Author: Emma

Emma Baird is an award-winning writer, specialising in romcoms and fiction that focuses on relationships, and a type 1 diabetic. She is also the co-author of The Diabetes Diet, co-written with a doctor. Most importantly, she is the guardian of two very spoiled cats…

Diabetes and the ol’ green monster

Emma14 Comments
Me this week. Not attractive, I know

Ah, the green monster… It surfaced this week, startling me with its intensity. I’m talking about jealousy and the mean feelings I experience occasionally in relation to diabetes.

Every week, the mighty search engine that is Google picks out the week’s diabetes news for me. Most of the time, it includes new research, a dose of doom and gloom where scientists and doctors reinforce the lower life expectancy/increased likelihood of contracting a nasty side effect (Gee, thanks folks) and a Daily Express article telling you to eat this food to avoid diabetes*.

This week’s offerings included a video on the BBC where a teenage type 1 spoke about the pump she wears which uses artificial intelligence to monitor her blood sugars and keep them within normal range, and how it will allow her to soar through life. She’s one of the first type 1s to get this pump on the NHS.

Believe me, I know a one minute 55 second film clip tells nothing like the full story. I don’t know the extent of the teenager’s medical background. Her mother, the video showed, found it hard to sleep at nights because she was so worried about her daughter’s overnight hypos. I get it, I get it, I get it…

No awards for long service

But the horrible green monster reared up anyway. “It’s always the young ones,” I muttered, bad-temperedly. There might even have been a self-pitying tear or two. “What about me—don’t I get an award for long service? Thirty seven years with this ruddy condition! There are empty jelly baby packets in landfill sites all over Scotland to prove it**. I wouldn’t mind soaring myself.”

The nasty bout of whingeing was in part triggered by a letter I received this week relating to my progress on the flash glucose monitoring (FGM) waiting list. At my appointment at the diabetic clinic in September last year, the doctor put me on that oh so elusive list. The waiting list was only the start. After that, a mandatory half-day educational course takes place and then a letter wings its way to your GP requesting they prescribe FGM. Still there I was. ON THE LIST!!!

“Happy days, Emma!” I said to myself as I skipped out of the clinic, phoning my mum and then husband to share the good news. They whoop-whooped too.

Patience, not one of my virtues

I waited. And waited. “Well, I suppose those half-day courses are over-subscribed,” I said to myself. Friends, patience isn’t among my virtues but I held off writing to the good doctor to request a situation update until the beginning of March. The letter I got in return said there is a cap on funding and until that increases, I’m on a static waiting list.

Again, I get it. Times are tight, but every other type 1 I know sports one of those FGM thingies on their arm, included blasted Theresa May. (Admittedly, I don’t know that many type 1s.)

Here’s the thing—I never envy other people their non-diabetes status. A long time ago, my brain must have told my heart jealousy over the impossibility/unlikeliness of a cure in my lifetime was too much of a wasted effort. But when I read of other diabetics and their access to the latest tools and tech, I glow so green I’m practically radioactive.

The blessings of perspective

Fortunately, perspective kicked in after twenty minutes or so of mumping and moaning to myself. In the US, two senators have launched an investigation into rising insulin prices (585 percent from 2001 to 2015 for Eli Lilly’s Humalog, for instance), and this in the world’s wealthiest country. Many people have tried swapping insulin types and brands, changing to something that might not work as well for them or worse, stopping it or rationing it.

In addition, part of my work at the moment involves communications for a health-based project in two African countries where access to any diabetic medication is seriously limited, and knowledge of how to treat the condition not as wide-spread as it is in the developed world.

I don’t have the latest up to date equipment, but I do have insulin (Brexit fears aside), plenty of test strips and all the other bits and pieces I need. The green monster surfaces from time to time, as I’m sure it does with you. Let it do its whinge-y bit and then remind Madam Monster we do live in the best of times for people with diabetes (country dependent of course). If I’d been born 100 years earlier, I wouldn’t have made my 11th birthday. So, Emma 1, Jealousy 0.5.

