Hi all this will be my first thanksgiving with diabetes! I’m a little nervous on how I’m going to do. Such temptations! It will be at my mothers house this year. I better bring my insulin. I know I’m going to feel a little left out with all those goodies I can’t have. Any advice?
Can you bring along any low carb alternatives? I’m thinking mashed cauliflower instead of the potatoes, sugar free cranberry sauce and a nice low carb dessert, so that you don’t feel too deprived, but also don’t end up with really high BG.
That’s a wonderful idea! I have some great reciepe books my diabetic supplier has given me and nows a perfect chance to use them! Thanks so much! And have a great thanksgiving!
I agree with Libby. I’ve been a vegetarian for 8 years and my good friends and family are well trained to make sure and have a tasty vegetarian dish for me (not just side dishes), especially at times like Thanksgiving. I haven’t managed to “train them” yet for my diabetes, but the friend whose house I usually celebrate Thanksgiving can be counted on to have several vegetable dishes, salads, etc. I don’t eat desserts so that’s not a problem for me. Perhaps you can plan your menu, since it’s your mom and you know what she’s making: turkey, vegetables, salads, and what portions of high carb things such as stuffing or desserts you feel you can handle. I’m not sure what you mean by “I’d better bring my insulin”. Don’t you need insulin for any meal? Having a tasty menu planned ahead of time, supplemented by things you might bring yourself should help you not feel deprived. But if you are subject to those feelings anyway, perhaps allow a taste of this a taste of that. Thank about the problems with both extreme highs and lows you might experience if you attempt to bolus for unusually high levels of carbs.
Bottom line? Focus on the meaning of Thanksgiving which is enjoying the company of friends and family and being grateful for all the good things in your life and theirs.
I offer to bring dessert so there’s something I can indulge & often bring a side dish. When everyone else is moaning & half asleep from carb overload, you’ll feel better than they do. My first diabetic Thanksgiving wasn’t near as tempting as I thought it’d be.
Check out recipes from Blaine’s Low Carb Kitchen. He is on Fit TV and has a web site you can access with his recipes. He is quite inventive and his recipes are not moderately low carb, they are very low carb. Check out his pumpkin ice cream with cookies for scooping. His Thanksgiving dinner is the cooked goose dinner.
Zoe, this will be my first thanksgiving as a diabetic but I have been veg for 20 years so that always left out turkey and the family would make two stuffings - one without turkey in it - for me. Now, I can’t even eat that. Thanksgiving was all about mashed potatoes, yams, cranberrry sauce, stuffing, bread and other veg friendly dishes. Well, geez, ALL of that is out now too! Thanksgiving is a torturous holiday for me.
Good thing we don’t really have big family Thanksgivings anymore. Don’t know what is going on this year. I might be going to a vegan Thanksgiving potluck which means I will have to bring something vegan and of course, I will make something that I can eat as a diabetic too because there will be lots of things there (everyone wants to make desserts unfortunatley - ugh) I won’t be able to eat. I am new at diabetic cooking though but I have a few ideas in mind. But not sure if I will go or not because it might just be too much of a challenge (and too expensive to make all that food). So far, I don’t tell anyone in the veg group I am in that I diabetic. I don’t want to be treated any differently so I am not ready to tell anyone yet. Either way I thought of making a vegan hemp milk nog (with my alternative sweetener) or a diabetic soup (I saw a recipe for cauliflower garlic to replace the creamy potatoe I used to make) or the cauliflower mashed faux potatoe thingy that Gerri makes. I thought about trying a dessert too. I was a very accomplished vegan cook beofre and people loved my stuff - but no point in making it just for me if I have to make it diabetic.
Anyhow, I have already bought myself a little Field Roast veg “turkey” thingy (no soy!) so if i end up staying home I will just make my own thing with some vegan gravy. It doesn’t bother me. I never really liked Thanksgiving anyhow. 
If I make my own dish it will be healthier anyhow. Even when I was a meat eater - I never liked turkey - I only like the skin on the turkey - my whole family thought I was crazy “Save the skin for me.”
I know, KimKat, I feel the same, just not wild about Thanksgiving, because no matter how much I say “it’s about friends and family” it’s always about the food and food I don’t like or can’t eat. Last year I remember I ate a couple different vegie dishes, some salad and a small serving of stuffing. The stuffing was always my favorite and my friend always makes some outside the bird and without chicken boullion. I did fine with my blood sugar and was very pleased. But then she gave me some left overs to take home and the next day I had lunch with a somewhat larger serving of the stuffing and broke 200…ugh. So I’ll skip the leftovers this time. But yes, it’s really just a social obligation to me and there’s been years I just stayed home without feeling bad about it. To me if it’s more obligation and you can’t really enjoy it, than stay home guilt free!
Personally I don’t see much to celebrate in the arrival of the pilgrims who proceeded to to devastate the Indian population by numerous imaginative genocidal methods!
Btw I saw a wild turkey on the street here in Berkeley last week…I told him to HIDE!
