Australian Dietary Guidelines Archives - Page 2 of 7

Making 2&5 easy

November 3, 2014 by Sally Leave a Comment

We’re all so busy these days. How on Earth are we meant to able to consider our health and getting enough fruit and vegetables (our 2&5) into the meals we eat?

Often I see clients who, when I take their diet histories, they don’t even start to consider foods like fruit and vegetables until so late in the day that it’s actually too late to get enough of those important plant nutrients. Or when they’re doing it they find them so unappealing that there’s no incentive to make them want to eat more.

In this blog I hope to help you find it easier to get them all in and enjoy them, which in turn will help you to improve your own wellbeing, diabetes health, mental health, heart health and so much more!

The Australian Dietary Guidelines tells us:

“There are many nutritional, societal, culinary and environmental reasons to ensure that vegetables, including legumes/beans, and fruit are a major component of Australian dietary patterns. These foods are nutrient dense, relatively low in energy (kilojoules) and are good sources of minerals and vitamins (such as magnesium, vitamin C and folate), dietary fibre and a range of phytochemicals including carotenoids. Many of the sub-components of foods and their relationships have not been studied in detail, and it is expected that other sub-components – and their biological effects – are still to be discovered.”

From a diabetes point of view, they’ll help improve our immune system, mental health, good cholesterol, bowel health and help with weight management (just to name a few benefits!).

Perhaps a good start would be to look at ideas to include them in your meals across the day, and then provide you with some easy recipes – some of my personal favourites, and I encourage you to share your personal favourites below too in case they inspire someone else to enjoy more of these wonderful foods.

A good starting point is to know what the guideline is and how much a serve is. This snip from the Australian Dietary Guidelines for Adults brochure provides a pretty clear picture.

One of my best tips is to break up the intake of these foods across the day so that you’re not left with large amounts required at the end. Personally I aim to get 2-3 serves of vegetables at lunchtime and another 2-3 for dinner, and I one of my fruit serves at breakfast and one as a snack later in the day. But there are no rules about this. Here are some ideas that might help you.

Breakfast

Weekday breakfasts usually need to be fast to prepare and eat. So a bowl of high fibre cereal with a serve of fruit is one easy way to get you off to a good start. Think bananas, strawberries, blueberries. A milk based smoothie also works well here, as does multigrain toast with peanut butter and a squashed banana.

On weekends with a little more time, why not wilt some baby spinach leaves and panfry mushrooms and tomato, served on toast with an egg. Remembering that one medium sized tomato equals a serve, and half a cup of cooked veg (the mushrooms and wilted spinach) is another serve, you’re off to a great start with two vegetable serves already under your belt.

Lunch

I love lunchtimes in my office. I take the various ingredients to build my favourite salad and set aside an hour to build and eat it while I check my email and Facebook. My salads include mixed leaves, baby tomatoes (various colours if they’re available), Lebanese cucumber, onion, half a cup of 4 bean mix and a quarter of an avocado. That gives me around 3 vegetable serves and I salivate over every mouthful.

Of course leftover are also a top idea for lunch, especially ones high in vegetable ingredient, and can be served with baby spinach leaves to lift them.

And if you’re in a massive hurry and can only have time to make a sandwich, pile on the salad and take some extra veg in a box to nibble on with your sandwich. I just adore the flavour in the grape or Perino tomatoes, and cooked and cooled asparagus (in season at the moment) are such a treat flavourwise – I even enjoy it raw!

Dinner

A good place to start here is to remember the plate model, in that half your plate should be non-starchy veg or salad.

I’ll provide ideas below on some yummy ways you can make this happen. It is definitely the easiest meal to get those extra serves in, so 2-3 shouldn’t be a challenge at all.

Snacks

Of course a piece of fruit is an excellent snack, remembering you’re aiming for 2 per day, so if you’ve had one with your breakfast you only need one later in the day too. For us with diabetes they’re better off eaten at separate times to keep our BGLs more stable.