*Yet to click on that one as I assume it’s click bait.

**They will outlive me.

Peppercorn Sauce for steak #low-carb

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plate with steak and peppercornsauceThis week, I tried a cooking method I’ve never used before—low cooking. For those unfamiliar with the term, low cooking can be used for tender cuts of meat. You sear it in a pan and then place in an oven at a very low temperature and cook for a long time.

It differs from slow cooking in that slow cooking is usually used for tougher cuts of meat and involves liquid. I used the low cooking technique to cook a ribeye steak we got from Donald Russell. If you live in the UK and buy certain magazines or Sunday newspapers, a Donald Russell flier will have fallen out of them at some point.

True cost of meat

‘Donald Russell’ is a farm in Inverurie (Aberdeenshire) which supplies many top end restaurants and Balmoral with meat and fish. I can vouch that the quality of the produce is superb. It is also stonkingly expensive, but that will reflect the true cost of meat especially if you want to buy meat that comes from animals that have lived a life as close to the one they are supposed to. If (and that’s a big if) my writing career ever makes me decent money, this will be the only meat I buy.

Anyway, I cooked the steak for three minutes all-in on a high heat and then popped it in the oven at 80 degrees C for 35 minutes, and served it with peppercorn sauce and salad (and fried potatoes for my carb-loving husband). Here’s the peppercorn sauce recipe. It isn’t the classic one as I find fiddling around with sauce recipes too much to resist. The sauce has about 5g of carbs per serving.

Peppercorn Sauce for Steak

  • Servings: 2-3
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

  • 1 small onion, finely chopped
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed
  • 50g butter
  • 1tbsp peppercorns, crushed
  • 50ml brandy or white wine
  • 1tsp wholegrain mustard
  • 100ml beef or chicken stock
  • 50ml cream (I used crème fraiche as I had some left over, double cream or sour cream will work too)
  1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the onions. Fry gently until softened—about three to five minutes.
  2. Add the pepper, mustard, garlic and mix well. Add the brandy or white wine and bring to a simmer. Cook for three minutes and add the beef or chicken stock. Cook for another three minutes.
  3. Reduce the heat and add the cream and stir through until thickened. Serve with steaks or chicken. Or use it to make a sublime vegetable side dish.

Have you used the low cooking technique before and what’s your favourite sauce to serve with steak?

Drugs Trial for Diabetic Retinopathy Medication

Emma3 Comments
I’d kill for her eyelashes… Picture from Max Pixel.

Once more, dear friends, I’m putting my body to good use—a drugs trial where I hope my small part contributes to better outcomes for other people with diabetes.

Last year, when I received one of my six-monthly invites to the retinal screening clinic, an invite popped out of the envelope. Did I wish to take part in a trial for a drug aimed at preventing the progression of diabetic retinopathy? Not ‘alf. I’m keen to hang onto my eyesight for the rest of my life, especially as I’m a voracious reader.

I do have diabetic retinopathy. The changes to my eyes happened years ago, I’m screened regularly and while the letters that follow my appointments tell me there is more evidence of minor changes so far I’ve not needed treatment. And long may that happy state continue.

Cholesterol reducing

The drug I’ve been taking is a fenofibrate. I say that as if I have any idea of what that means. I don’t, apart from it belonging to the fibrate class of medications and it also has cholesterol reducing properties. I’ve now taken it for seven weeks.

If you are not familiar with drugs trial protocol, if a person is judged suitable for a trial after tests, they take the drug for a run-in period. Further tests are done—blood pressure, height, weight and bloods—and then you are put in one of two groups. One takes the real drug, the other takes a placebo and that’s you for two years.

I’ve done the run-in and now I’m about to do the two years around with the other thousand or so people who have been recruited to take part. Exciting to think our participation might shape treatments for years to come, and here’s hoping the drug proves effective not just for me but for anyone else at risk of losing their eyesight.

