heart health Archives - Diabetes Counselling Online

Yoghurt, probiotics and d-health

March 10, 2015 by Sally Leave a Comment

With so much fascinating talk about gut microbiata (micro-organisms/bacteria) and health about, I thought it worth a fresh look at yoghurt as part of the dairy serves in our day as it is a great source of these microbiata in our diets. I’m also often asked about which are the best yoghurts from a fat and sugar perspective. Please consult your healthcare team before following the advice here, especially if you’re pregnant, breastfeeding or have a compromised immune system.

We’ll start with a review of why dairy is so important in our diets, then go on to look more closely at probiotics (live organisms/bacteria) and to look at some of the yoghurt choices available on the market, and what to look for when you’re making choices. We’ll finish with some ideas to help us to include more yoghurt in our day.

Last year I wrote a couple of blogs on ‘Dairy and Diabetes’ that I’d really like to remind everyone of, as they included some important messages for our diabetes health.

In the first one, ‘Dairy Foods – health benefits for us with diabetes’ we looked at the dairy and alternatives group in the Healthy Eating Guidelines for Adults brochure. We notice that different genders and ages have significantly different requirements in this important food group. We all need different amounts for different reasons, and for us with diabetes it’s a really important food group for many reasons. Not least, that dairy products have a low-glycemic index. There’s also a great amount of evidence relating to how meeting our dairy serves can contribute to improved wellbeing, with or without diabetes, so pop back and have a read of this one too.

We’re also reminded in the words of the Australian Dietary Guidelines that: “Milk, cheese and yoghurt have various health benefits and are a good source of many nutrients, including calcium, protein, iodine, vitamin A, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B12 and zinc. These foods provide calcium in a readily absorbable and convenient form.”

The Guidelines also remind people with lactose intolerance in relation to yoghurt that: “lactose in yoghurt is already partially broken down by bacteria that thicken the yoghurt, so should be well tolerated”.

The second blog (link above) is about milk comparisons and more ideas for including more dairy in our diet.

Which leads us on nicely to more on yoghurts….

Probiotics – why are they important?

Yoghurt provides similar health benefits that milk does and can have the added benefits of good bacteria or probiotics (eg aBc – La-5 Lactobacillus acidophilus, BB-12 bifidobacterium, Lc-431 Lactobacillus Casei and LCG) which contribute to improved health. Health based on those good bacteria is currently attracting a lot of research into improved immunity, general wellbeing and to improve specific conditions such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, NAFLD (very relevant for those with type 2 diabetes) and mental health among others. This article provides much more detail if you’d like to read more about probiotics and health/wellbeing.

However, not all yoghurts contain added probiotics, so it’s important to check the label for mention of them, otherwise you may not get the benefits you’re hoping for from them. It’s also worth noting that yoghurts containing probiotics will have a shorter shelf-life as the bacteria deteriorate fairly quickly, so don’t wait around until the yoghurt is on its ‘best by’ date if you’re hoping for the probiotic benefits.

Fat & Sugar in yogurts

With diabetes, and even just in general health, it’s important that we minimise added sugars and keep an eye on the saturated fats in our food products.

The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommends that we choose low-fat dairy products, which means we’re looking for less than 2g/100g saturated fat due to its link with heart health issues, inflammation and increased insulin resistance/decreased insulin production over time. This is particularly important for us with diabetes, and although adding fat to a carbohydrate will lower the glycemic index of the meal, it is just not worth taking the risk with saturated fats. It’s best to try to minimise them in our food choices.. The other aspects of the yoghurt (low GI quality carb and protein) will still help to lower the glycaemic index of the meal without the extra fat.

As to added sugar, we are always looking for as little as possible as an added ingredient. Lactose is a naturally occurring sugar with a low-GI that’s found in dairy foods, so just looking at the amount of sugar in the nutrition information panel may not help us to know whether it has added sugar. Check the ingredients listing first, looking for ‘added’ sources of sugar, like ‘sugar’, honey, palm sugar, maple syrup and other syrups. On the nutrition information panel, look for less than 10g/100g sugars to help watch the added sugars.

