Blog - Dash Diabetes Network
Have you always wanted to learn HOW to feel confident about your diabetes management practices and choices? Then join Daniele Hargenrader, founder of Diabetes Dominator Coaching,On November 1st, 2017 for her FREE 5 Day online summit featuring 25+ top doctors and experts, including our very own Damon Dash and Raquel Horn,teaching their best tools and tactics on: -How to Improve Your Mindset& Your Mental/Emotional Relationship with Diabetes -How to Select the BestDiet, Fitness and Healthy Living Lifestyle Based on your personal needs -How to Form New,Empowering Habits Around You or Your Love One's Diabetes Management The entire summit is freeand online,therefore no travel is required. Check out all the details below. Actor Nick Turturro, from many movies and shows including Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing and Damon's upcoming film The List , talks about diabetic warning signs and how diabetes has affected his family. Damon also discusses the ways he brings awareness to the disease through his work as a director who's diabetic. This week,Wifey for Lifeyis back in the kitchen cooking up a light dish featuring one of Dames favorite ingredient when he ate meat ...Beef Bacon (a great alternative for those who dont eat pork!) Raquel uses the Beef Baconas an addition to a lightly Sauted Lemon Garlic Broccolibase to create a delicious low-carb, high-protein meal. Another great trick about this recipe is you can substitute any of your favorite proteins to produce a lighter or heavier meal that wont spike your blood sugar. Find the recipe below: 3 large broccoli heads, with stems spiralized Juice from 1 lemon, and zest from half of lemon 1.Slice off the broccoli florets, leaving the stems as long as possible 3.Heat butter in saucepan on medium heat, add garlic 4.Add broccoli floret Continue reading >>
Diabetes - Cause, Prevention, Treatment And Reversal With A Plant Based Diet
Summary This is a long article, so here's the summary: In the next 25 years 1 in every 3 Americans will have developed type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is a serious progressive disease. Type 2 diabetes is largely a lifestyle-related disease and is preventable. Caused by diets high in saturated fat, not high in carbohydrates. Animal products and processed foods contain the vast majority of saturated fat in our diets. The excess fat inhibits insulin's effect so blood sugar levels remain dangerously high. By following a low-fat plant-based diet your risk of developing diabetes is very, very low. People with diabetes are at high risk for heart disease and stroke. Removing animal products from your diet helps lower your risk of having a heart attack or stroke. A low-fat plant-based diet has been proven to treat and reverse diabetes. Heart disease risk is also lowered by following a low-fat plant-based diet. A plant-based diet has been shown to work better than American Diabetes Association's guidelines in treating diabetes. Patients switching to a vegan diet didn't find it any harder to stick to than the ADA's recommended guidelines. Diabetes will affect 1 in every 3 of us Introduction Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition with the exact cause is currently unknown. It is partly inherited with multiple genes influencing the overall risk. Type 1 diabetes means the body doesn't produce insulin on it's own so insulin injections are required. There is currently no known way to prevent type 1 diabetes, but this form of diabetes only accounts for 5–10% of all cases of diabetes.[1] However type 2 diabetes is far more common. This form of diabetes accounts for 90-95% of all diabetes cases, and is characterised by insulin resistance. Type 2 diabetes is a lifestyle related disea Continue reading >>
Diabetes And A Vegan Diet
My husband has recently decided to become vegan (meaning he will no longer include any animal products in his diet). When he told me this I got mad. “I already have to deal with two picky eaters who only eat tacos or spaghetti and meatballs” I told him, “and now I have to cook special meals for you!” Ugh. I was also irritated because I love to eat meat. A blue cheese burger cooked on the grill in the summer is my favorite indulgence. Did this mean my husband wasn’t going to grill burgers anymore? I worried. And if he’s not going to eat meat, what about me? “If you stop eating meat that means you’re going to eat more carbs, and I don’t eat carbs,” I told my husband. OK, maybe there are more than two picky eaters in the house. I knew logically that just because he was changing his diet didn’t mean that I had to change my diet, but I’m the cook in the family and didn’t want to spend all night in the kitchen making different meals for every person in our house. I tend to blame a lot of my “issues” on diabetes, but I think the negative reaction to my husband’s desire to be vegan really does come from having Type 1 diabetes. It also comes from growing up with hippie, vegetarian parents in the woods of Vermont and from my high school field trip, “Mountain Classroom,” to a meat-packing factory in Texas where I emerged from the factory covered in cow’s blood and was unable to eat meat for the next ten years (long and colorful stories we don’t have time for today). Being a vegetarian and a person with diabetes was hard. I was in college and ate what my friends ate, which was bagels, pizza, and cereal. This was not a healthy diet, and my blood sugar probably ran high throughout my time in college, though I’m not sure because I rarely teste Continue reading >>