Imagine NOT having diabetes…

Emma13 Comments
a picture of a blood testing machine on The Diabetes Diet
This will be my blood sugar levels from now on. All the time. Yes sirree.

When you’ve lived with diabetes as long as I have, it’s almost impossible to imagine what life is like without that constant round of tests, injections and mild anxiety around food as you eat something and hope it doesn’t result in postprandial blood sugar levels that are too high or too low.

Today, I read about people’s experiences of research or new procedures they’d taken part in. One woman wore the artificial pancreas when she was pregnant. Giving it back afterwards was, she said, “like losing a limb”. Another person received islet stem cells transplant because he couldn’t recognise hypo symptoms and was able to come off insulin altogether, although he did have to go back on small amounts four months later.

So, Emma B, I said to myself, say you woke up tomorrow without type 1 diabetes what would be the best thing about it. And is there anything you would miss?

Energy

The main point that would strike me would be the energy. Imagine living with levels of energy that remain more or less constant. To the non-diabetics out there, please make the most of it this on my behalf. You have no idea how brilliant it is. I get days here and there when the energy is constant, and blimey you could put me in charge of Brexit and I’d sort it out… But some of those other days are tedious. Tiredness makes you grumpy and makes every task far more difficult, meaning you have to invest in willpower (a finite thing) for trivial rubbish.

It’s hard to over-estimate the impact that one single thing would make. Perhaps I’d turn into an extrovert. Tiredness often makes conversation an effort. Or I’d enter a full marathon instead of a half. My freelance copywriting business might take off because I’d be able to do far more work every day AND I’d be an excellent net-worker and pitcher, thanks to the whirling fizz running through my veins.

Injection-free meals

I’d also relish sitting down to meals without having to do blood tests and injections first. Oh the bliss of pulling up a plate without eyeballing its contents and doing all the calculations in your head—right, so that’s about 15g of carbs (I think), my blood sugar is a little raised so I need to factor that in, but I’m going for a walk afterwards so include 30 minutes of exercise, maybe allow for an hour because I’m going up that big hill… etc., etc.

I might never go near a doctor’s surgery again. A silly thing, I know, but we sugar shunners spend a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms, often wondering why the magazine collection is so rubbish and why all the posters on the wall are so out of date. There’s the clinics, the retinal screening and all the other appointments associated with diabetes. Not going along to any of them ever again would be a joy.

My abdomen would say an almighty big ‘thank-you’ for not getting stabbed seven or eight times a day. Granted, the needles we have these days are tiny (I use a 4mm version), but occasionally I hit a nerve and it HURTS. Ditto my fingers. As one of our regular readers said, doctors can always tell the folks who are conscientious about blood tests as they were the ones with tiny black marks all over their finger tips.

Pizza and chips anyone?

Would I dive into plates of chips, 15-inch pizzas and cakes and sweets? Probably not. I’m used to eating in a certain way, and I believe it’s healthy for most people, not just those with diabetes. I do eat chocolate and pizza from time to time because life’s too short to eat low-carb all the time.

And now for the things I would miss… wait for it…

Nothing? Diabetes doesn’t need to be dreadful. A sensible low-carb eating plan and a bit of exercise can work wonders. And it’s not the worst chronic health condition you can have, but honestly, truly and seriously I do not think there are any type 1s out there who wouldn’t say “goodbye” to diabetes without a backward glance.

 

PS – Do you remember my post about stockpiling insulin in case of a no-deal Brexit? There’s a post on Diabetes UK with the latest information here.

Meals on a Low-Carb Week

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I thought I’d record some of my meals this week, and allow you all to marvel at my food photography skills. Not.

Anyway, on Monday I ate half and avocado, a packet of flaked salmon and some salad, followed by dry-roasted peanuts. Of all the things I ate this week, this was the most aesthetically pleasing. I’m no food stylist as my photos on this blog testify, but it’s hard to make chopped avocado, salad and flaked salmon look rubbish.

