This article is aimed at Type 2's but I think its good information for Type 1's as well.
I've been craving Persian food lately. And have been talking about it with a coworker who is from Iran. Yesterday I bought Sangak at my local Middle Eastern store. Its a leavened flatbread, sort of like a sour dough/very thin focaccia. Sort of.
I ate it with some yogurt dip that I made and it did not spike my sugars!! Yes, I did take insulin to cover the carbs but my BG went up to 140 and then came right back down. (Disclaimer - I think I ate a few other things I did not cover for (snacking at the end of the day ;) and I had to make an educated guess on how much to inject for the bread.)
This is one more food that I can eat on this non-linear health odyssey. (My coworker says this kind of bread is best when lightly toasted and eaten with butter and Feta. Going to try that next.)
The other reason I am sharing this article is because I like reading about how diabetes is researched and treated all over the world. Other countries don't have the FDA (that can be good or bad) and they have different funding structures, research protocols, environmental influences, etc. My internal optimist is always wondering if someone, somewhere will come up with a different conclusion or approach than those we are currently working under here in the U.S. Because, a girl can dream. And be informed along the way.
The journal that this article is from is the Iranian Journal of Diabetes and Obesity http://ijdo.ssu.ac.ir/ You can also find the articles in Google Scholar.
Here is the link to the article:
http://ijdo.ssu.ac.ir/files/site1/user_files_b889fb/dara-A-10-3-30-09de775.pdf
Has anyone else found other international journals that they like to read and would recommend?
And any food suggestions that are not part of the SAD diet. Standard American diet - very sad, indeed.
Thanks!
You might find this interesting regarding sourdough bread:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18317680
I avoided sourdough for a couple years after my T1 diagnosis, but when I tried it I realized it doesn't pack the BG punch that white bread seems to have.
Thanks for the link. That is very interesting. I wonder if the bacilli in the sourdough culture consume enough of the sugar in the flour to reduce the overall number of carbs?? But the glycemic index seems lower; the carb release seems more even than in almost any other bread I've eaten. What are they doing that the yeast isn't? Besides producing lactic acid. Very interesting...p>
I would have never thought about sour dough specifically having less of a "punch" I wonder if its one of those things our ancestors ate as part of a less processed diet that helped them ward of (or significantly delay) Type 2.
All I know is that, given the choice of any bread, sourdough has always been my favorite, so it's a happy discovery!
I also wonder if there isn't something about the type of yeast used that affects blood sugar. Somewhere on the web I once find a site by a man who was giving away samples of a strain of yeast he had discovered or was growing or something. In the testimonials several people who previously were unable to eat bread due to what they thought were wheat allergies or sensitivities were able to eat bread made from his strain. I forget what was different about it that made it more compatible. I don't remember seeing any testimonials from diabetics though. But it did impress upon me that different types of yeast can be digested by people who can't consumer the commercial stuff.
And I've been to a naturopath whose head just about spun around when I told her I was buying bulk yeast from the local food coop. She insisted it was the seconds, grown with looser quality controls than the pre-packaged. She did have a PhD in one of the biologies, so I figured her opinion carried some weight.
Currently I live in an area where all bread is commercially produced, hence the excitement that the Iranian Sangak is something I can eat without dire consequences. But then, its coming from California, which has its own sourdough microbial profile.
Also interesting about the rising time. The yeast is obviously using up the sugar called for in the recipe so the longer its left to do its job, the less sugar left over to cause diabetics grief.
The "reference bread" mentioned in the link posted by Shadow Dragon was only allowed to rise for 2 hours using commercial yeast but the sourdough was left to rise for 8 hours.
Now I am wondering about the wheat used in Europe and some of the old world, traditional methods for bread baking there. Might need a field trip to further that research ;P I wish that were an option.
Real sourdough is just flour and water, the leaven is just flour and water. Very many supermarkets and small bakers add yeast and a sourdough flavour to what they call sourdough bread and which is not, this is to speed up the raising. Be aware that some 'sourdoughs' are not, you can read the ingredients in supermarkets, but not in small bakeries. Even white sourdough is low GI because of the very slow rising.