How Going Vegan Changed My Type 1 Diabetic Life
After 12 months of eating a plant-based diet, my insulin needs decreased by 50%. As a 24 year old with Type 1 diabetes, I injected on average 60 units of insulin per day. Now at 25, I dial up 30 units per day. While defying conventional wisdom, I achieved these results while doubling my carbohydrate intake – effectively increasing carbohydrate consumption from 100 to 200 grams per day. For those not familiar with Type 1 diabetes, let me clarify. People with Type 1 diabetes make no insulin. Every carbohydrate I eat is compensated for with insulin. We with diabetes do not know why our pancreas went on permanent vacation, but it did. I can exercise, eat right, and meditate until the proverbial cows come home, and I will still be using insulin. How then, can we explain that I am eating more carbohydrates (fruit, vegetables, grains and legumes) but taking less insulin? Clinical research is beginning to demonstrate that adopting a plant-based, vegan diet without animal protein and fat will improve insulin sensitivity in people with diabetes. (See here) If one is injecting less insulin, this results in less lipid, or fat, production in the body. That’s a motivating factor. This opportunity for true disease transformation was never brought to my attention by my physicians or dieticians. My assumption was that I should always eat as low-carb as possible. Then, as many a vegan journey begins, I watched Forks Over Knives. I was plant-strong for one week and gave it up. I wasn’t ready or truly motivated yet. All the while, the vegan dream never vanished. In a divine intervention of sorts, I stumbled across the Rich Roll Podcast. This was my gospel. In the car, at the gym, on the bike, or on a run, I listed to his conversations with his wife Julie, Dr. Michael Gregor, Michael Continue reading >>
For 26 Years, I’ve Managed Type 1 Diabetes With A Plant-based Diet
Until age 35, my health was very typical for an American. Then in November of 1988, all that changed: my immune system suddenly decided that my insulin-producing pancreas beta cells were foreign and attacked and annihilated them, leaving me with type 1 diabetes. In less than 30 days, I lost 45 pounds and grew deathly weak. Eventually, I was found barely conscious at my work desk and rushed to the hospital, where I immediately received my first shot of insulin. My doctor’s grim prognosis hit like a ton of bricks: even with the best possible diabetic control, I would still suffer many debilitating, chronic complications of the disease. I envisioned myself disabled, blind, amputated, and living in a wheelchair. More on that later… A few days into my hospital stay, a fill-in doctor literally saved my life with a very simple short statement. He said, “No doctor can manage your diabetes.” He explained that the insulin doses are dependent on metabolism which changes from minute to minute, and so are too variable to be predetermined or managed by any other person. He recommended that I keep a log and learn the effects of everything I ate and did, and adjust my diabetes control and lifestyle accordingly. The geek in me took that advice to heart. Back home, I immediately bought a glucometer, a kitchen scale, a nutrition facts book, and a notebook in which to begin logging my new life. I began to learn how to match up the food I ate, my activity levels, and my insulin intake to keep everything in sync. My Doctors Prescribed a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet All of the nutritional information from my doctor, diabetes magazines and books, and even diabetes management classes strongly promoted a low-carb, high-fat diet. Confusion started to set in, however, as all my test-and-measure Continue reading >>
How To Eat Low Carb As A Vegan Or Vegetarian
Nut-based vegan cheese and yogurts like Miyokos kitchen vegan nut cheeses A note about beans and lentils: Beans and lentils contain protein, but they also are high in carbohydrate content. Depending on your personal carbohydrate tolerance, you may be able to introduce some beans and lentils into your diet once you have adapted to nutritional ketosis and gained better blood glucose control. Its best to keep your carbohydrate intake very low until your body adapts to ketosis, and then you can later experiment with adding foods like berries and a small amount of lentils or beans into your diet and tracking your blood sugar response to find your personal carbohydrate tolerance. Dr. Stephen Phinney on plant-based low carb protein sources Well go into detail on product recommendations below. Tofu has roughly 1-2 grams of carbs per ounce. If youre having trouble getting enough protein, we recommend buying a higher-protein variety such as the Wildwood brand . Tempeh is slightly higher-carb. Tempeh, seitan and tofu are high-protein alternatives to meat that can be incorporated into your daily meals. Make sure to track your blood glucose/ketone response with these foods to ensure youre staying under your personal carbohydrate tolerance. Eating out with multiple dietary restrictions can be difficult. Some of the easiest restaurants for keto vegan or vegetarian food tend to be salad restaurants, Thai places and Indian restaurants. Make sure to ask about hidden sugars or carbs in sauces and dressings to ensure these dishes are truly low carb. Vegetarians can have creamy paneer dishes at Indian restaurants, and vegetarians and vegans alike can enjoy coconutty Thai curries with tofu and vegetables, rich Indian vegetable dishes like eggplant curries, or a spicy Tom Kha soup. Just make Continue reading >>