Suggest to your mom that you make some of the goodies, giving her a hand. Then bring some alternatives that are low-carb, low fat, etc. Believe it or not, everyone may find that your new alternatives far exceed what you’ve been eating all these years. Take cranberry sauce, that good old Thanksgiving staple that comes in a can. It’s very high in sugar, very high in carbs, though cranberries themselves are a super low carb fruit. The stuff that comes in the can is quite blah as far as I’m concerned in comparison to the stuff I make from fresh cranberries. It’s better for everyone, has far more flavor, and it has a fantastic aroma while it’s cooking and cooling. Directions:
8 servings/serving size: ¼ cup
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Chilling time: 1 hour
2 cups fresh cranberries
2 cups water
2/3 cup Splenda (granular)
2 tsp. Grated orange zest
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick (1/2 tsp ground cinnamon if you don’t have sticks)
¼ tsp. ground cloves
¼ tsp. Ground ginger
Combine all ingredients into a large heavy saucepan.
Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 45 minutes until thick.
Discard the cinnamon and mash cranberries slightly with a potato masher.
Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Calories: 20
Total fat: 0 grams
Saturated fat: 0 grams
Cholesterol: 0 milligrams
Sodium: 0 milligrams
Total carbohydrates: 5 grams
Dietary Fiber: 1 gram
Sugars: 4 grams
Protein: 0 grams
I hate to send you elsewhere, but dLife has a fabulous receipe for mashed sweet potatoes that (again) is extremely tasty, lower in carbs, and higher in fiber than the canned stuff. Check around the web for recipes that look like they would fit with your new meal plans and would fit with your family’s tastes and expectations. dLife has a huge recipe database, as does the American Diabetes Association. If you don’t mind dealing with pop-up ads begging you to subscribe, Diabetic Living magazine’s website also has a lot of recipes available.
Most important, though, is to watch your serving sizes and to carefully consider what you are eating. If you are only going to use enough insulin to cover the amount of carbs you normally eat, then think and plan ahead for the carbs you’re going to consume. For instance, let’s say for Thanksgiving Day dinner, I take my usual 3 units of Humalog, which covers about 54g of carbs. Let’s also say that I want a slice of my favorite pumpkin pie recipe, which has only 18g carbs per 1/8 serving. I also want those mashed sweet potatoes, which have only 14g carbs per 3/4 cup serving. There’s 32 of my 54 grams of carbs, which leaves me with only 22g left to play with – and the typical Thanksgiving dinner includes corn, stuffing (dressing), biscuits or rolls, cranberry sauce, and a host of other high-carb foods considered “traditional”. Well, a typical biscuit would quickly eat up those 22 carb grams, leaving me without my sauce (BOO!) or another of my favorites, the stuffing. So, I may skip the biscuit, have 1/4 cup of stuffing (7 g carbs the way I make it), 1/4 cup of corn (~7g carbs, if from a can), 2 tablespoons of my homemade cranberry sauce (~2 g carbs), and then round out the rest of the carbs with a salad and low-carb veggies we typically serve on Thanksgiving, such as asparagus.
Something else that’s important, especially on your first Thanksgiving (and Christmas, and New Year’s, and every other holiday that comes up during this first year with diabetes): DO NOT BE TOO HARD ON YOURSELF IF YOU DO NOT ACHIEVE “PERFECT” BLOOD SUGARS. I cannot emphasize this enough. YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR BLOOD SUGARS, AND IF YOU ARE TOO HIGH AFTER YOUR THANKSGIVING MEAL, IT IS OK. YOU ARE A PERSON AND NOT A PANCREAS. You are just learning about your diabetes and it will take time. So, please, be kind to yourself. If you have not been told how to correct for high blood sugars, call your diabetes educator or endo and ask. Test a couple of hours after eating to find out how you did, and if they are higher than you’d like, DO NOT WORRY. Follow your CDE’s instructions for correcting a high bg and remember, it will be OK.
Yep, he better hide! Whats he doing on the streets?He should be hiding up in the hills! I wonder if he was someones potential dinner - glad he escaped!
You are lucky you live in Berkely btw. I love that place. Fellinis is/was my favorite restaurant in the SF Bay area.
I feel the same way about Thanksgiving. It is about the food really. Sometimes it bothers me to stay home and sometimes it doesn’t - although if I go to someones home who is having a traditional turkey feast at least I take some turkey home for my cats. They always appreciate that.
Turkey and animals. I have a funny story that usually gets dragged out every Thanksgiving by my friends. We had a couple friends who had a pet wolf. (7/8 or whatever the legal requirement). Danali was one of my favorite animals hands down, his personality was different than a dog. Everyone loved him. One Thanksgiving Danali’s owners got ready to take him for a walk after dinner. Danali loved his walks, but he just lay still, head on paw, looking up at them. What was wrong with the wolfie? Finally we put it together: Everyone had been passing the dear wolf a piece of their turkey. He was zonked on L-Tryptaphan! Yes, I’ve been to Fellini’s. Very good pizza. I should go there and treat myself sometime. It’s very close to my house. I make good pizza at home, but since I can only eat one piece, the recipe gets frozen and I eat it so long I get sick of it!
everything is fine in moderation! that’s how I live
Also, you can try a little exercise after dinner, and that might allow you to eat a bit more.