Note: The previous night, after enjoying roast chicken, and while the chicken is still soft and the fat semi-liquid, pluck the meat from the bones and save it along with all the fat and drippings.
Ingredients:
Leftover chicken, fat, and drippings
Fresh or frozen spinach
Hot water
Chilli pepper, chopped
Fresh ginger, chopped to taste
Cumin, turmeric, coriander, salt (to taste)
What to do:
Put a chopped chilli pepper and a knob of chopped fresh ginger into a saucepan with a bit of hot water.
Cook on medium heat.
Wash the spinach in batches, and add to the saucepan, using a blending stick to help it break down faster. This also chops the ginger and chilli into tiny pieces, helping them cook faster.
Add more boiling water if needed – enough to mix but not enough to make it too soupy.
Add the chicken meat and fat.
Add cumin, turmeric, coriander, and salt to taste.
I’ve just finished reading Roy Taylor’s book ‘Life Without Diabetes,’ and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Dr Taylor is a professor at Newcastle University, and he has arguably done more for diabetes remission than anyone. His studies, including DIRECT, proved to the world that a 3-month restricted-calorie diet can put 50% of people with diabetes into remission. Given that before his work, diabetes was considered incurable and progressive, it’s excellent news.
He writes,
“…if blood glucose is returned to normal, then the risk of damage to eyes, nerves, feet, kidneys, heart, and brain returns to the same level as for people of similar age and weight without diabetes. From the point of view of the person staring down the barrel of a gun, that is a miracle.”
While I had read articles mentioning the 50% remission number, averages can be misleading. In the book, Dr Taylor writes that almost everyone can achieve remission within 4 years of diagnosis, 50% after 10 years, and it gets progressively more difficult from there. Almost everyone?!? In my opinion, that kind of success rate makes any doctor or diabetic nurse that doesn’t try remission with newly diagnosed patients borderline negligent.
Verdict: The book is clear, well written, informative in terms of how the body works, and open-minded to other diets, such as low carb, which makes for a welcome and refreshing change in this polarised world.
Life without Diabetes Review
Here are a few things in the book that caught my attention:
1. He writes that while diabetes is characterised by too much glucose in the bloodstream, it is caused by a single factor: excess fat in the liver and pancreas.
2. He believes that everyone has a personal fat threshold, that varies from person to person, the point at which the organs are likely to become fatty. If you have been diagnosed with T2 diabetes, you have passed that threshold. For some people, the threshold might be very low (50% of people diagnosed with diabetes are not obese), for others very high.
3. He writes that we gain slowly weight over a lifetime of eating too much. The topping point is reached as our liver starts to become fatty and insulin resistant. If our pancreas is sensitive to fat, it stops producing enough insulin, and our blood glucose shoots up.
4. A quick loss of weight – 15KG on average – is often enough to put diabetes into remission.
5. To achieve remission, Dr Taylor uses a calorie-restricted diet (700-800 calories per day), for 2-3 months. It includes a shake and a portion of vegetables for fibre. He says patients feel hunger for the first 36 hours, and then it diminishes.
6. Regular meals that total 700 calories a day can achieve the same result, but it can be more challenging in terms of planning, balance, and not being tempted into overeating.
7. Once the weight is off and remission is achieved, he reintroduces food, minimising sugar and high much starch. Weight becomes the metric. If it creeps up, he reintroduces the 700 calorie diet until it stabilises.
8. Dr Taylor views alcohol as ‘liquid fat’ as well as having too many calories, and he suggests cutting it out or curtailing it severely.
9. There is no good biological reason people put on weight during an adult life. There is no biological reason you shouldn’t be the weight you were at 25.
10. He says that different diets and methods work for different people. For some, low carb works better, for others fasting is the way to go. The key is weight loss (rapid seems to work better) and keeping it off.
My wife is Italian, so of course I have a soft spot for Italian food. That might sound difficult for someone who has giving up rice (risotto), bread, and pasta, but Italian meals are far more balanced than one might expect. The pasta course in Italy is a course between the appetiser and main course and can be left away with out losing much from the meal.
