Tag Archives: food

A visit to Wendy’s

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A couple of days ago, my family and I were heading to a New Years Eve party and we were running late. Instead of gambling on whether or not there would be supper-like food at the party, we decided to make a stop at the fast food restaurant “Wendy’s”.

Before you start to tell me how many carbs are in a french fry — I know. I decided to have a half sized apple pecan chicken salad, which is a total of 28 carbs. But, I am not blogging excitedly about the salad. I am excited about the drink machine that was in the restaurant –> a Coke Freestyle machine.

You see, when I usually go to restaurants, if I don’t want a million carbs, I have a choice of coffee, water or diet coke. Honestly, I am not a big fan of any of those things. The new Freestyle machine has over 100 choices of drinks — and a lot of them are the “Diet” and “Zero” drinks. I was able to have my favorite soda — Diet Dr. Pepper. Yay for choices!

Thoughts about Mark Twain’s quote

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Yesterday I posted a quote from Mark Twain which joked that if you want to be healthy you have to do things that you don’t want to do. Although I found it funny, it did make me think. We diabetics have to follow that more than other people.

Everyone needs to exercise , but it is a bit more crucial for diabetics to keep their weight down. Everyone should be careful about what they eat, but diabetics need to practice portion control or feel ill. And for the drink what you don’t want… I remember loving drinking juice. I thought it was so much healthier than drinking soda. But juice has a ton of carbs, so I tend to stay away from juice. What do I drink instead — water. Yes, water is also good for you, but I can’t say good things about the flavor. I do buy crystal light and mio, but there is only so much sucralose that I like to ingest.

I guess I am in a “diabetes stinks” mood today.

Carbs and Christmas and Hanukkah

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I just wrote about healthy food, so I guess it is time for me to write about unhealthy food — Sweets! I seem to be surrounded by sweets during the holidays. Even though I am diabetic, I think it is ok to have a few sweets, as long as I know the carbs and add insulin appropriately.

It is always hard to figure out carbs for candies — especially when it is in a stocking, or given as a gift.

Here are the few Christmas/Hanukkah foods that I could find.

Nutrient Info

Serving Size Calories Fat Sodium Carbohyd Protein
Spangler Standard Candy Canes 1 piece (.50 oz) 55 0 g 0 mg 14g 0g
Beaners Chocolate Coins 1 piece 31 2g 6 mg 4g 0g
Milk Chocolate 1 oz 152 8.4 g 22 mg 16.2 g  2.2g

Here is some info that I found at Insulinpumpers. The first section is Halloween, but the bottom is Christmas/Hanukkah.

HOLIDAY CANDIES

name size carbs
fudge with nuts 1 oz piece 20 carbs
gelt 1 oz. chocolate coin 18 carbs
peppermint candy 1 candy or small candy cane 5-8 carbs
sugar cookie 3 inch 15 carbs
sugar free Trident for kids 1 piece 1 carb

Most standard sized candy canes are 14-16 carbs.

What sweets do you eat during the Holidays?

Good book on allergies

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(Full Disclosure, I am friends with the author so I may be a bit biased.) I was talking about allergies a couple of days ago.  Some people did point out to me that clams do not need to be disclosed in nutrition labels, just crustacean shellfish. I guess that it doesn’t make things any worse than what I grew up with. I do find it unusual that a seafood is not on the list, even though a good deal of people allergic to crustaceans are also allergic to mollusks.  Oh well.

If you are looking for a book to explain food allergies to a child, I suggest DJs Allergies. (Click on the image to see more about the book.) This book explains food allergies in a way a child can understand. Sadly, children with food allergies need an understanding of their allergy, so they don’t take a bite of the cookie that their friend offered, or have that cake at the birthday party. If you don’t have a food allergy, you might not realize what type of things you have to watch out for. Just looking at the ingredients might not be enough. Some allergies (like mine) you have to make sure that the food you are allergic to doesn’t touch what you are eating, You need to make sure that even a small molecule isn’t in your food. Frying the food in the same oil, or having it on a tray where the shop people may pick it up after touching what you are allergic to may set off an attack. Some attacks can be serious enough to kill you!  As you can tell, they are very serious.

Allergies and Friendlys

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First of all, I want to say that the waitress at Friendlys was very informed, and did tell me the correct information. Thank you SO much for ketting me know. I just wanted people to know who are counting on the info on the website.