Five easy ideas to enjoy your vegetables

Simply steamed or microwaved to an ‘al-dente’ texture (ie not overcooked) mixed vegetables of your choice such as broccoli, zucchini, green beans and peas. Dress with the juice of a lemon, a finely chopped clove of garlic, extra virgin olive oil (equal amount to the lemon juice) and salt and pepper to taste. Delicious!
Start with a tin of tomatoes and add flavours such as garlic, anchovies and chilli. Then just add your choice of veggies and simmer in the sauce for 5 minutes or until they’re an al-dente texture (not overcooked). Tasty!
Take a bowl and add a huge variety of vegetables such as mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, capsicum, zucchini, pumpkin, beans, whole garlic cloves, onion and toss them in some extra virgin olive oil with fresh or dried oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Tip them into a baking tray lined with baking paper (for easy washing up) and roast at 180 degrees Celsius for about 30 mins. Also wonderful with crumbled feta cheese tossed through at the end, and delicious cold the next day for leftover lunches!
Soups and stews are such an obvious choice for those who find it hard to enjoy their veggies as all you need to do is add a whole load of mixed veggies into a large pot, cover with stock, simmer for 20-30 minutes and blend with your desired flavourings. How easy is that?!
Last but not least, if you have left over steamed vegetables it’s so easy to reinvigorate them by adding them into a mix of a few beaten eggs and some cheese and a few extra fresh herbs, baked for 30 mins at 180 degrees to make a frittata that will ‘Wow’ your guests. Also fabulous for next day lunches to help get your vegetable serves in. Yummo!

That’s probably enough to cover in this blog. I’ve give you quite a lot to consider. As mentioned, we’d love you to share your favourite ways of enjoying vegetables, and let’s talk about them more in our Diabetes Counselling Online groups such as Diabetes and Food – let’s celebrate it!, Diabetes Weight Matters and Men Living with Diabetes among others.

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), and has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too. You can access a linked list of all Sally’s Diabetes Counselling Online blogs here.

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Learning to Love Legumes

October 20, 2014 by Sally 1 Comment

When you were a child, were legumes amongst the foods that you really disliked the flavour/texture of? Do you still avoid them?

Just recently I’ve had a few clients telling me that they just can’t stand legumes, and when I dig a bit deeper it’s usually not such a dire ‘hate’ as they imagined. So I thought we’d look at the various types with yummy ways to include them and have a closer look at their fibre and carb/GI levels.

In our last Diabetes Counselling Online blog about legumes entitled ‘Legumes Rock’ we found out that:

“Legumes are truly amazing plants. They are high in all three types of fibre (soluble, insoluble and resistant starch), they are high in protein and low-glycemic carbohydrates so keep your appetite satisfied for longer, and they are incredibly versatile and inexpensive. They’re also full of vitamins, minerals and plant chemicals. Once you start a healthy habit of including them every day, you won’t want to stop.”

So when I ask these clients, “what is it about them that you dislike?”, some say it’s the texture, some say it’s how they look, some say “they’re too dry”. And in every case we’re able to help by making suggestions to try them that might avoid the ‘issue’ they seem to have.

What’s your issue?

When you consider that they’re budget friendly (especially when you buy the dried varieties that take just a little more preparation) and can sit in your pantry for a long time (especially the tinned varieties), they allow you to have on hand the makings of many easy and delicious recipes.

This table comes from the Grains & Legumes Nutrition Council website, and I thought it helps to demonstrate this point.

Do you ever wonder “what can I add to this salad to make it more interesting or to add the low-GI carb that I need, or to add the protein/fibre that I need, or even just to make it into a one-pot meal?”? Half a tin (per person) of 80c (Coles own brand price) legumes of your choice could well be the answer.

Learning to love them

If it’s been a while, why not give this a try?

Taking a single creamy coloured cannellini bean from a tin and squeezing it between your fingers, see how the smooth and delicate outer casing protects the bean’s shape and also keeps your fingers clean. The velvety inside squishes with hardly any pressure and shows you how easy these are to mash. Warmed through and smashed together with the velvety richness of extra virgin olive oil the flavours remind me of holidays in Italy.

