I was talking to a friend the other day who I’ve not seen in a while and she was asking me how everything was going. How is the family? How was the other half, work, life in general and so forth and as often happens (at least with certain friends), she asked after the diabetes.
I’ve not seen this friend in a couple of years and so I told her all about the pump, how much it was helping with my control and how, if just through the change of mindset it provided, I felt like it had given me the ability to feel like I was in control of my diabetes – not the other way round.
My mate was of course stoked and we both agreed that things were going well. Then, after a slight pause, she asked me, “but it’s still a bit stink isn’t it. I mean, what do you do if you just feel like a whole tub of ice cream”? We’re good friends so there was certainly no offense in either her comment or my reaction but it did leave me hanging for a second while I thought of an answer…what do I do when I feel like eating a while tub of ice cream or the equivalent? The most obvious answer was that, naturally, I don’t eat a whole tub of ice cream but I definitely do make up for it by eating piles of other equally delicious things that I’m sure my body doesn’t appreciate. Rasberries and fresh cream, LOTS of cheese, pesto, antipasto platters, lots of yummy carb free drinks and probably most noticeably, butter *cue funeral march music*.
For quite some time now, butter and I have been the best of friends. I don’t like oil much other than olive oil but even then, I don’t think that baking and cooking tastes the same with oil or margarine so I just use butter. This might change in a few years once a specialist starts moaning at me about my colesterol but at the moment I’m fit and active, I eat well, my colesterol is almost non-existent and I’m not over weight so I’m gonna make the most of it while I can! Quite frankly, following the conversation with my friend about this (she totally backed me up you see) my motto for this life style choice from here on in is going to be: “Butter, the diabetics sugar substitute.”
My friend totally agrees and I’m sure that a supportive bunch like you guys will too!
Have a good Tuesday guys.
- Aaron
P.S. The picture is totally irrelevant but I though it was cute when I found it and it deserved to be seen 
(This isn’t my cat!).
P.P.S My colleague just read this, turned to me and sighed to say, “I eat both”. Classic!
Posted in Exercise, Food, General, Slice of Life
Tagged as diabetic treats, Healthy eating
This post has 23 comments so far. Add yours here, or trackback from your own site.
23 comments have been made on this post
Debs wrote
Thank goodness I am not the only one who feels the same about butter!
Oil/margarinel and baking just don’t go together in my book. Butter all the way!
Aaron wrote
Maybe it’s because I grew up slightly before the marg brigade and remember the advertising starting for ads like “I can’t believe it’s not butter.” My Nana refused to even have the stuff in the house and I think it rubbed off.
Facebook fan page maybe?
Ruthie wrote
Funny you should bring this to light … After about a decade, I’ve just this past week gone back to butter. I saw a documentary about trans fats (vege fats) and how they stiffen your arteries and do worse damage than good old animal fats do which we lived on for thousands of years before they invented sunflower oil etc. It’s just those animal fats turn bad when you eat too many carbs with them (plus, I don’t think my neanderthal cousins ate bread 5 times a day!) But this doco was so insightful – I mean it had to be to make me switch back to salty old butter! (My toast and vegemite has never tasted so good!) And I’m not kidding you … this guy went a whole month eating bacon and eggs and butter and meat patties fried in butter and chicken etc (completely eliminated carbs) and he LOST WEIGHT and his cholesterol went down too. SERIOUSLY. Carbs are the devil. haha But yeah. Apparently soy bean and canola oils are the prime culprits for bad trans fats but they are in absolutely everything now these days … little bit of trivia for y’all.
Tania wrote
I’m a butter baby too!
Jane wrote
butter for baking and toast (it even makes gluten free bread ok!)
Olive oil for baking
..and whittikers fruit and nut is my ice cream, although i wish people understood i can eat the stuff without it being ‘naughty’ – if i bolus correctly… now i’m hungry.
Roy wrote
Did the doco say if the animal fat would cause problems over time Ruthie?
I read a book by a chap in the USA who was diagnosed T1 in the late forties, not sure of the age 10 comes to mind. He was a wreck by adult hood, but by the eighties he had healed himself of all his damage, eyes, kidneys, nerves etc using modern technology, but then switched to a high fat diet, “no carbs at all” and only long acting insulin twice a day. Somewhere along the path he joined his wife and became a doctor and set up his own clinic treating diabetes this way. I don’t know if there was a sequel I wasn’t interested, but having been at the blocked end of the arteries and still have the left side of the ticker 60% so, I can’t say I am a fan of the fat way, however good it tastes, which it doesn’t anymore. Lovely stuff trivia Ruthie, as good as butter!
Ali wrote
Jane – I know how you feel – If I had a dollar for every time someone asked “Are you allowed to eat that?” whenever I decided to indulge! It’s always worse when they ask the question while themselves smoking/drinking/eating a giant piece of chocolate cake…
Aaron wrote
Jane and Ali – I couldn’t agree more.
At least my friend has seen me eat and drink anything and everything I ever wanted to as a teenager and knows that I’ve had my far share. It is a frustration when you get that stare isn’t it. Thank goodness my parents NEVER did that to me even if they knew that I’d end up being 30.0mmol/L!
Roy, that book sounds interesting but wow, it’s a bit extreme don’t you think? Maybe not given the period he was diagnosed in and the treatments available in the 40’s and 50’s.