On Tuesday, I ate a Caesar salad—partly to use up chicken we had in the freezer and partly to get rid of some of the jar of anchovy paste I bought the other week, which is destined to turn mouldy before I get round to using it all up*. My version of the dressing is this: whole egg, 100ml rapeseed oil, one clove of garlic, crushed, one rounded teaspoon anchovy paste, juice of half a lemon and 25g grated parmesan. Whisk together and use up within a few days.

Wednesday, I went for weirdness—two boiled eggs, cauliflower with a tin of anchovies chopped and mixed through, and the oil in the tin used to dress a salad. I’m eating tonnes of anchovies at the moment. They feel as if they are eco-friendly, super-healthy and those tins are dirt cheap.

On Thursday, I attempted a cauliflower risotto a la the Diet Doctor, as I wanted to try a new recipe. Cream, cheese, cauliflower and mushrooms… what’s not to love?! I’ve added the link to the recipe and you can see what it looks like when people who know how to make food look enticing get their hands on it.

Saturday, I decided, needed to be treat-worthy. ‘Treat-worthy’ is a subjective term. For my husband, it’s sirloin steak and chips whereas I can take or leave steaks. I’d rather eat a cheese omelette, so that’s what I did, doing my best to recreate a fluffy omelette I had in a cafe in Knaresborough last summer.

Throughout the week, I snacked on nuts. This week’s headlines about diabetes included a piece about nuts and how they might reduce the risk of cardiovascular problems for those with type 2 diabetes. That’s good enough for me. I love nuts—salted, smoked almonds in particular. But I’m happy to eat handfuls of the natural, unsalted varieties too.

What did that poor packet ever do to you?

And finally, we’ve been trying to persuade the cat his new best-loved food is Carne cat food. It’s a German make and it contains a lot more meat than most brands. Freddie, on the other hand, loves Whiskas – so much so he has worked out how to remove a packet from a tin and rip it apart with his claws…

Did you have a favourite meal this week and what was it? Let us know in the comments below.

*Does anyone know any other uses for the stuff? The jar suggests pasta and pizza, both out for obvious reasons.

The Athletes Guide to Diabetes

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There’s a new book out for everyone who has questions to ask about how you exercise with diabetes, and it includes advice about low-carb eating and exercise.

Nearly 300 athletic individuals were included in this new edition, now re-titled The Athlete’s Guide to Diabetes by Shelley Colberg, after answering Shelley’s online survey about their activities and diabetes management. And 15 athletes are included in all-new profiles.

Much of the first half of the book has been rewritten to include low-carb eating, the latest diabetes technologies, new medications, and much more. Tips and best practices to deal with device slippage, temperature extremes, and different activities are included as well.

There is guidance and unique perspectives on 165 sports and activities. More than 80% of the content is entirely new, and the publisher is offering an online CE exam for anyone who needs the credits.

Check it out on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Human Kinetics.

Amazon (in USA–but other countries to follow shortly):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NMZ1P7Z/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=drshercolbaut-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B07NMZ1P7Z&linkId=256f1452429dce96118c121dfba945aa

Barnes & Noble:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1129666399?ean=9781492588733#/

Human Kinetics (publisher site):

https://us.humankinetics.com/search?type=product&q=colberg

The Five Best Low-Carb Hacks

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Here at the Diabetes Diet, we’re fully on board with the making life easier message. Living with diabetes is like supporting a part-time job on top of everything else in your life.

And boy, if we were unionised, we’d revolt against the lack of time off and sick pay (ha!), and work conditions that are an uphill struggle all the time… One of the reasons low-carb diets make life easier for the sugar-challenged is that we don’t have to spend ages figuring out how many carbs are in particular dishes and how much insulin we need to cover them. Meat, sauce and salad is a lot easier to work out than meat, veg, roast potatoes and a Yorkshire pudding.

So, with that in mind, here are our favourite hacks:

Make your home carb-proof

bar of chocolate on the diabetes diet
Get thee behind me, Satan…

If it’s not there, you won’t miss it. Temptation comes in many forms, but it’s much easier to ignore the siren call of crisps or chocolate if you don’t keep them in the house*.