A great option is to consider replacing mashed potato or rice with them. Fresh herbs also compliment the flavours wonderfully.

Types and descriptions and good ways to use them

The Grains and Legumes Council explains: “Legumes (also known as pulses) include all forms of beans and peas – dried, canned, cooked and frozen. Among the well known legumes are butter beans, haricot (navy) beans, cannellini beans, red kidney beans, adzuki beans, black-eyed beans, soybeans, chickpeas, faba bean, field pea, lentils, lupin, mung bean and peanuts.”

A comparison

This table looks at some of the more popular types so you can see how good they are, remembering that any number under 55 means it’s low-GI.

Type	GI rating	Carb/100g	Protein/100g	Fibre/100g
Cannellini beans	31	12.2	6.2	6.4
Chick peas	38	13.3	6.3	4.7
Lentils	42	9.5	6.8	3.7
Red kidney beans	36	14.1	6.6	6.5
Baked beans	40	11.8	4.6	4.8
Field peas (or split peas)	25	6.7	6.6	3.9

The data for this table was taken from the Sydney University GI website, and CalorieKing.com.au.

This comparison demonstrates that the variety of legumes all have similar excellent values from a diabetes point of view. Therefore, depending on your tastes, you could try them in many different ways and know that they’ll be helping your health.

Some simple ideas to try

Cannellini beans – delightfully soft and creamy
- add half a tin to your omelette or frittata
- mash as a side with olive oil instead of mashed potato or rice
- add to salads
- whizz into a dip with garlic, lemon, olive oil and other yummies
Chick peas – slightly firmer texture providing a soft, nutty crunch
- try them as hummus for your snacks
- roast them to produce a crunchy snack with added spices for more flavour
- add them to salads, casseroles and soups
Lentils – small in size but they bring so much unassuming value to
- curries
- soups
- dahl (a simply prepared stew based around lentils and other split legumes)
Red kidney beans – the colour makes them appealing to add variety
- often used in Mexican dishes such as Chilli con carne and tacos
- great in salads, casseroles and soups
Baked beans – such an easy staple in any pantry
- perfect on a slice of multigrain toast (watching the carb serves) with an egg on top
- even straight out of the tin if you’re pushed for time and inspiration
Field peas (or split peas) – cooks down to a pulp-like texture
- traditionally cooked in soups to add a thickened, creamy texture such as in pea and ham soup.

To finish up I encourage you to look at this resource that is provided by the Grains and Legumes Council called ‘Legumes – tips and tricks to enjoy them more often’, and remind you that for the health benefits to take effect you should be aiming to have a serve (75g or half a cup of cooked) of a variety of different legumes at least four times per week.

If you’d like to know more and have links to some recipes and other ideas, take another look at the first blog on this topic ‘Legumes Rock’.

Hoping I’ve inspired you to give a few of these varieties a try, especially if it’s because you did have an aversion when you were a child. Perhaps it was the way they were prepared, or even just ‘the idea’ of them. As an adult with more mature taste buds it’s definitely time for a re-try. Enjoy!

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), and has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too. You can access a list of all Sally’s Diabetes Counselling Online blogs here.

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Understanding cholesterol levels and improving them

October 6, 2014 by Sally 4 Comments

I often see clients who come to me with high cholesterol readings, even though they’re on a cholesterol medication. When we look at the cholesterol breakdown on their blood tests it often helps them to understand how they can make dietary/lifestyle improvements to help with their heart health. This blog intends to break down the various parts of the cholesterol blood test results and give you easy to understand tips in managing the different numbers.

Of course we know that it’s important to manage cholesterol, and especially so for us with diabetes. We know that people with diabetes are 3 to 4 times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease (including heart attack and stroke) than those who do not have diabetes. In addition, around 75% of all people with diabetes die from cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke.

I want to make the clear point that you should NOT make any changes to your medications without checking with your doctor first.

