I started enjoying food again. I also found hope for the future, especially as the weight fell off and my diabetes reversed. Now, I would love to help others who might find themselves in a similar situation. Finally, there are endless possibilities in terms of what to do with any food. Take that as a challenge, and let me know if you have any suggestions. I wish you happy eating.
2.7 billion years of human life could be saved for 211 million people by reversing Type II diabetes. Why are we slow to act on a proven solution?
I am nothing special. Or I am very special. Depending. Like you, perhaps. I’m an ordinary person. I’m a father, son, husband, brother, and lover of family. I’m an impatient patient. I’m a businessman, which means I’m practically minded and a questioner of things, or so I like to think. I’m a man with Type II diabetes or a man without diabetes, depending. I say this because most people believe Type II diabetes is a life sentence – an incurable, progressive disease with inevitable, grim outcomes. This defeatist paradigm informs the usual treatments – an ever-increasing amount of drugs, half-hearted, often contradictory attempts to modify what patients eat, and a dose of scare tactics and blame. Studies show the drugs don’t work, and the half-hearted changes to diet don’t help much either. As demoralised patients progress to grim outcomes, the failure of their treatments isn’t questioned. Instead, with circular logic, the failure reinforces the paradigm.
Is Type II diabetes a life sentence? Incurable? If so, why are an increasing number of patients reversing the disease? According to the paradigm, that is impossible. Yet trials, including DIRECT (sponsored by Diabetes UK), show a remission rate of up to 50%. The ramifications of this are staggering, for an estimated 422 million people worldwide suffer diabetes. The financial cost is $825 billion per annum. The human cost is higher. It is the leading cause of non-traumatic amputations, with a million legs lost a year, and the leading cause of adult-onset blindness. Diabetics have a 50% greater chance of depression. Men suffer more erectile dysfunction. Diabetics develop cancer, stroke, dementia, and Alzheimer’s in higher numbers. We are twice as likely to die of heart, liver, and kidney failure, and are more likely to die from COVID-19. We are more likely to die of all causes, with a life expectancy 13 years less than the general population. That’s 5.486 billion years of lost life and a world of heartache for loved ones.
I was diagnosed eight months ago and heard the usual, ‘Diabetes is a life sentence (but don’t lose heart, it’s not a death sentence – with a bit of luck you can push off the worst parts for a good few years).’ I was given the usual prescription and contradictory advice. I was informed that carbohydrates raised blood sugar, then I was told I should eat them at every meal. I was warned about sucrose (white sugar) but encouraged to enjoy desserts (in moderation). I was admonished to switch from white bread to brown bread, even though carbohydrates are similar in both and brown bread often is made with sugar or molasses. I was instructed to eat less and get off the couch, even though I was already exercising daily. I was told to lose weight (but not too fast) as if I hadn’t tried. I was warned about strokes, heart attacks, and ulcers and urged to inspect my feet every night for wounds that could lead to amputation. I was given an appointment for retinal screening to check whether I was going blind. I asked a few questions, but not many. I felt too dispirited and pinch-faced with worry to do so.
When I came home, I sulked for two weeks. I am, however, an impatient patient, and questions I didn’t ask began to bother me to the point that I stopped sulking and started researching. I soon discovered online a chorus of joyful individuals who had put their diabetes into remission. How did they avoid the life sentence? Simple. By rapidly losing weight, especially fat around the abdomen. ‘Ha, ha,’ you might laugh. ‘Losing weight simple? Have you tried? Everyone knows how hard it is.’ What if it was simple, though? What if our failed attempts were due not to our shortcomings but incorrect advice? Dr Jason Fung starts his book The Obesity Code as follows:
‘The art of medicine is quite peculiar. Once in a while, medical treatments become established that don’t really work. Through sheer inertia, these treatments get handed down from one generation of doctors to the next despite their lack of effectiveness. Consider the medicinal use of leeches (bleeding) or routine tonsillectomy. Unfortunately, the treatment of obesity is also one such example.’
Jason Fung, MD, The Obesity Code, Greystone Books, 2016
The treatment of Type II diabetes is another example.
Dr Fung also wrote The Diabetes Code, and both books are among the most carefully argued and thoroughly researched I have ever read. For diabetics, he suggests a high fat, low carbohydrate diet combined with intermittent fasting to reverse the disease. It worked for me. I lost 21kg of weight and brought my blood sugar into the normal range in three months. Most surprisingly, I didn’t find it especially difficult. Of course, I missed the sugar, especially in the first weeks as my body adjusted. Of course, I missed the pasta, bread, rice, and all the other delicious foods with which I used to stuff myself. However, I’m practically minded, so I set about finding, preparing, and enjoying foods I could eat. When I wobbled, I thought of the thirteen additional years of life I’d have to love my family if I persisted. I would have a higher chance of walking with them with both my legs and seeing them with eyes that could still see. I’d have a better chance of avoiding dementia, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
There weren’t many wobbles, though, especially once the fat started melting away. Again, I didn’t find it especially difficult. The numbers back that up. As stated earlier, studies show that significant changes to diet (very low calorie, low carb, fasting, or a combination of the three) put up to an astonishing 50% of diabetics into remission. That means they maintain healthy blood sugar without the need for medication, just as they did before their diagnosis. ‘Wow!’ you might say. ‘50% of 422 million is a potential of 211 million people whose health could be transformed for the better. It’s a potential savings of up to 2.743 billion years of human life and $413 billion in medical costs. Surely that has galvanised the entire health community? Surely they are rapidly rolling out an entirely new way of treating diabetes?’ Well…no. Why? Vested interests, perhaps. Or inertia, as Dr Fung says. Habits become entrenched, and paradigms can prove resistant to evidence, leading to denial.