Have easy meals

If you can master the omelette, fried fish, steaks, burgers or open a tin of tuna, mix it with mayonnaise and tip it on a bed of crispy salad, you’re laughing. Diabetes makes you tired. Have some go-to super-fast meals you can make quicker in the time it takes to order and wait for a take-away.

Eat two starters when out

Starters tend to be lower in carbs than main courses, so go for two of them. Three, if you are very hungry.

Stock up on low-carb snacks

Cheese, olives, unsalted nuts, hard-boiled eggs… all help satisfy cravings and have plenty of protein for satiety.

Try some of the substitutes

To be honest, I’ve yet to meet the low-carb bread recipe that convinces me, but some of the baking ideas might work for you. Bread, cakes, biscuits and even fudge are out there so why not give some of them a try?

*Reader, all too often I slip on this one. Or do that thing where I buy crisps or chocolate for my other half, kidding myself that they are for him. No, no, not me oh luscious purple-foil wrapped packet…

Happy Chinese New Year – low-carb Chinese style recipe

Emma5 Comments

It’s Chinese New Year and the Year of the Pig—all hail the pig, supplier of many good things in our household—so I thought this week’s recipes ought to include a stir-fry.

Traditionally, stir-fry recipes include rice or noodles. You could use cauliflower rice if you wanted (and there’s a great recipe here) or those zero noodles, but I find a load of vegetables and protein filling enough. I adapted a Dana Carpender recipe for a low-carb Hoisin sauce, and I went with tofu as I’m trying to watch my carbon footprint these days.


  • 150g cabbage, shredded
  • 150g mushrooms, sliced
  • 75g courgette
  • 1 red pepper, de-seeded, ribs removed and sliced
  • 100g celery, chopped
  • 1tbsp rapeseed oil
  • 1pkt Cauldron marinated tofu pieces (160g)*

Sauce

  • 4tbsp soy sauce
  • 1tbsp Splenda or other granulated sweetener
  • 2tsp rapeseed oil
  • ½tsp Chinese five spice
  • 2tbsp sugar-free and salt-free peanut butter
  • 2tsp cider vinegar
  • 1 clove garlic

For the sauce, blend the ingredients together and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large work, and add the celery, red pepper and courgette. Cook for three minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook for another two minutes. Finish with the cabbage and cook till this softens.

Add the tofu and about half the sauce and mix well.

Allow about 10g carbs

*Feel free to replace the tofu with chicken, pork or beef Stir-fry this first in oil until cooked. Set aside, cook your veggies and then stir back in.

Should I stockpile insulin ahead of Brexit?

Emma5 Comments

insuline supplies on the Diabetes Diet website

I picked up my repeat prescription this week, and asked the all-important question. By the time I’m ready for the next one, Brexit is supposed to have taken place*. Will the UK’s insulin supplies run out?

As one of life’s optimists, I tend to ignore worst-case scenario planners, which makes me either naive, stupid or just someone who prefers to live in the now, as worrying about the future and events I have little control over seems pointless. It’s likely I’m all three.

Anyway, at the pharmacy I asked the chemist if I should stockpile insulin, seeing as very little of it is manufactured in the UK and insulin seems to get mentioned in the same sentence as food whenever people talk about stockpiling. As it happens, I have lots of one particular insulin, the rapid acting stuff, while my supplies of the long-acting stuff needs regular replacing. If the worst comes to the worst, I can beg an insulin pump from someone and use that…

No-one’s talking about it…

“If they are stock-piling, no-one’s talking about it,” the chemist told me, “And we’ve heard nothing officially.”

She didn’t then add, “If I were you, though, I’d make sure you’ve got four months’ supply at least and contemplate taking your diet as low-carb as possible so you don’t need as much.” I’ve made that advice up, obviously, but she didn’t add any caveats so either someone higher up in the medical supplies chain has decided on a policy of silence or the fears aren’t justified.

