Are you a diabetic vegetarian?

21

most beans have a good amount of protein (and less fat/non-fiber carbs compared to nuts). I think soybeans/edamame have one of the highest, but I also put kidney beans and black beans in the mix because they have neutral flavors as well. I’ve never been much into lentils or chickpeas but those are excellent sources too. So if there’s a particular type of bean that you like then go for it!

If you really like trying new and different things (I’m a somewhat creature of habit) then you can look for an Indian grocery store near you. Even if you don’t like Indian food per se, they will have an even greater variety of protein-bearing beans, some you can’t find in a normal grocery store. Many but not all Indians are vegetarian and the ones I work with will come in with things that I’ve never seen before:)

22

That is really interesting about the fat causes them high numbers. Interesting. Did they always eat low fat or just since dx?

I think it is great that your daughters have been veg since birth! Way to go! :slight_smile:

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Personally, I disagree with such a diet and would be wary of feeding such a diet to my children. This goes against science and the experience of diabetics everywhere. Fat and protein is a critical component of diet. You may choose to follow a vegetarian/vegan diet for ethical reasons, but I’ve seen no evidence that a low/no fat diet of this kind is healthy. And make no mistake, it is carbs, not fat that raises blood sugar.

24

I have no fear of protein or fat, what I am most concerned about is processed foods that contain a range of unhealthy and unnatural ingredients. So I try to eat as much of my food as possible from trusted sources of whole natural and untainted foods. I cook as much as possible for myself. I still eat some whole grains like Quinoa, but have basically removed all the highly refined grains from my diet. If you are trading fast food burgers and fries for a vegetarian diet, I can understand that as a positive move, but I would not motivate it as a move to get less protein and fat.

25

We already know you don’t like vegetarians, bsc. I honestly get tired of hearing about as anytime someone mentions anything vegetarian you kind of knock it down.

But people should do what works for them. How do you know they are doing the diet for ethical reasons? They never stated as so. But I am pretty sure this is your beef - if people didn’t eat meat for non-ethical reasons (even religious reasons) you would be OK with it.

Some people can’t have dairy as they are allergic and I know people who can not ingest meat - it makes them sick and their digestive systems can not handle it.

Point is Mikey asked for vegetarian advice in this thread - not a personal opinion of why someone else thinks its an unhealthy diet.

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I don’t hate vegetarians, my daughter is a vegetarian. But we don’t vilify critical dietary components and spread misinformation. When somebody makes a first post suggesting a diet that I consider risky for babies and children I feel compelled to speak up.

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We have always had a low fat diet. It is low fat because we don’t add fat. We eat plenty of nuts and avocados to bring good fat to our diet. I love have chia seeds with stevia before a workout. Chia seeds are great for the omegas.

There is another group here that talks about “covering” the carbs that will eventually result from protein and fat in a meal – TAGgers unite, I think. TAG is an acronym for “Total Available Glucose”.

28

It is okay for you to disagree with it for personal reasons, but not for scientific reasons. There has been a great amount of scientific research producing conclusive evidence supporting a low-fat vegetarian diet for health reasons, for adults and for children; the bibliography in The China Study holds the majority of the peer reviewed articles supporting this diet. In addition, the Framington Heart Study is one of the largest longitudinal studies out there, world wide. Hands down, the vegetarians have the best profiles.

I agree that fat and protein are critical to development. My girls get plenty of both, in whole form. My children have blood drawn yearly and quarterly checkups with our pediatric endocrinologist to monitor their progress. Our endocrinologist has nothing but praise for the development of our children and for our diet. She routinely speaks of her non-vegetarian families (in general terms, of course) and how their numbers are uncontrolled and how a few of her teens are developing double-diabetes. My girls are both at the 50th percentile for height and weight and have been since birth.

As for fat not raising blood sugar, I beg to disagree. Fat will absolutely raise blood sugar when the body breaks it down. For my girls, the peak is usually four hours after ingesting the fat. If we are eating out, we always add an extended bolus over four hours to accommodate the “uncounted” carbs added by the fat and protein in the meal.

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Who is spreading misinformation here? I am giving information out from my own personal experience based on my veg diet of 20 years. I think that makes me a good reference source since I am living it. Mikey asked for vegetarian advice and I gave him some. He can choose to follow what he wishes and I didn’t complain about his meat eating.

But you are not a doctor. bsc. If you are just going by reports and such that you found on the internet that a vegetarian diet is not safe for kids than that isn’t very reliable. And what you are saying is that YOU consider it risky for babies and children. That isn’t a professional opinion. Just because YOU don’t approve of something doesn’t mean it is wrong. I could say the exact same thing about eating meat - I DON’T APPROVE OF IT but you don’t see me on here bashing other peoples diet with my opinions because I let people live the way they want. If someone does better on a meat diet than a veg diet for whatever reason than OK for them, I will not say anything. I personally, just like you, don’t approve of it and I think it is unhealthy based on my own experiences and information.