Jason Fung points to another possible reason – that we view obesity (and, by extension, diabetes) as a defect of character. Since it’s a moral failing, perhaps we don’t deserve better outcomes. That makes sense to me, for I was the first to blame myself for getting fat and for my diagnosis, and I have heard the disparagement and judgement in the language surrounding Type II diabetes. It’s a ‘lifestyle disease’ for ‘ignorant’ people who make ‘bad’ choices. You’re ‘lacking in willpower.’ You ‘let yourself go.’ You can’t ‘resist’ sweets or alcohol or both. You must be eating the ‘wrong’ things and not doing the ‘right’ things. You’re ‘unwilling’ or ‘too stubborn’ to exercise more or eat less. You ‘don’t try’ hard enough. You ‘give up.’ Such talk shifts the blame for poor outcomes from the dietary advice and medical care to the patients. After all, the treatments and dietary advice might work if we weren’t so lazy/stupid/weak/unmotivated/gluttonous/dissolute.
Of course, such language creates a problem in understanding lazy/stupid/weak/unmotivated/gluttonous/dissolute people like me who do improve their lot – who manage to lose weight and reverse diabetes. The answer, for those who don’t fit a paradigm, is usually that we must be exceptional. Special. That keeps the model intact. When I told friends and relatives how my blood test came back normal, several complimented my ‘exceptional willpower.’ Others said the same when they saw how much weight I lost. I shrugged, annoyed. Doesn’t calling me ‘exceptional’ by definition exclude and demoralise the many who might wish to try to reverse their disease? I don’t think I have exceptional willpower. Otherwise, wouldn’t I have lost weight earlier and avoided diabetes completely? I’m an ordinary person. I’m both lazy and industrious. I’m weak and strong, depending. I’ve been thin and fat and thin again. I developed and reversed diabetes. I didn’t become a better person to achieve remission. I didn’t solve any character defects to do so.
I succeeded simply because I found good advice and explanations that made sense. I learned from Dr. Sarah Hallberg, Dr. David Unwin, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick, Dr. Roy Taylor, Dr. Michael Mosely, and Tom Jelinek, Ph.D. I learned about the futility of the ‘eat less, exercise more’ mantra. I learned about how counting calories makes little sense – 100 calories of spinach equals 100 calories of candy. Really? I learned that too much protein is problematic. I learned that dietary fat is healthy and necessary. I learned about ketosis. I learned about the harm of snacking since it keeps insulin high and doesn’t give the body a chance to recover. I learned about how carbohydrates convert to sugar and how excess fructose is especially dangerous since only the liver metabolises it. I learned how hormones drive behaviour and how insulin and cortisol (the stress hormone) impact body fat and blood sugar. I learned about insulin resistance – the real cause of both obesity and diabetes. Insulin resistance is caused by too much insulin, which itself is caused by too much sugar.
Once I knew all of this, and once I knew what to do (put less sugar in the body through diet and get sugar out through intermittent fasting), the solution was simple. Not easy, but not especially difficult. I went from sulking to feeling lucky – lucky that my diagnosis came when it did. If I had been diagnosed five years earlier, I’d probably still be dispirited and pinch-faced with worry, on medication that doesn’t help, following half-hearted, contradictory diet advice, and wondering which leg I’d lose first. Instead, books and online sources with clear guidelines on how to reverse Type II diabetes appeared just before I needed them and offered an alternative to the life sentence. The pioneering patients who came before me, the chorus of joyful individuals in remission, gave me hope. My love of family gave me the motivation I needed. Now, I’m lucky I can add my voice to the others who succeeded. I hope our clamour soon becomes so loud that every diabetic in the world hears it.
I also hope more government officials and health professionals begin to drive the changes needed. Health professionals see first hand the ravages that Type II diabetes brings. Surely, as scientists, more will question the paradigm as evidence continues to mount. For those who are open-minded, I ask, ‘Why wouldn’t you test it for yourself and see if you can help a patient or two?’ Instead of inspecting deteriorating bodies of patients pinch-faced with worry, wouldn’t it be satisfying to help people like me lose 21kg in less than three months and help them achieve remission? Instead of writing prescriptions that don’t help, wouldn’t it be more fun to save 2.43 billion years of life and ease a world of heartache? Picture your patients and millions of other patients around the world, surrounded by loving families, joyful after normalised blood tests. Imagine them shrugging, modestly, and saying, ‘Every one’s doing it. I am nothing special.’
