Friday, May 15, 2015

Foods on Friday - #DBlogWeek Day 5

250x250Welcome to Day Five of the Sixth Annual Diabetes Blog WeekTGIF, right?  The week may be winding down, but it isn’t over yet.  We’ve still got three days left so let’s get to it!

Today’s topic is Foods on Friday.  Taking a cue from Adam Brown's recent post, write a post documenting what you eat in a day!  Feel free to add links to recommended recipes/shops/whatever.  Make it an ideal day or a come-as-you-are day – no judgments either way.  (Thank you, Katy of  Bigfoot Child Have Diabetes for this topic.)

I’ll admit, I don’t have the best eating habits.  My food choices can often be better, but I’m working on it.  So today I thought I’d share the good, the bad and the ugly of what I eat.

Good breakfast
breakfast good
I love apples with peanut butter.  I slice my apple into wedges and spread each one with chunky goodness.  Sometimes I’ll weigh the apple and measure out the peanut butter to get the carb counts, but usually I’ll just swag about 30 carbs for the apple and 8 for the peanut butter.

Bad breakfast
breakfast bad
These cereal bars are quick, organic and have a precise carb count of 26 grams.  But they’re also highly processed.  One of my goals is to work on eating less of the processed stuff.

Ugly breakfast
breakfast ugly
A big Cappuccino Chip muffin from the bake shop of my local supermarket.  I guesstimate it to be around 75 grams of carbs for which I generously pre-bolus on a dual-wave setting.  It often trips my high alarm, but not every time, making it impossible for me to nail down the right bolus.  I don’t eat them often but oh how being a little bit bad can sometimes taste so good.

PS: breakfast always includes coffee.  Coffee is a non-negotiable must!!
coffee
My coffee mug is huge (thanks to Hilary, who hand made it for me) and fits 5 cups of freshly ground and brewed dark roast with a little light cream.  A one-unit bolus covers this perfectly.

Good lunch
lunch good
I love salad.  If it’s from a restaurant I usually have to bolus a couple units to cover any sweet ingredients in the dressing and any bread served with it.  When I make them at home I usually don’t bolus at all.  The salad above was mixed greens with cucumber and goat cheese and home made lemon vinaigrette.  I wish I had remembered to sprinkle on some slivered almonds.

Bad lunch
lunch bad
When I’m not particularly hungry, or feeling lazy, I reach for a Greek yogurt.  I like the ones with the mix-ins.  I really like the ones with mix-ins that are chocolate.  So yeah, it’s really more like eating dessert for lunch.

Ugly lunch
lunch ugly
Even uglier than those Greek yogurts is the fact that many days I skip lunch all together.  I’m often just not hungry at lunch time.  Carb count = 0.  No bolus needed.  Still not a good idea.

Good dinner
I don’t have pictures of my dinners, but I often make what we call Cornflake Chicken.  It’s an oven-baked version of fried chicken and it’s so good.  The recipe is from The Chew.  (Warning: when you click on the link it’s likely that a video will start playing.  Just in case you’re secretly reading blogs at work or something.  Not that you would do that.)  I usually make steamed broccoli as our side dish.  Also, I make these as nuggets (using white meat only because I don’t care for dark) and I dip mine in a little buffalo sauce.

Bad dinner
Stir fry!!!  This is my go-to easy dinner.  I make it with packaged stir-fry noodles from the produce department (that come with a powdered flavor packet . . . I know), a bag of broccoli salad, and what ever protein we’re in the mood for.  Usually beef, but sometimes chicken or shrimp.  It’s my favorite quick, one pan dinner.  But again, that stir-fry pack is pretty processed and probably high in sodium.

Ugly dinner
Risotto.  I love risotto.  I make excellent risotto.  First, sauté some chopped pancetta.  Take it out of the pan and add some garlic.  A minute later, add the Arborio rice and let it toast a bit.  Then slosh in some white wine to deglaze the pan.  Then add chicken stock a quarter at a time, waiting about 5 minutes for the rice to cook and absorb the stock before adding more.  Then stir in some parmigiano-reggiano and that pancetta you sautéed .  Carb count?  You don’t want to know.  But it’s comfort food at its finest.  Add some roasted asparagus on the side and a glass of that white wine and I’m happy!

Good snack
snack good
A handful of this trail mix is what I reach for when I’m behaving.  It’s got almonds and cranberries and crunchy sesame thingies.  I totally swag the carbs.

Bad snack
snack bad
Oh how I love chips.  Ridged chips with onion dip.  Plain old thin chips.  In an effort to be a bit more healthy, I’ve been buying whole grain chips instead.  I think they’re baked, so that’s good.  Right?

Ugly snackcupcake
Mmmmmm, who doesn’t love a good cupcake.  The picture shows my favorite recipe Dark Chocolate cupcakes.  The peanut butter frosting from the recipe is divine as well, but the cupcake above was topped with regular cream cheese frosting instead.  I just love cream cheese frosting.  I modify this recipe, adding extra butter and sugar.

Oh boy, now I’m hungry!!

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17 comments:

  1. I love how you separated this into the good, the bad and the ugly! I think we all have those categories!

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  2. Love your approach to this post! Its hard to believe muffins have that many carbs in them - something like the equivalent to a burger and fries I think - crazy!

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  3. I love how you did this, good-bad-ugly!

    We too love apples with PB. Magical combination.

    Your mug is so pretty. It really hold FIVE cups?

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  4. I love the good, bad, and ugly versions! I LOVE Chobani Flips and have them almost every day for breakfast. Are those bad? I do see a larger spike in blood sugars with them so maybe they are!! HA!

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  5. I do my best almost every day but each day usually has glimpses of the Good, Bad, and Ugly. Great depiction of the world and diabetes and food--

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  6. Love this -- good, bad and ugly. Nicely done, Karen! I do a lot of the same, as far as loving salad and going with that for lunch more often than not. Dinner and evening are my usual weaknesses, although we're doing better on making healthier and lower-carb options lately. And I turned to munching on veggies or beef jerky at night, which is certainly better than grabbing the Ritz and PB or chips -- willpower is so my weakness! Thanks for sharing this, and giving me some ideas. :)

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  7. Most of the ugly food looks great to me! Hey, I already have to take care of my diabetes so why bother with food as long as I like it (and can bolus it)!
    Jochen

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  8. A big Cappuccino Chip muffin? I have never seen one and would very much like to know where you get them. Yum. The post was great and we all eat like that, T1s and non T1s...

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  9. Love this post! True confession: I'm not always a good eater either. I can pretty much copy your good, bad, and ugly snacks... especially if you subsitute pie for cupcakes. The best we can do is the best we can do today.

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  10. Everything on there (good, bad, and ugly!) actually looks so yum.
    Cappuccino muffins exist? Oh my goodness I've been missing out!
    Wonder if I can find gluten free ones

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  11. This is brilliance! Good, bad and ugly is so true to life. Well done! (and YUM!)

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  12. Love how you put all this together. I don't think your bad and ugly are all that 'bad' though, just us diabetics being human!

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  13. Oh risotto how I love thee! I am going to try your recipe and will send you my fave to try.

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    Replies
    1. I realize I made a mistake - add the stock in FIVE minute increments, not 20. That would be crazy. I'm going to edit the post to fix it.

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  14. Wow. Amazing post.

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  15. I love your take on this topic "good, bad, ugly" although I have t say that your "ugly" food doesn't look ugly to me at all, looks amazing haha

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Thanks for your comment!