A basic explanation indicates that the total cholesterol number is made up of several smaller components, each that have a ‘healthy target’ range. Primarily these include:

Triglycerides
LDL (the bad cholesterol)
HDL (the good cholesterol)

In a nutshell we want to reduce the triglycerides and LDL numbers and increase the HDL (happy) cholesterol.

Triglycerides

Triglycerides are fairly easy to understand and also fairly easily managed through lifestyle changes. They are a form of fat that results from the breakdown of fats, poor quality carbs and alcohol in the diet and ‘high’ triglycerides are strongly linked with atherosclerosis (or artery plaque) that leads to heart attacks and strokes. This link is made stronger when the HDLs levels are lower and the LDL levels are higher. The tips below will show you how to achieve that.

LDL and HDL

I think this brief Wikipedia explanation works well here to provide the basic idea of how these work together before we move onto the food/lifestyle ways to improve the numbers from our blood test:

“Lipoprotein molecules enable the transportation of lipids (fats), such as cholesterol, phospholipids, and triglycerides, within the water around cells (extracellular fluid), including the bloodstream. Studies have shown that increasing levels of LDL particles (perhaps type-B, i.e. smaller particles, less so than type-A, larger LDL particles) are associated with health problems, including cardiovascular disease.

Although the nickname is simplistic and thus quite misleading, LDL particles (composed of thousands of various molecules) are often called bad cholesterol because they can transport their content of many fat molecules into artery walls, attract macrophages, and thus drive atherosclerosis. In contrast, HDL particles (composed of thousands of various molecules) are frequently referred to as good cholesterol or healthy cholesterol, because they can remove fat molecules from macrophages in the wall of arteries.”

How can we improve our results with diet?

Fortunately there’s been a lot of research conducted in this area, and I’m sure there’ll be much more to come in future. Being evidence-based, following the Australian Dietary Guidelines is always an excellent start. Then it’s all about ensuring there’s more of the good stuff than the bad.

The first three of the five guidelines summarise well how we can improve our dietary cholesterol, as well as our overall health. I’ll cover specifics after this, but feel it’s worth the reminder to read these first three guidelines yourself:

Guideline 1

To achieve and maintain a healthy weight, be physically active and choose amounts of nutritious food and drinks to meet your energy needs.

Children and adolescents should eat sufficient nutritious foods to grow and develop normally. They should be physically active every day and their growth should be checked regularly.
Older people should eat nutritious foods and keep physically active to help maintain muscle strength and a healthy weight.

Guideline 2

Enjoy a wide variety of nutritious foods from these five food groups every day:

Plenty of vegetables of different types and colours, and legumes/beans
Fruit
Grain (cereal) foods, mostly wholegrain and/or high cereal fibre varieties, such as breads, cereals, rice, pasta, noodles, polenta, couscous, oats, quinoa and barley
Lean meats and poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts and seeds, and legumes/beans
Milk, yoghurt, cheese and/or their alternatives, mostly reduced fat

And drink plenty of water.

Guideline 3

Limit intake of foods containing saturated fat, added salt, added sugars and alcohol.

Limit intake of foods high in saturated fat such as many biscuits, cakes, pastries, pies, processed meats, commercial burgers, pizza, fried foods, potato chips, crisps and other savoury snacks.
Replace high fat foods which contain predominately saturated fats such as butter, cream, cooking margarine, coconut and palm oil with foods which contain predominately polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats such as oils, spreads, nut butters/pastes and avocado.
Low fat diets are not suitable for children under the age of 2 years.

Limit intake of foods and drinks containing added salt

Read labels to choose lower sodium options among similar foods.
Do not add salt to foods in cooking or at the table.

Limit intake of foods and drinks containing added sugars such as confectionary, sugar-sweetened soft drinks and cordials, fruit drinks, vitamin waters, energy and sports drinks.
If you choose to drink alcohol, limit intake. For women who are pregnant, planning a pregnancy or breastfeeding, not drinking alcohol is the safest option.”