If you like the sweeter flavoured yogurts, try adding your own sweetness in the form of fruit, or even a small amount of added sugar, so at least you are in control of the extra sugars. Of course artificially sweetened yogurts are also readily available if you don’t mind the flavour.

Dietitian Connection recently published a comparison table of yoghurts by student dietitian Stacey Beech (thank you Stacey!) which includes information about all the macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate & protein) as well as fibre, calcium, sodium and probiotics. From this list I’ve picked a few ‘better’ examples of brands from that table to try, with a focus on the good bacteria, the low saturated fat, and low added added sugars. My top three favourites are:

The Nestle Ski Soleil (artificially sweetened) range
Vaalia Natural Probiotic Yoghurt (unflavoured)
Pauls All Naturally Tub Set Yoghurt 99.8% Fat Free (also unflavoured)
Jalna Low Fat plain yoghurt

There are other yoghurts on the market that may not have made Stacey’s list, so remember that you want the pack to tell you about the good bacteria (probiotics) it contains, look for less than 2g/100g saturated fat and less than 10g/100g sugar (preferably no added ‘sugar’). This Aldi one is a good example. It’s 2.7g/100g saturated fat, just over our target, but ticks all the other boxes so I’d say that it was worth a try too!

If you’re finding that plain yoghurt is a little bitter for your tastebuds, why not give the lactose free versions a try. These seem sweeter because the added lactase enzyme has split the lactose sugar into its parts, which changes the way it tastes, but with the same health benefits.

Some of the strained Greek yoghurts are also less tart because the whey has been strained off.

Of course you can always make your own, but watch the sugar and fat components in doing that

Multiple uses for yoghurt

For those of you who struggle to meet the recommended dairy serves in your day, yoghurt is an excellent option that can be included multiple times across the day. More than one serve a day is easy to achieve. It works:

At breakfast on top of cereal with fruit
As a snack or dessert choice
As a dressing on your salad (mixed with fresh herbs, lemon juice or vinegar and a teaspoon of grainy mustard)
In place of sour cream on your baked potato (helping to lower the overall GI of the potato)
In place of fats in baking recipes (read this blog by Joan Bailey to learn more)
As dip or accompaniment to Indian curries (example recipe)

How else do you include yoghurt in your day? We’d love to have your comments and suggestions! See the comments box below.

Sally

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Summary of a seminar by Dr Rosemary Stanton on plant based eating

February 23, 2015 by Sally Leave a Comment

Last week I went to a presentation called Paleo versus Plant based diets. I really wanted to share some of the information I was reminded of there with you. Upfront I’d like to make clear that I’m not sharing these to make you feel bad or guilty, so please don’t go there! Just to help you to reconsider and be mindful of what you put in your mouth due to the effect on your overall wellbeing as well as your diabetes management.

There were three key speakers. Dr Kate Marsh (a member of the Diabetes Counselling Online board) who is passionate about plant-based diets, Dr Rosemary Stanton who is probably the most well-known dietitian in Australia and Brenda Davis, a Canadian Registered Dietitian. The day wasn’t about diabetes, but they made several key points that I thought worth sharing with you related to improving your wellbeing by eating more plants. This doesn’t necessarily mean going vegetarian or vegan, but just cutting down on the animal-based foods.

Dr Kate Marsh showed us the evidence of how plant-based eating can improve diabetes management, and help people to avoid chronic disease in general.

Brenda Davis made direct nutrient comparisons between the Paleo and plant based diets, in many cases demonstrating how close the modern Paleo diet was to a vegan diet. But in this blog, I don’t want to discuss the Paleo diet as a ‘diet’ is not sustainable and although it has some strengths it’s not suitable to recommend on a population based level such as this blog. If you’re interested in this for your own health, I recommend a personalised consultation with your Accredited Practising Dietitian as some aspects of it may be dangerous for people with diabetes, especially in the longer term.