At home, I often make pasta dishes without pasta. That might sound silly, but take lasagne – the pasta is not my favourite part of the dish, especially since it’s usually over or undercooked. No, I love lasagne for the melted mozzarella, ricotta, and rich tomato sauce or spinach, sometimes made more luxurious with meat.
The good news is those ingredients are low carb, so I still make lasagne with just the filling. Some people like to add slices of courgette as ‘pasta,’ but I prefer to keep just my favourite bits without adding anything at all. My family doesn’t seem to mind either.
One of the key components of many Italian dishes is a good tomato sauce, and tomato is one of my 125 delicious low carb foods. Here’s how I do it…
Ingredients:
1 can chopped tomato (Mutti is a great brand, if you can find it)
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
100ml good olive oil
Oregano to taste
What to do:
Combine the first three ingredients in a sauce pan.
Cook for a few minutes to soften the garlic.
Blitz with a mixing stick or blender until smooth
Cook, covered, over low heat until the oil separates from the tomato (ca. 30 minutes, depending on the heat).
Blitz again to combine.
Stir in the oregano.
Notes: 1. Garlic is relatively high in carbs, but it tastes wonderful and a clove doesn’t weigh much, so I keep using it… 2. Add some chilli pepper (chipotle is especially good) and the herb epazote to turn it into a yummy Mexican type sauce.
Before I started eating a low carb diet, I can’t say I knew much about chia seeds or chia pudding. Chia showed up in the odd dish out of the house, but I had never bought them – how that has changed! Chia seeds saved me in the early days, when my carb cravings were most severe and they continue to be an almost daily part of my diet (and hence on my list of 125 Delicious foods).
Chia seeds are from the plant Salvia Hispanic, which is in the sage family. Like many delicious foods (including chocolate), they are native to Southern Mexico. They are high in fibre, full of Omega-3 fatty acids, are provide protein and amino acids (especially useful if you’re vegetarian or vegan).
Chia seeds have hardly any carbs and so have a negligible impact on blood glucose. They can be used to create delicious, filling desserts and snacks that can round off a meal or get you past hungry patches without worry.
If you have a spice grinder, you can grind them before using, which gives you a smooth finished product. If you don’t grind them, they have a consistency similar to tapioca, which is also lovely. I enjoy them both ways, depending on my mood.
One note: watch the price, which can vary dramatically. If you’re not careful, you can pay through the nose. If you find them as useful as I do, consider buying in bulk – I buy organic seeds for far less than you’d find non-organic in the supermarket or health food store.
Here are ways I enjoy them
1. Unground, with cream
Use 20gm of chia seeds and 150gm cream. Stir regularly until it thickens (if you don’t stir at the beginning, it will clump up and be hard to break up). It has a mousse-like consistency.
Things to add for variation: 5gm pure cocoa, 1/4 tsp cardamom, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
2. Ground, in a blender, with cream
Grind 50gm seeds with your spice grinder. Stir in 225gm cream, then give a blitz or two until solid. This is a thicker dessert, since the cream whips up. It’s very filling, and it lasts me a couple of days.
3. With coconut milk (or coconut cream)
I make a whole can of the milk (400ml) with 100gm ground chia. Make sure you get a good coconut milk. Many of them are mostly water. Thai Gold is almost all coconut and is excellent. My local supermarket stocks it.
Things to add for variation: Toasted, desiccated coconut to bring out the coconut taste, lime juice, drop of rum if you’re feeling naughty.
4. With water
This sounds boring, but it’s so guilt free that Dr Jason Fung says it can even be used while fasting (if you have a wobble) without wrecking the fast. It also travels well, so you can bring some along incase you get hungry on the road.
I use 20gm chia with 100gm of water. Again, you need to stir it regularly.
Things to add for variation (though not if you’re fasting): Juice of half a lemon, a few raspberries, coffee.
5. With Mascarpone
I use 25gm ground chia with 250gm mascarpone. This makes a very dense, decadent dessert. If you prefer it less solid, you can loosen it with some cream or full fat yoghurt. With a bit of coffee and pure cocoa, it has some of the flavour notes of tiramisu.
6. With almond milk
Make sure you use unsweetened almond milk! I use 20gm chia with 100gm almond milk. It’s also good with 5gm pure cocoa.