And now for some specifics:

1) Consume more of these foods

Plant foods – ensure you get your 5 serves of veg and 2 serves of fruit every day
Fibre – remembering there’s three types. Read up on fibre in a previous blog here.
Oats – full of beta glucans known to improve cholesterol levels. Read up on oats in a previous blog here.
Nuts – one to two 30g handfuls a day of mixed unsalted nuts can make a big difference. Read up on nuts in a previous blog here.
Oily fish and good fats – the omega-3 fats found in deep sea fish have anti-inflammatory properties and have been shown to improve heart health. Read more about the good fats in this previous blog.
Legumes – not enough of us eat enough of these amazing foods! Read more about them here, how to include more of them each day and how they’ll improve your health in so many ways.
Choose plant sterol fortified dairy products. This link from the Dietitians Association of Australia explains more.

2) Consume less of these foods/drinks

Sugar sweetened softdrinks
Processed fruit juice
Alcohol
High glycemic index/poor nutritional quality carbs – read more here to choose better carbs.
Saturated fats
Processed/junk foods

3) And do your best to increase your physical activity levels! The National Physical Activity Guidelines recommends:

Doing any physical activity is better than doing none. If you currently do no physical activity, start by doing some, and gradually build up to the recommended amount.
Be active on most, preferably all, days every week.
Accumulate 150 to 300 minutes (2 ½ to 5 hours) of moderate intensity physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes (1 ¼ to 2 ½ hours) of vigorous intensity physical activity, or an equivalent combination of both moderate and vigorous activities, each week.
Do muscle strengthening activities on at least 2 days each week.

Hoping that’s made understanding how food and lifestyle affects your cholesterol levels a little clearer. Please let me know if you have any questions. Sally

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), and has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too. You can access a list of all Sally’s Diabetes Counselling Online blogs here.

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Juggling Wellness and Diabetes

September 15, 2014 by Sally Leave a Comment

I’m writing this personal kind of blog on a Saturday. I love Saturdays. They encompass lots of things I love to do which all contribute to my wellbeing. This morning I was out on my run and because it’s Saturday and lovely Spring weather lots of my neighbours were also out and about. Nearly everyone I ‘ran’ into made the comment about how well I looked. I had at least 3 such comments this morning and they inspired me to share with you what I believe to be the key to being well with diabetes, or what works for me anyway.

This is important to me because I have diabetes and I’m turning 50 next year, so I know that if I don’t focus on being well myself I’m in a higher risk group to lose my wellness that is so important to me. I want to do all I can to hold onto it for as long as I can, so I can enjoy more of this wonderful life. I’m also passionate about helping others to be well too to the best of their ability, so here goes!

Sleep

Every Saturday I get to sleep in. Yay! To catch up on a few hours I may have missed through the busy-ness of my week. Time to give my body a chance to repair and relax. I usually get to sleep in until around 8am, which is a big improvement on my 6-6.30am starts on other days of the week. The only thing that stops me from doing this is waking early with a hypo, but this morning my BGLs behaved themselves. This week I found an awesome article in The Conversation on the importance of sleep which I encourage you to read. It’s just so important for our wellbeing, and especially so for us with diabetes.

Eating Well

As a dietitian you would know that I am particularly passionate on this topic! This is the only topic in today’s blog that I’m qualified to talk about as a health professional, and it’s such an important one! The Australian Dietary Guidelines that we follow actually makes the comment, “Diet is arguably the single most important behavioural risk factor that can be improved to have a significant impact on health.” It is something that I think about, read up on and focus on every day.

Today I started with my fibre rich, low-GI and high nutrient breakfast, a combination of two cereals that enjoy eating together topped with skim milk. I had a banana for morning tea and a delicious bowl of vegetable and low-GI carb rich Minestrone soup. This afternoon I’ll probably have a snack of a handful of nuts and another piece of fruit. We have a delicious lean meat and vegetable rich stir-fry planned which we’ll serve with plain Basmati rice, and I’ve marked out my favourite Black Cherry yogurt for dessert.