Instead I want to focus on Dr Rosemary Stanton’s presentation which was entitled ‘Why so many controversies?’ because it’s really a common sense (and of course evidence-based) approach to healthy eating. The changes she suggests are not too hard to try and really make sense when you think about.

Dr Stanton is a great advocate of the Australian Dietary Guidelines due to the enormous amount of research (over 55,000 pieces of peer reviewed published scientific research) and work by a committee of leading experts in the field of nutrition, public health, industry and consumer issues, and overseen by the Council of NHMRC that went into it to ensure that the Australian population would have not only the right amount of energy (calories/kilojoules) to maintain a healthy weight, but also would have the vitamins and minerals needed to keep us well and to help prevent chronic disease.

She began by explaining how we get so many mixed messages through the media and how important it is to check on advice that you read, as many of the people who talk about nutrition aren’t university trained experts in the field even though they may have passion on their side. Then she got to the part that I really wanted to share with you about own diets.

Dr Stanton explained that in comparison with Australian consumption patterns when the guidelines were being reviewed, the evidence suggests that we need to eat more:

Vegetables and legumes/beans – a variety of different coloured vegetables
Fruits
Whole grain (cereal) foods such as wholegrain breakfast cereals and wholemeal bread
Milk, yoghurt, cheese – preferably reduced fat varieties (except for children under 2 years)
Fish, seafood, poultry, eggs, nuts and seeds, and legumes/beans
Red meat (young women only)

There were also many areas as population that we could do with eating less of, and most of these related to our diabetes health such as:

Refined grain (cereal) foods such as white bread and low fibre cereals (these will spike our BGLs without providing our nutrient requirements)
High and medium fat milk, yoghurt and cheese (let’s stick with low fat to avoid the saturated fats and extra energy that we don’t need)
Red meats (adult males only)
Energy-dense and/or nutrient-poor foods and drinks which are high in saturated fat, added sugars, added salt and/or alcohol, such as sugar sweetened drinks, fried foods, hot chips, many take-away foods, cakes and biscuits, chocolate and confectionery and crisps.

Dr Stanton made the point quite strongly that although the foods in that last bullet point are referred to as ‘discretionary’ items in the guidelines, really it’s just ‘junk’ food and we’re better off without it and taking any extra energy needed from the main food groups of the guidelines themselves. This idea was explained further in the Diabetes Counselling Online blog I wrote on Snacking.

She talked about how our Modern Western diets currently emphasis:

foods and drink high in added fat, sugar, and salt
highly processed grains
meat dominates dinner
vegetables are only an accompaniment (often chips)
fruit juice preferred to fruit
full and medium fat milk, cheese, sweet yogurt , ice cream
alcohol (with or without food)

And if you think about this it’s just so true! For those of us who are not vegetarian, if you ask us what we’re having for dinner, the answer is ALWAYS a meat-based one. It’s just the way we’ve learned to think about our meals – maybe it’s time to consider this, recognise that it’s not doing us any good, and try to improve what we’ve in the past.

Dr Stanton suggested that the main changes needed are:

much more vegetables and legumes
more fruit
include nuts and seeds
far less junk (currently 36% of adult’s and >40% of children’s calorie/kJ intake)

Do many of you try to include ‘Meat Free Monday’? Here’s a link to a website dedicated to this idea with recipes from some of the top chefs that you might like to take a look at.

If you start to enjoy some of these, you might see how you can move closer to a plant-based diet without comprising on your enjoyment of the meals you’re eating. It doesn’t mean you have to give up your favourite steak – just try cutting down the size of it and increase the vegetable sides, or your pizza night – make it at home with healthier toppings, or even your night off cooking nights – by having frozen pre-prepared meals that you’ve made a batch of earlier.