The Allergen page on the Friendlys website is wrong. I should have realized, since the “clamboat” didn’t have an x in the “shellfish” section. Friendlys has clams in their menu that they do fry. That oil is the same oil that they use for the fries and the chicken. So, if you are allergic to clams, (enough so if they use the same cooking oil you can get sick,) don’t order anything that is fried there.

And a note to Friendlys — Clams are also shellfish, not just shrimp. Unless…are you saying there are no actual clams in the Clam Boat?

Diet V8 Splash and diabetes – Follow-up

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Just a few weeks ago,  I mentioned how Diet V8 Splash® agreed to donate $10 for every person who joined the StopDiabetes movement, up to $50,000. That’s $50,000 for research, education and advocacy efforts.

In just 5 days, the goal was reached.  Thanks to any of you who responded!

And thanks to Diet V8 Splash, who gave the whole $50,000 donation to the movement. Yay!

BBQ and diabetes

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It is Memorial Day, and it is time to think of all those who have died in our nation’s service. Around here, people tend to go to parades, and then head to a barbecue. I am planning on doing the same.

As I was trying to figure out what to bring to the after-parade barbecue, I started to think about all the typical food items that we normally have there. The various meats tend to be fine, but then BBQ sauce gets added – quite a few that are FILLED with sugar. Then there are all the pasta salads, the potato salads, the corn on the cobs, the cakes and other desserts. Yeesh, it is carb city. I do realize that I can eat carbs, but I try to keep myself down to a certain amount per meal. It helps my control if I do that. So, what can I do ?

Chef Hymie Grande created three BBQ sauces with no high fructose corn syrup or processed sugars (also vegan friendly and all natural). Also, part of the profits go to the American Diabetes Association. There is another sauce, this one by Jersey Mary. It has brown sugar, but the carbs are only 4 per 2 tablespoons serving and is low in sodium. They give part of their profits to the Juvenile Diabetes Association.

So, that is one way to reduce sugar intake. But what about veggies? Did you know that you can cover  lots of different veggies with foil and cook them on the grill? Bell peppers, onion, snap peas and mushrooms taste great cooked this way. Just put the veggies in a sheet of foil. I tend to drizzle them with olive oil. Then, fold the foil in half to cover the contents; make narrow folds along edges to seal. (It looks like a little pocket, but completely sealed.)  Then, put it on the grill from 10-30 minutes. (It depends on the size and type of the veggies.)

Did you go to a BBQ? What did you eat?

Here are some links for more information.

Reader’s Digest – 6 tips for healthier grilling

Veggies on the Grill recipe

I found this video talking about some barbecue tips for those with diabetes.

Diet V8 Splash and diabetes

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Diet V8 Splash® will donate $10 for every person who joins the Stop Diabetes movement, up to $50,000.

This money will go to support crucial diabetes research. It will fund educational outreach to both young and old. And it will continue the fight so nobody’s rights are denied because they have diabetes.

I signed up, why don’t you?

Go here to help: http://stopdiabetes.diabetes.org/

Vegetables

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Fruit and Vegetables in crates and boxes.

Fruit and Vegetables in crates and boxes. (from freeclipartnow.com)

One way I tried to improve my diet/lifestyle (that actually worked) was to join a CSA.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. A person gives a a farm a certain amount of money which allows them to buy a share of the farm. Everyone who has a share gets a certain amount of vegetables during the growing season. Usually buying a share also means pledging to do a certain amount of farm work.

My share last year helped in a couple of ways. The variety of vegetables added more lower carb options to my diet.  I got some vegetables I would never have thought to buy when I was at the store. Since I already had them, I looked into interesting recipes. But, the CSA even had more. My CSA (like a lot of others) had a weekly newsletter that had interesting recipes. And, I had to work at the farm for a certain number of hours. So, a certain amount of outside exercise was something that I had to do.

If you are interested in signing up for a CSA near you, start looking into it very soon. My CSA sent me an email about sign-ups already. Quite a few CSAs sell all their shares by early February.

Looking for more information?

Here is a list of some Massachusetts CSAs: http://www.foodonthefood.com/food_on_the_food/2009/01/putting-the-loca-in-locavore.html

Here is a list of local farms and CSAs near Marlborough MA:  http://marlboroughlocalfood.wetpaint.com/page/Small+Farm 

Massachusetts list of CSAs: http://www.mass.gov/agr/massgrown/csa.htm

Looking for a CSA in another state in the USA: http://www.localharvest.org/