I know that I’m getting the nutrients I need to be well each day, and I’m sure it must also reflect in my outward appearance when I’m out on my run, makeup free in my daggy running shorts too lol

Regular Exercise

Nice segway to the exercise! Also lots of evidence here to support wellbeing, reducing inflammation, improving mental health and keeping our BGLs more stable. You may know that I’m a golfer. I try to play 18 holes in a comp twice a week, and 9 holes if I have time as a break in my day on a Friday. On the days I’m not golfing I do my best to get in at least the minimum recommended 30 minutes of moderate physical activity. Usually I try for 45 minutes. Since I’ve been doing this I have noticed a big improvement in the stability of my glycemic control as my fitness has improved. It’s so worth the effort even when you don’t really feel like it!

Family Time/Love

I’m incredibly fortunate to have so much love and support from my family, but I guess it works both ways in that I also love and support them! I believe that love and giving love is an important part of wellbeing. We hug each other a lot in our household, and in the wider family too. Have you hugged someone today and told them you love them?

Being sociable

Although I was out on my run, I enjoy stopping along the way on a Saturday as I have more time available to me to chat with my lovely neighbours in the suburb I live in. I chat with the children, and the parents, and the older people, and the neighbours who are my friends. To me this is important as I feel loved within my community too, and I know that I’m helping some of these people to feel loved too <3

Hard Work

I enjoy working. It keeps my brain active. It gives me a purpose and keeps me inspired each day to stay well and make the most of my life. The lovely Helen Wilde called me a workaholic this week, which made me think. You know I probably am a workaholic, but that’s because I love what I do and it makes me happy to help other people to be well. But I honestly try very hard to keep a balance with the other important factors in my life.

For those of you who are lucky to be retired or not have to ‘work’ as such I would encourage some kind of volunteer role as it can really be so rewarding and contribute to your wellness. We have some awesome volunteers who help us out at Diabetes Counselling Online. You can read more about our team and some of our ambassadors here. They’re so important in making our charitable organisation what it is.

Keeping the Balance

Of course, being Saturday, I also have household chores to do, preparation cooking for the week ahead, and I might even fit in a quiet hour of reading a book. It’s always a good day, and means I really relax and enjoy myself on my day of rest (and golf) Sunday.

If you try to imagine all these aspects (including any others you may have yourself) as a number of balls that you’re juggling, I believe that remaining well is all about keeping a balance amongst them. Sometimes you need to drop one ball to keep the others going smoothly, but don’t forget it and go back to collect it as soon as you can. I don’t see diabetes as one of those balls – it’s just part of me and often influences how I manage some of those balls/aspects.

Hopefully some of this will inspire you to focus on keeping your balls in the juggle, and know where you can make some positive changes to improve your own wellness. Diabetes Counselling Online actually has a whole section on the website on Diabetes & Wellbeing. Check it out!

You know we’re here to help. With love, Sally.

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), and has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too. You can access a list of all Sally’s Diabetes Counselling Online blogs here.

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Healthy d-baking with guest Joan Bailey

September 8, 2014 by Sally Leave a Comment

One of our wonderful Diabetes Counselling Online volunteers, Joan Bailey, has type 2 diabetes. She also has two young daughters who both have coeliac disease. Joan loves to bake them yummy, homemade meals and treats for their lunchboxes. She also works hard to control her blood glucose levels and remain fit so that she’ll be healthy to look after her family in years to come. And she also enjoys the food that she creates for the rest of the family. This means that she needs to consider all the diabetes factors in recipes as well as making them gluten free and delicious.

In today’s blog Joan demonstrates how she does this and explains that often these healthier options are even more delicious than the original recipes. If you’re not gluten free, don’t worry as Joan has included gluten containing options too in her tips for healthier swaps

Over to you Joan:

Thanks Sally. I hope this blog highlights that for those of us who enjoy baking that it is still possible!

Today many low glycemic index (GI) recipes are available but sometimes a family favourite is hard to give up and obviously we still want to enjoy them at the end of the day.

So the only option is to identify the potentially high GI, high fat and high sodium elements within the recipe and swap them for diabetes friendly ingredients.