Have you read my Diabetes Counselling Online blog called ‘Learning to Love Legumes’? It’s full of some great ideas and those legumes will provide you with more than enough protein to keep your tummy satisfied hunger-wise and those tastebuds happy too.

Dr Stanton’s ‘Take Home’ messages were a great reminder to us all when there is just so much conflicting information available via the internet. She says:

education is important and ongoing
get information from trusted sources (NHMRC), without a conflict of interest
don’t trust Dr Google
be sceptical of those with something to sell
with scientific papers, read the whole paper, not just the newspaper headlines or blog comments

And what sensible advice that is!!

I’d like to finish up this blog by sharing one of Brenda Davis’s presentation slides. She finished her talk on Paleo vs Plant-based diets by explaining about the longest living people in the world, those that live in the Blue Zone, and a quick rundown on what keeps them so healthy. Could you adopt some of these ideas into your own life?

Paleo vs Vegan diets Blue Zones Longevity Diet 1 Brenda Davis 2015 — Blue Zones Longevity Diet – Brenda Davis 2015 – Please click on the image to make it larger

Hoping this has helped you to consider some positive changes you can make to your own diet. Sally

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), 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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D-thoughts on snacking

January 26, 2015 by Sally Leave a Comment

Happy Australia Day! And what good timing for a blog on snacking! It must be the ‘most asked’ question I get as a dietitian: “What are the best snacks for people with diabetes?”

It’s not really a black and white question as the answer depends on your personal diabetes requirements, your personal tastes, your ability to be mindful in your choices and your knowledge of healthy eating in general. So this blog aims to help you to be mindful in making snacking decisions.

We encourage you to choose foods that are higher in nutrients to add to your overall wellbeing, rather than ‘discretionary choices’ which everybody, diabetic or not, is encouraged to limit. It’s especially the case for us with diabetes… but it doesn’t mean missing out on delicious flavours!

Priority One

Your first priority needs to be your overall diabetes goals. Are you getting all the nutrients from your diet that you need for wellbeing? Are you needing to watch your weight? Is matching your food intake to your body’s ability to process carbs an issue for you?

A perfect segue to our Australian Dietary Guidelines… Are you actually meeting the quantities recommended in the 5 main food groups across your day?

In an ideal world we would choose snacks that are included in the foods that we are recommended to enjoy each day. In these examples I’m referring to the ‘Healthy Eating for Adults’ brochure, but there’s also a Healthy Eating for Children brochure for those thinking about their children with diabetes. In both cases, the actual food group listings are on page 2.

Each of the food groups has snacking potential, so there’s always plenty to choose from.

In the ‘Vegetables and legumes/beans’ group you can always find a low-carb snack if that’s what you’re after. Whether it’s raw veg to nibble on, celery with nut butter, blanched asparagus spears when they’re in season, tasty tiny tomatoes that burst with flavour in your mouth, hummous dip with veggie sticks, or even leftover cold roasted non-starchies or ratatouille (recipe in the files section of the closed ‘Diabetes and Food – let’s celebrate it!’ Facebook group). There are always options in this group of foods if one of them will meet what you’re looking for…

Next group down and a great one for those wanting something to satisfy a sweetness craving is the ‘Fruit’ group. With diabetes we are recommended to aim for about 2 serves per day, eaten at different times. However, some fruits are really low in carbohydrate, so we can have more of these without upsetting our glycemic control. Some of those include berries, passionfruit and kiwifruit. But still watch your quantities. If you want to know how much fruit will contain 15g of carbohydrate, take a look at www.calorieking.com.au , search for the fruit you are looking at, and adjust quantities to get to the 1 carb serve number.

In the ‘Grain (cereal) foods’ group, it’s easy to calculate whether you’re going to meet your daily recommended amount. Often for people with diabetes this is a group that people actually tend to be low in. Instead of choosing a ‘discretionary item’, swapping in a low-GI high fibre grain snack such a piece of heavily grained toast with a topping to suit your taste can be a great option to satisfy your hunger and keep your BGLs stable. Or even a small bowl of your high-fibre cereal. Of course these options all contain carbs, but they are all much more nutritious than a cracker or sweet biscuit.