Ruthie wrote
Hi Roy – they said that animal fats caused problems when they were accompained by a regular high carb intake over time. It was undertaken by a guy in the US and he actually went on to say that the whole obesity epidemic stems from the high carb society we live in today and that the FDA (I think that’s what they call it in America, like the food association) along with the government, was the cause – by advising people that a healthy diet consisted of 300g of carbs per day. (That’s alot of carbs!) And to the point that they had it printed on the nutiritional analyis of all food packaged items. That’s when that system came into being. It was a doco on the Documentary Channel and they seem to repeat them all the time. I’ll see if it’s on again soon. That doctor you speak of sounds like he’d had enough and it worked for him, huh?!
Jo wrote
Apparently marg is one molecule away from being plastic and flies won’t even go near it! Hmmmm… maybe a myth but sounds like a good reason to eat butter anyway.
I get annoyed too when asked if I am ‘ALLOWED’ something when I eat a dessert. I feel like saying, “no I’m not allowed, please don’t tell on me. But are you allowed to drink that much wine?” Of course I end up saying very politely that I just aim to have a balanced, healthy lifestyle, like everyone should anyway.
And if I felt like eating a tub of ice cream, I would eat a small bowlful then have a few extra units.
chris wrote
ROY -Was your doc Richard K Bernstein?? He’s the low-carb guru!!
Aaron wrote
Jo – margarine is also naturally grey, they colour it yellow to make it more appetising. Yuk. And…if you put it in the hot water cylinder with the lid off it doesn’t decay (I did this for 3 weeks when I was a kid as a school experiment and it was fine! Disturbing huh).
SaraM wrote
I’m a a..a a a butter girl tooo…wow so many of us !
It makes a cheese toasty so much better !!!
Aaron wrote
Sara Maria – so does salt. God, don’t even get me started on salt!
Jade wrote
mmmmmmmm butter and marmite on vogels and salt with margaritas
Debs wrote
OMG! You said the magic word – SALT. Love it love it love it!
As for ‘allowed to eat that’. We have never ever denied Tyler any sort of food. We may discuss if it is a good idea or not, but at the end of the day, he is a kid and wants to be like his mates. If he goes high, we know why and worry about it when the time comes. Hopefully with this approach, we can avoid any problems of sneaking food and other food related D issues we read about often.
Ali wrote
Debs – my mum was always the same with me – she thought it would be cruel to send me to a birthday party and tell me I couldn’t have the cake so she tried to teach me moderation instead. I love her for that (although I’m not sure I always succeed….)
Roy wrote
Hi Chris. Not sure, he was an engineer first, mechanical drafting I think. He was no carbs at all as I recall, but I give the guy his due, to heal his degree of damage was nothing short of a miracle. There was some good stuff on BG meters and the FDA not passing them for general use until 1984 in the US and how he got one via his wife a GP. This was some four years or so behind the rest of the planet.
Aaron – Yes, I think it is on the far side. I shiver at just thought of using only long acting insulin again. Sure it will remove the lows, because you only have highs and to have no carbs as well, Whaa! A step back into the past I reckon. Did you start out on fast acting insulin?
Ruthie – I wonder if this could be the same guy or connected with him? The Atkins diet uses high fat doesn’t it?
Aaron wrote
Hi Roy,
Thank fully I never had the displeasure of having to use only long acting as I was diagnosed in 1991. I can’t imagine (quite literally) what it would have been like.
The other aspect to consider with that of course, and since no one has mentioned it I thought I would, is that you wouldn’t have any energy! Imagine eating no carbs – I certainly couldn’t do it.
Roy wrote
Chris. You are right. It is the same guy. There is a spiel here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_K._Bernstein
He actually got his first meter in 1969 via his GP wife and had a bit to do with them from then on, plus a few other things we use, pumpers especially. Can you guess?
It is not the pump or hardware. There is a history on meters here http://www.mendosa.com/history.htm
Thanks Aaron. You and me both; although, I don’t know how much of the couldn’t do without is just lack of will power or not wanting to shift the comfort zone. I never thought I could reduce the fat intake either but did. The BG’s have always sung the energy song and its daily distribution and still do.
As for Dr Bernstein’s carbs, wikipedia says he recommends 6 for breakfast and 12 each for lunch and dinner. There could be other factors involved of course, but it is still not enough for me by a lot. He has made it into his seventies having been diagnosed at 12 in 1946. Carbs for thought?
chris wrote
David Mendosa is also low carb – he has just done a stint hiking round the South Island and got back into eating more carb here but sung the praises of our rich sources of seafood and fresh produce. He ate spuds for the first time in years. I guess we take all that for granted. Both these men send out regular newsletters – although Mendosa.com is mostly Type 2, there’s still some interesting stuff.
Roy wrote
Hi Chris. I noticed they were linked, but I was only looking for meter info:
I have only looked at carbs as “glucose” and the need to match this with insulin. Energy and weight gain are secondary. Weight in fact, is focused solely on keeping it on and if I could do a Bernstein and Mendoza on the how and an why of this, I would be right in there with them making a buck from it. Well, dreams are still free, at least before the GST increases, which won’t be good news for pumpers beingdiabetic I should think, unless there is some sweetener of a change in consumable costs or is that just butter thinking?
PS. To think all the comments on this topic came from Aaron: Butter, the diabetic’s sugar substitute. Is there any sugar in it?
Tracey wrote
Ruthie – was it the Fat Head documentary you saw? One of my favourites – Tom has a great blog site too if you’re interested:
http://www.fathead-movie.com/