Ms Stupid/Naive/Live in the Moment has decided to leave worrying about her insulin supplies for now. There are many other factors which could affect insulin supplies in the future too—climate change, fuel shortages, war or the Zombie apocalypse, coming to a town near you all too soon.

And of course, the biggest factor is the soaring rates of type 2 diabetes. According to a recent report, about 33 million people who need insulin currently do not have access to the drug. That figure is expected to rise to 41 million by 2030. A lot of these shortages apply to people in Africa and Asia where increasing urbanisation, more sedentary lifestyles and changes to diet have led to soaring numbers of type 2 diabetics. In the States, however, insulin shortages also affect the population as prices have risen sharply over the last few years. Three companies dominate the market, and proof once again that free market systems seldom contribute to the greater good.

*And goodness knows what will happen on the 29th.

The Weird and Wonder of Low-Carb Eating

Emma9 Comments

pickled beetroot eggs on the Diabetes DietLadies and gentlemen – the pickled eggs were a huge success, though I’m the only fan in our household. And reader views varied as you will see in the comments on my original post and recipe.

I think you’ll agree they make the prettiest egg mayonnaise, though. Dollop a generous portion next to some poached or fried white fish or just put in a bowl, arm yourself with a teaspoon (smaller mouthfuls make it last longer) and eat like that. Before I completely repulse you with my slovenly eating habits—oh, scratch that, while we’re here, let’s continue with the weird and wonderful…

Embrace the odd

When you decide to eat a wholefood, low-carb diet, you can embrace odd combinations, pairings and dishes that stray from the well-trodden path. An oft-quoted saying for low-carb eating is that meals cease to be so different from each other.

Take breakfast as the best example. What can you eat if you shun the sugar, chemical load that is most cereals, you don’t eat bread but yet another plateful of bacon and eggs feels like a chore? Last night’s leftovers of course! A meal isn’t only dinner just because it’s got vegetables in it. Heat up your stew and have it for breakfast. Try a burger, chicken leg or a bowl of warming winter vegetable soup.

I like salad so I’ll add a side helping of it to anything, including the afore-mentioned bacon and eggs. Yolks that melt into salad leaves provide an instant dressing. A tin of anchovies, chopped up and mixed with steamed broccoli and cauliflower, gives you a side dish par excellence.

Cheese, cheese food of the Gods

I haven’t even started on cheese… Crumble blue cheese into minced beef cooked with peppers and mushrooms, top a curry with it, and always, always put it in meatballs and top it on burgers. Eat a lump of it with in-season strawberries, their sweet delicacy a nice contrast to a medium mature cheddar, or chop up carrots into batons and serve with a stronger farmhouse version. As we’re low-carb proponents, I can’t recommend this suggestion for frequent sampling, but a moist, dense fruit cake topped with a thin slice of blue cheese is heavenly… far better than icing overloaded cupcakes or birthday cake.

And then there’s the joy of butter—cooking, topping hot things with and paring off thin slices to eat as you cook. That might just be me. One of the more peculiar delicacies I like is two walnut halves stuck together with a bit of butter. Fatty heaven! I’m a big fan of creamed coconut too. You can cook amazing curries with the stuff, sure, but the real fun of creamed coconut is cutting yourself small cubes and allowing them to melt in your mouth. You can tell the warnings about saturated fat trotted down the road towards me, came to an abrupt halt and ran for the hills, screaming.

If a low-carb diet has been in your sights for a while but all that comes to mind is chicken, broccoli bacon and eggs and not much else, I promise you this way of eating is for food lovers; those of us who live to eat and who can spend hours planning, reading recipes, shopping and cooking. Take the starch out and other things rush to fill the space—weird, off the wall combinations individually tailored to your own tastes.

Enjoy!

Do you have any weird food combos or dishes you love to eat in secret? Let us know in the comments below.

PS—articles in the news recently focused on a study that stressed the importance of eating far less meat, fish and dairy for planetary and health reasons. For those of us who are concerned with both, there are some thought-provoking articles and arguments on the Diet Doctor website, which also focuses on low-carb diets for health.