In the ‘Protein’ group, snacking options are easy to find, but it’s important to remember to try not to exceed the guidelines in terms of serve sizes and number of serves recommendations. This is because protein contains energy (or calories/kilojoules) that will cause weight gain if you have too much, although they shouldn’t upset your glycemic control. I recommend having a read of this blog on Protein : written earlier, if you’d like more info. The perfect snack from within this group for us with diabetes is really a handful of nuts, as the evidence behind inclusion of nuts in our diet is quite outstanding. Read more about nuts in this blog.

And last, but not least, is the ‘Dairy and/or alternatives’ group. I wrote a couple of blogs about dairy and diabetes as it’s such an important food group for us with diabetes. Here’s a link to the first one and the second one that contain more great ideas for snacking. My favourite snacking recommendations to help meet the nutritional guidelines are a low-fat yogurt (low sugar too if you’re watching your carb intake closely) or plain low-fat greek yogurt with berries mixed in. Or a low-fat milk based smoothie made on frozen berries, with a couple of teaspoons of chia seeds added for extra fibre. Even a cup of milk based coffee can do the trick… These should work well to satisfy hunger and provide you with the nutrients this group is known for.

Priority Two

Your second priority, also a very important one, is to ask yourself what do you actually feel like eating and why? Sometimes snacking can become a habit. People say “I have a sweet tooth and NEED a biscuit or cake”. (or whatever) This is important too, because if you deprive yourself of what you really want (or feel you need) all the time, then your craving will only grow bigger and you’ll end up overdoing it and regretting it later. Not a good thing, but happens all too often. If you can enjoy a small amount of what you feel you “need”, being mindful of enjoying every mouthful, savouring the textures and flavours that you’ve wanted so badly, then you’re in a better place to return to your ‘healthier’ options on a regular basis.

Do I really need to snack?

If you’re medicated for your diabetes, and are putting yourself at risk of a hypo if you don’t snack, then you should snack as you’ve been advised by your medical diabetes team. If in this case you’d rather not be snacking as you’re just not hungry, then you should talk to your d-team and arrange to have the medication adjusted so that you don’t need to snack.

For those of you where snacking has just become a habit, it’s worth thinking twice to see if you really are hungry before you just head for a snack. Is it out of habit or because you’re bored? Sometimes a drink of water will satisfy that ‘hunger’ feeling, which may actually be your body telling you that you’re dehydrated. If you’re bored, take the opportunity to go for a walk, call a friend, do something off your household chores list, read a book, or engage in your hobby.

If you are constantly actually hungry, it may be worth your while to visit an Accredited Practising Dietitian to see how your meal plan can be adjusted to help avoid that happening. Being hungry is not good or necessary for you to manage your diabetes and weight well.

More ideas?

In the Diabetes Counselling Online closed Facebook groups ‘Diabetes and Food – let’s celebrate it!’ and ‘Diabetes Weight Matters’ we’ve asked the members what their favourite snacks are and have created a document up in the files section of the groups. I think I still need to finalise the weight matters file, but it’ll be there soon. These are member ideas, not necessarily dietitian approved, so please use this blog as a thought process in helping to make your snacking decisions right for you.

Also in the current issue (February 2015) of the Australian Healthy Food Guide they’re running a feature relevant to this blog that you may find helpful. It’s entitled “Your Treat Foods Toolkit” and explains “why those ‘naughty’ treat foods are discretionary, and how they can fit into a healthy diet.” It’s written by an Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Brooke Longfield and can be found on page 34. Although not related specifically to diabetes, you’ll find it helpful for portion sizes and understanding more about ‘discretionary’ foods.

Happy snacking! Sally

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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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