I personally think that taste-wise the healthier versions can taste even nicer and be more filling and satisfying!

Making the conversion

As we’ve learned through listening to Sally and other dietitians, when converting a recipe for diabetes the main components that should be addressed are the carbohydrate components (the sugars and the flours) as well as the total and saturated fat levels and the salt (sodium) content.

Once you get the proportions correct and the correct substitutions it is easy to do.

It does take a bit of trial and error, so it’s a top idea to write things down as you go. And just like anything you do, the more practice you get, the better you’ll be at making your original ‘guesstimations’ for the substitutions.

Beginning with a Brownie recipe

Let’s start with a basic brownie recipe and look at converting each component. This table shows what a difference the changes can make!

Original recipe	Amount of Nutrient	Substituted with	Amount of nutrient	% Difference
1.5 cups self-raising flour (337g)	Carb = 246g	1.5 cups chickpea (besan flour) plus a teaspoon of baking powder (225g)	Carb = 104.4g	-57.6%
½ cup sugar (225g)	Carb = 224.5g	½ cup Stevia	Carb = 0g	-100%
1 cup water		1 cup water
¼ cup cacao		¼ cup cacao
1 tblspn vinegar		1 tblspn vinegar
60mL full cream milk	Per 100gFat Total = 4.4gSaturated = 2.9	60 mL low fat milk	Per 100gFat Total – 1.2gSaturated 0.8	-73%-72%
1 tsp vanilla essence		1 tsp vanilla essence
6 tblspns sunflower oil	Per 100gFat Total = 100gSaturated = 11g	6 tblspns low fat yogurt	Per 100gFat Total = 0.3gSaturated 0.2g	-99.7%-98%

Now, this table took me a little while to put together, but I think it’s quite an eye opener as to the enormous differences we can make to help our health and wellbeing, just by making a few minor changes to the original recipe. Still looks and tastes as good as the original!

And just to further make the point, I put both recipes through the FSANZ Nutritional Panel calculator (following the directions in a past blog that Sally posted for Diabetes Counselling Online).

First is the original brownie recipe

And here’s my healthier version

Which would you rather have, especially when you know that this one tastes just as good as the original??

Are you amazed at the differences these changes have made?

And the taste also lived up to expections! My girls certainly enjoyed them – they didn’t last long!

Some other helpful ideas for your recipe conversions

Instead of icing sugar try low fat Philadelphia cream cheese thinned out with milk and sweetened with Stevia (cocoa – optional)
For pizza bases/pancakes/crumpets/muffins try swapping the plain white flour with chickpea flour, quinoa flour, buckwheat flour and spelt flour (for those who aren’t gluten intolerant). Coconut flour is also low carb, but I find its flavour spoils the flavour of the finished product.
Use low fat yoghurt! It makes a great alternative for mayonnaise, sourcream, ordinary cream and can directly replace oil in baking. Here is the link to an article that talks more about it.
Rolled outs and ground seeds also make an excellent substitution for flours. The calorie content does needs to be considered when using ground nuts and seeds. If one cannot have oats rolled quinoa could also be used. Love this Teresa Cutter recipe for Oatmeal Scones for when a special treat is in order.
I have not found a good replacement for syrups. I have tried dissolving Stevia in hot water and letting it cool down. (2tsp stevia to 1 cup water) this can be used in baking but the texture is not the same as syrup.
Sushi can be made with cauliflower rice or even quinoa if you wanted the low GI carbs
Quinoa can be substituted for cous cous to provide a lower carb amount (due more protein in the grain).

And now back to our Diabetes Counselling Online social media dietitian, Sally!

Wow Joan! Thanks so much for making such an effort to demonstrate just what a difference a little bit of thinking in your cooking can achieve. Those girls of yours are certainly fortunate to have a Mum who looks after them with good food for their wellbeing too!

Please add your comments below if you have other suggestions/tips that you’ve discovered that might interest some of our readers.

Sally

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), and has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too. You can access a list of all Sally’s Diabetes Counselling Online blogs here.

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