Potluck Paradise or Pitfall

Summer is here and potlucks are popular everywhere, but they can be a carbohydrate mine field for diabetics --- potato salad, macaroni salad, baked beans, rolls, jello, fresh fruit, cakes and cookies. So, here are some suggestions for dishes you can bring to the party which you and everyone around you can enjoy (some of them make great main dishes for summer suppers, too):

• Coleslaw


• Spinach salad (add strawberries, blueberries and nuts for extra taste)


• Crabmeat salad


• Greek salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, feta or mozzerella cheese with oil/vinegar dressing)


• Cobb salad (mixed greens, chicken, bacon, tomatoes, avocado, eggs, green onion, bleu cheese)


• Layered overnight salad (add any variety of veggies such as blanched green beans, peas, carrots, peppers, celery, tomatoes, cheese and bacon)


• Chicken or turkey salad (add celery, cucumbers, tomatoes, nuts, grapes --- use rotisserie chicken for great flavor and ease)


• Salad Nicoise (romaine, green beans, small red potatoes, tuna chunks, red onion, cucumber, tomatoes, Nicoise or black olives, eggs)


• Ceasar Salad (add chicken or shrimp, olives, red onions, grape tomatoes, etc.)


• Pea Salad (peas, celery, red onion with mayo/Ranch dressing)


• Broccoli salad (and for fun, make it with cauliflower, add peas, cheese, etc)


• Carrot-Raisin Slaw


• Asian Chicken Salad (mixed greens, chicken, green onion, mandarin oranges)


• Fresh vegetable tray with dip (for fun, serve dip in a hallowed out pepper or eggplant)


• Deviled eggs


• Pickled vegetables


• Grilled Vegetable Salad (grill 'em, chill'em and cover 'em with Italian salad dressing)

That should get you started. Just be creative, search your cookbooks and let your summer meals be new and healthy.

A Sad Day

Our neighbor's mother just passed away. Sister Packard was a wonderful little lady who accomplished a great deal in her life. She was as sweet as could be, but she suffered from diabetes for many years. Unfortunately, she didn't do well at keeping it under control and in the end, it contributed to her death.

Diabetes is the 6th leading cause of death in the US and the risk of death for diabetics is twice the normal death rate. Of all the diabetes factors which contribute to death, cardiovascular disease is the most common and most serious. In fact, 65% of all diabetes-related deaths are from heart attack and stroke.

However, with proper diet, good exercise and careful monitoring, we can live long and healthy lives. When I was first diagnosed my blood sugar was too high, my blood pressure was sky-rocketing and my cholestrol was out of whack. Now, my numbers are much more in line, I'm off blood pressure medication all together. I think it's really important that we watch these numbers and eat right and exercise in order to keep them under control.

Sister Packard's death reinforced, for me, the need to always be careful and always do the right things for my body. We cannot wait until we're old and sick to eat right and exercise. We have to do it now!

"Berrylicious" Smoothie

Most fruit smoothies are packed with sugar, fruit, yogurt or sherbet and loaded with calories and carbohydrates --- some as much as 99 grams of carbs per serving. Here's a recipe I found for a "berrylicious" smoothie which has only 28 grams and no added sugars:

1 container (6 oz) strawberry low-fat/sugar-free strawberry yogurt
1 single serve packet drink mix (Crystal Light or Sugar-Free Koolaid), strawberry or cherry flavored
6 strawberries
1 cup ice cubes

Blend all ingredients in blender until smooth. Makes 1 serving

The New Potato

Idaho farmers and the hearty pioneer stock will tell you that a good Russett is healthy food. But for me, potatoes are way too high in carbs (a 3-4" diameter potato is about 65 grams). Enter: CAULIFLOWER! This fabulous white veggie is a great potato substitute. At 2.5 grams per one-cup serving, cauliflower is great as a raw vegetable in salad, and can also be mashed just like potatoes, boiled and served with a variety of seasonings, roasted with a little olive oil, sauteed. Almost any way that you can cook a potato, you can cook cauliflower and it tasted delicious! For my birthday, instead of cheesy potatoes, we had cheesy cauliflower --- same great recipe but instead of potatoes we used cauliflower cubes. Saturday we cooked cauliflower and then topped it just like a loaded baked potato with cheese, bacon bits, green onions. Fabulous!

Weighing In on Diabetes

I am really good at a lot of things, and at 52 years of age and 265 pounds, it was evident that gaining weight was one of my best things! Well, eating, actually. I love eating! But a new doctor had some new skills that I needed to learn. In 2005, testing showed that I had Type II Diabetes, like 20 million other Americans, and like nearly one-third of those affected, I had no idea. I knew that I often felt tired, lethargic, had tingling feet and I just couldn’t lose weight, was always thirsty, but I never suspected diabetes.

Dr. Ogden told me that his brother had recently been diagnosed, too. “I pointed to that chart of the diabetic man,” he told me, “and said, ‘which complication would you like?’” Faced with the prospect of ever-increasing medications, and the severe complications of heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, neuropathy and nerve damage and more, I was eager to make whatever changes were necessary to control my health and change my prognosis!

After my diagnosis, I attended diabetes training classes at my hospital where I learned about diet, exercise, medication and so forth. Then, under the direction of my doctor, my wife and I undertook a 48-hour medical fast. The purpose of this fast is to cleanse the liver (mine was really fat!) and to reset the body’s method of using the insulin it makes (or stops making).
We had nothing but water and Crystal Light drinks during this time. I discovered several interesting things: 1) how we mindlessly went into the kitchen to get something to eat, not because we were hungry but just because it was a habit, or to have a taste in our mouths; 2) food had become such a part of my routine that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself, especially on Saturday morning.

The day following our fast, we were invited to our neighbor’s house for dinner. Usually, I would have eaten a large hamburger, salad, root beer, chips and plenty of dessert (well, my wife would have eaten plenty of dessert, I’d have had more chips). But we found we could only eat at the most half of the burger and only enough side dishes to be polite. And root beer? Ew, yuck! It is so sweet and syrupy! Please pass the water.

Completing this fast created several mental changes in addition to physical changes. I realized that I no longer wanted to pollute my body which I had just worked all weekend to clean up, with burgers and fries and garbage like that. I realized that just because the hunger bell rang inside my head, I didn’t have to eat right then, and I could wait until I got home to eat something more healthy for me.

Today, two years later, I have lost 50 pounds on diet alone. Eating is easy and a way of life for me. I don’t feel like I have to give up much or go without. I enjoy my meals and eat in restaurants or with family or friends. But the real reason this works for me is because I FEEL BETTER! I have more energy, I feel younger, I look better, I love giving away my “big clothes.” And when I carry a 50 pound bag of salt downstairs, I’m glad I can leave it there!