There Is No Such Thing As A Diabetes Safe Recipe

Let me say this is explicitly: There is no such a truly diabetic-friendly recipe, if the recipe is done correctly. You can make all of the sugar substitutes you want, you can eliminate the flour, you can even eat very small portions, but these do not make the recipe any more friendly. To do so makes the recipe suck in all sorts of unimaginable ways, or just encourages you to eat more of it. This does not make for any kind of great cooking, and usually creates a bigger problem than you started with.

Flour is a great example. For some stupid reason, people think that they can change all-purpose flour for wheat or almond flour, or even omit four all together. The belief is that by getting away from all-purpose flour, the amount of sugar in the recipe goes down. Worse, some people believe that by going gluten-free they will see a dramatic drop in the amount of sugars. The issue is not that flour contains sugar, but that it contains carbohydrates, and those carbs convert to sugar during digestion. Although gluten-free flours offer some reduction in carbs, and therefore sugars, they are still a major source of carbs. Omitting flour altogether may seem like a great solution, but it generally results in a gloppy mess as the flour kept everything together.

Recipes that use a lot of cheese are another example. Cheese is another item that helps to increase blood sugar; although fermentation uses up a lot of the sugars in the milk, enough remains that it becomes a problem for diabetics; a slice of cheese is the equivalent of a slice of bread (it contributes effectively 15 grams of carbohydrates per slice), so too much cheese can actually be a bad thing. The problem is that this is something that needs to be remembered as most cheeses do not list their lactose content. As such, it can be a problem for diabetics that eat out a lot.

It gets worse when you start looking at sugar substitutes. Some of them may actually increase blood sugar in some diabetics, or at least seem the same to testing agencies. While this may make them great for most uses, the bottom line is that for those attempting to keep their blood sugar low they may actually create a problem. Obviously there will be some trial and error in finding out what works for the individual consumer, but this means that not all substitutes are created equal.

Then there are those recipes that were obviously created with people who seem to be aggressively clueless. These people omit sugar from recipes, but replace it with what they feel will make it taste sweet without concern for the sugar content of the replacements. Chocolate chips, caramel candies, even fruit have made their way into so-called "sugar-free" recipes. While this is understandable (for example, fruit,, being healthy, is not seen usually considered something that adds to blood sugar by most people), it is nonetheless the healthy version of good intentions.

This means that a diabetic needs to be careful about which recipes that they use, and must take a hard look at the recipes that they use. There will be recipes that are just too good to pass up, and so there will be times you need to manage your diabetes rather than control. Do so wisely and you should be okay.