How many overweight vegetarian kids do you see walking around the country? NONE! I know lots of vegetarian family and their kids are very healthy.

I could find tons of articles on the internet also about how bad meat is for a person regardless of diabetes.

Geez, I hope you don’t give your daughter a hard time about her diet like this.

30

Thanks! It is hard to be veg in a meat eating world - esp for little kids! I am glad you are sticking by the diet you want. :slight_smile:

I also eat an avocado a day and nuts and nut milks and butters. Also I will eat some chocolate or coconut butter/oil when I can squeeze it in. I use flaxseeds and walnuts for my omegas which I grind up to make a faux parma put on my salads. I also use olive oil on my salads.

I think I get plenty of fat as I am right now and I always make sure I get more protein. I am muscle building right now since I am thin and so far is working out pretty good. :slight_smile:

I am T2 so no insulin so I can’t cover my carbs but I know that some of the insulin users on here do not think covering the carbs in a good idea.

31

I just want to point out that fat does raise blood glucose levels as everything we ingest is eventually broken down into energy for our cells.

32

The effect of fat on glucose levels is quite minor. Fat slows down digestion so that the effect of carbs takes longer to appear. It’s not the fat itself raises BG.

Fatty acids are not used directly to produce glucose. Gycerol, a product of fat metabolism, goes through the gluconeogenic process to produce glucose. But, glycerol only comprises about 9-15% of fats.

About 58% of protein is converted to glucose, which is why people on very low carb diets don’t lack glucose.

33

I think people can be free to make whatever diet choices they make… it’s their health, or lack thereof (and here, I’m not saying there’s no health in vegetarianism or veganism, in any way… but if someone wants to eat malt balls all day, who’s to stop 'em?)



However… these people are adults. I think helping kids understand the power of carb counting, and how that affects Diabetes is one thing… Forcing an incredibly restrictive diet like veganism and vegetarianism (without other choices or options) on kids who are too young to make those kinds of decisions for themselves… is just not that advisable, in my sincere, and honest opinion. Not because it’s not “ethical,” or “healthy,” or whatever else one may feel is accurate with whatever research… But because we are raising kids who need to grow into their OWN persons, and make their OWN decisions. Most kids in such environments grow up to hate and resent their parents. :confused: I’ve seen it happen soooooo many times. It’s sad.

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Thanks for your comments Liz!

We do not know if d. bahr’s kids are choosing to be veg or whether it is their families choice. That was not said. You will have to wait for them to respond.

That said, if one raises your child to be meat eater (or whatever other kind of eater - junk food, healthy diet) because you are - how is that different from a vegetarian parent raising their child a vegetarian? I really don’t see the difference.

If a vegetarian family raises their kids vegetarian, it is bad and being “forced” on the kids - BUT if a meat eating family raises their kids to eat meat, those kids are NOT being forced into that diet. Honeslty, I am trying to start a big arguement, but think about it…how is it really any different? Other than the fact, that meat eating is seen as the “norm” for eating (at least here in America it is) and vegetarian is seen as the “alternative” and therefore, not normal to be raised that way - thereby, there must be something wrong with it.

Technically, the meat eating diet I grew up was forced on me because that is the sort of food my mom made for us because that is the kind of food SHE likes - honeslty I was never all that fond of meat and maybe there was a reason. If those kids grow up one day and WANT to be meat eaters and they are adults - who is to stop them?

But realistically - there is really no difference in meat eating parents feeding their kids THEIR diet and the vegetarian parents feeding their kids THEIR diet. Honestly, it is not any different. It is just different to people who do not approve of it.

If we are raising kids to grow to be their OWN persons, than kids in a meat eating family should have the same rights to become vegetarian if they want? Correct? But I am sure that that would be seen as unhealthy too - just because people don’t agreee with it and they would be telling the parents to FORCE their children to eat meat.

I think it is all societies fault - we don’t want our kids to be different so we have to force them to be like everyone else which is just bizarre.

35

Still it sounds like for these girls that too much fat does not agree with their blood sugar levels. They have reached a balance that works for them and we should support them whether or not we all agree with their dietary choices or not.

The girls should do what works for them. If too much fat made me go high, you bet I would cut down on it.

We don’t condemn people who can’t eat pasta - why the big deal on a lower fat diet if that is what works?

36

I’m not condemning anything, if you’re responding to my post. Just presenting the fact that fat doesn’t have a large effect on BG, other than slowing down digestion & delaying the effect of carbs & protein.

