I’m going to make two soups today, lentil for Klara and vegetable for myself. N will have both to choose from.
For some unknown reason, my blood sugars react to lentil soup like it’s ice-cream. This is strange because I can eat the much sweeter borscht (beets, potatoes, tomato sauce, cabbage) with no increase in blood sugar.
In any case, making two soups at once is my idea of paradise. Happy Easter weekend to everybody!
–which is why I find it so peculiar that everyone tries to sell you legumes as a “healthy source of protein” and “lots of fiber!” and “diabetes friendly!” –seriously everybody I know who has heard of diabetes but isn’t actually diabetic, believes this like it’s a religious thing. Do beans have a marketing board? But everybody I know who actually uses a glucometer and has tested after eating legumes has found that they are villains. How’d they get such good PR? Is it some kind of vegetarian propaganda?
Exactly, I believed all the hype but it turned out to be completely untrue. In the end, one has to discover everything by trial and error, measuring and observing. That’s the only way. Of course, for many people this level of attention and follow-through is impossible. I have no idea how they cope.
I think they just take more and more insulin until they keel over.
It doesn’t matter what you read in the “low glycemic index” chart (which was clearly not field-tested with actual diabetics), or what the ADA or the USDA recommends, or what works for your mom or your friends. Sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes they have different gut flora. Sometimes they have a different form of diabetes and they don’t even know it.
The only way you’re going to know for sure is test it yourself.
This is so true. It works differently for different people and I’m not seeing any interesting, insightful research coming out on the subject. Especially now that we have Ozempic which is supposed to cure every illness and moral flaw.
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Jenny Ruhl is a rockstar on this– she self-published basically a plain-english manual, with research to back it up, on how to manage your blood sugars using a home glucometer to test for yourself.
Almost the only other published semi-mainstream source of useful information on the subject I’ve found has been Jason Fung’s book on fasting– and he’s not even specifically talking about diabetes, he’s just a nephrologist, and nephrologists deal with… diabetes a lot. Because it causes kidney damage.
Dr. Bernstein’s book also classic and useful, I just haven’t read it 😉
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Love Jason Fung, but I’ve also read that extended fasting is not a good idea for women. I don’t know what the consensus opinion on this is, though.
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I don’t worry about it, as I’ve never had any need to do the extended version. But for shorter stretches– it helps a lot with getting glucose numbers under control, and it’s handy to know how to do it without your kidneys dumping the minerals out of your bones.
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That is super interesting to me. My child is allergic to all legumes we tried, so I just stopped cooking with any of them. They are all evil as far as I am concerned. The doctors keep telling me to keep trying different types of beans and legumes, but I am just done. You are all making me feel better about missing out on this healthy source of protein.
The saddest thing is that I love lentils. I really used to enjoy eating them. But…
Truly, one person’s health food is another’s poison.
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“I love lentils. I really used to enjoy eating them”
I used to. I still do… but… I used to make them with a ‘greek spice’ mix (made, I believe around Tarpon Springs…. at one time the Greek capital of Flroida). That spice mix was sooooooo good. I even put it on popcorn.
I’m sure it no longer exists but I haven’t found a good alternate yet, even in Greece. It was probably somebody’s giagia’s personal mix that they packaged and sold. Lentils without them just aren’t the same….
…now I wanna go to Greece (esp Aegean coastal area).
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i love lentil soup and most legumes, as does my husband. He has recently started having digestive issues after eating legumes (finicky gallbladder), and has to limit his consumption to my dismay. My kids are happy, though. My daughter once told me that my lentil soup “looked and tasted like vomit”. She is a great eater for a kid, and happily gobbles up most foods and veggies. I was humbled after that. I still like my lentil soup! I would love to see both of your soup recipes.
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