37

Hey Mikey, Back to your question!!! I’m a vegan (only since Feb.) but have been a vegetarian for 17 years. I have Type 1 diabetes. I am actually finding it very difficult to follow a vegan diet. I am currently sticking to it but am really questioning whether I need to rethink it or not which is so sad and frustrating because it’s really important to me.

I recently started using dexcom and see that I’m having crazy spikes with the amount of carbs in my diet and am finding it difficult to lower that number with current diet. I think following a vegan diet requires a lot of planning and cooking. I think a vegetarian diet would be easier because you can eat low fat proteins like cheese sticks, yogurt, eggs etc.



Like a number of people in this thread, I would caution you against overprocessed meat substitutes and look at whole foods. I try to make everything very veg heavy to fill me up…for example, one of my favorite things to eat is kale sauteed a couple minutes with tons of garlic and blackeye peas. Not many carbs for the amount of blackeye peas and the kale is the primary ingredient-very low carb and really good for you. I don’t know if that would fill you up. My dad has been following a vegetarian, near vegan diet and has had a lot of success, but he’s type 2.

I have a couple good low carb vegetarian cookbooks. Low-Carb Vegetarian by Celia Brooks Brown and Carb Conscious Vegetarian by Robin Robertson. Maybe you could find enough interesting food in there to supplement your current diet and try something new at the same time. Happy exploring!

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I found the book “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes to have a great discussion of the Dietary Fat-Cholesterol-Heart myth (http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462/). GCBC discusses the Framingham study in great detail. I have read the Campbells “China Study,” I’ve comment before on this topic. For a detailed assessment of the China Study you will Denise Mingers assessment quite revealing (http://rawfoodsos.com/).

A vegetarian/vegan diet is a personal choice, whether you make that choice because you believe it is healthier or because of ethical reasons. I am glad your kids are thriving and healthy on your diet. But when we talk about what the science says and what is good for others and children, then I will make comments.

39

I think the difference is… that while most (not all, some do behave badly) progressive thinking people who eat meat, don’t feel anti-vegetarian or anti-vegan at all… (They might strongly disagree with it, but they are not constantly trying to lecture other people on how unhealthy it is… They just accept that that’s how other people eat, and leave it at that. I’m one of those people.), most people who are progressive thinking who are vegan or vegetarian feel very anti-meat eating… and can’t wait any opportunity to preach it. I have friends who I love dearly, but if they preach to me again on the dangers of eating meat, and how bad it is, I might have to kill them. :smiley: As a matter of fact I don’t have any vegan or veg friends who aren’t or weren’t (some have switched to meat eating again) like this. I can only imagine that the same kind of constant hammering on how meat eating is bad goes on in a vegan household… (like a religion, or an extreme ideology)… Surely, a child wouldn’t do well either, if a household were all anti-vegan or anti-vegetarian… But in my experience, though people may say “yeah, we think it’s healthier to eat meat” around a household, they haven’t turned it into some kind of extreme observation… and most kids I know were able to go into other ways of eating, like vegan or vegetarianism, because no one was imposing mandatory rules on them. While eating meat is a norm, in most most of our society, it is hardly an imposed norm these days. Families work with what their kids like, a lot, and many of them turn veggie or vegan by virtue of being picky eaters to begin with. lol Even if just a temporary childhood thing.

I recall watching this program once… on cable… With this woman who was vegetarian, and she had a farm… and her kid wanted to switch – he wanted to eat meat… He didn’t want to live with this imposed vegetarianism anymore… And his mother gave him hell. She said “Well, if you want to eat meat, than you have to feel what the cow really feels, and you have to kill our own cow, yourself, and eat her meat…” And it just… it felt like she was trying to punish him into not eating meat… to really sort of emotionally shame or scar him for making his choice. It often feels like the highway of respect between both movements doesn’t go both ways: We must make room for allowing kids to explore being vegans or veg, in a meat eating household, but if it’s a vegan or meat eating household, we won’t respect you, and will just make it critically emotionally hard for you to to eat meat." Some even go with “our household, our rules” kind of thing…

ANY envinronment, of any kind, that is militant about a belief (whatever the belief, whether meat eating, or vegan or whatever it is) and they impose it on a child who has not yet been able to in any way make that belief personal or truly understand it to some level of maturity and comprehension, (or who does not allow for exploration of any kind outside of what they feel is okay) is NOT beneficial to a child… In the long term.

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Hi D.Bahr! Isn’t is amazing that some people think it’s ok to lecture you on how to feed your children? Probably one of the most sensitive topics around.
Just a little tidbit…I was a vegan nanny (was vegan from the time I was 18-20 and now once again) for a vegan family. Two girls, both very healthy and both of their parents were doctors. One was a surgeon and the other a peditrician. It’s possible. It sounds to me like you take excellent care of your children’s health!