Robby Barbaro Takes On Diabetes
When I first met Robby Barbaro I was impressed. Here was a young guy who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, but instead of just surrendering to that, he made the effort to switch to a low-fat raw vegan diet, decrease his insulin use through good food choices, and start living a healthy life. Watching him measure all his food, I realized just how different his chosen path was from one followed by the average type 1 diabetic. What’s more impressive is that he’s doing it without a clear idea of where that path will lead him. Type 2 diabetics bring the disease on themselves through diet and lifestyle choices and can usually reverse it with a low-fat diet, as studies have demonstrated many times. Type 1 diabetes, however, is a different creature. Some researchers point to a possible connection with animal milk consumption or other reasons, but there's no definitive anwer for why type 1 diabetes occurs. Although there appear to be rare cases of people reversing type 1 diabetes through dietary changes, and Robby was inspired by those, there has never been a method proven to be regularly successful. Content with getting healthier, an improved carb-to-insulin ratio, and generally feeling great, Robby has set out to inspire type 2 diabetics to get rid of their disease forever, even if he still has to deal with his own. His nonprofit organization, Robby Barbaro, Inc., seeks to educate diabetics about their options. I decided that Robby would be a great addition to the raw food success stories on this site, and I’m pleased he agreed to an interview. For those looking for more information on a low-fat raw vegan diet (which involves lots of fruit, lots of vegetables, and not much overt fat), and some of the other concepts discussed in this interview, please see the bottom of t Continue reading >>
Vegan Recipes
What is a vegan diet? A vegan diet is plant-based and one which doesn’t include any products that are derived from animals - dairy, meat, and other by-products such as honey. Veganism is fast becoming an increasingly popular lifestyle and dietary choice for many people and there are now scores of dedicated vegan restaurants, vegan-friendly ingredients in supermarkets, and vegan cookbooks readily available. Grains, seeds, beans, pulses, nuts, vegetables and fruits make up the bulk of vegan cooking. To cater to people living with diabetes who follow a vegan diet, we have developed a range of brand-new recipes, from delicious breakfasts to mouth-watering main meals. Look out for our, which looks at the diet in more depth, advising how to follow a vegan diet healthily and identifying what it could mean for your diabetes management. In the meantime, why not embrace plant power and try out one of these tempting meals… More delicious vegan recipes As well as these brand-new recipes, we also have a whole host of plant-based breakfasts, mains and desserts. Simply search 'vegan' through our recipe finder. Continue reading >>
Why I Am A Pegan Or Paleo-vegan And Why You Should Be Too!
Why I am a Pegan or Paleo-Vegan and Why You Should Be Too! Why I am a Pegan or Paleo-Vegan and Why You Should Be Too! As a doctor, it is my job to figure out the best way to keep my patients healthy. We now know that food is medicine, perhaps the most powerful drug on the planet with the power to cause or cure most disease. If food is more than just calories, if food is information that controls every aspect of our biology and health, then I better know what to advise people to prevent, treat and even reverse chronic disease. So the fundamental question of our time, given that the cost of chronic disease caused mostly by what we eat will cost our global economy $47 trillion over the next 20 years and cause over 50 million preventable deaths a year is this: What should I eat to feel good, lose weight and get and stay healthy? On the one hand, Lebron James is eating Paleo and the number one tennis player in the world cut out gluten and dairy and went from not winning at all to winning everything in just one year. But on the other hand, Rich Roll completed five Iron Man marathons in seven days on a vegan diet. Looking at the research it is easy to get confused. Vegan diet studies show they help with weight loss, reverse diabetes and lower cholesterol. Paleo diets seem to do the same thing. So should you be shunning animal foods and eating only beans, grains and veggies or should you eat meat and fat without guilt and give up all grains and beans? Essentially, each camp adheres to their diet with near religious fervor. And each can point to studies validating their point of view. We call this cherry picking. After reading dozens of studies on vegan and paleo diets, even I could get confused. But I dont because I read BETWEEN the lines not just the headlines. I read the met Continue reading >>
Vegan Diet
Tweet Many people instantly recoil at the idea of a vegan diet, but this attitude is gradually changing, particularly amongst people with diabetes. Can people with diabetes use a vegan diet to improve blood glucose control? Absolutely. By eating a healthy vegan diet low in cholesterol and saturated fat, but balanced enough to include fibre and protein, blood glucose levels can be made easier to control. This type of diet, particularly when combined with exercise, can help to lower blood glucose levels and better manage diabetes. What is a vegan diet for diabetes? A vegan diet effectively means cutting out meat, dairy and animal products whether you have diabetes or not. So what do you eat? Vegan diets, whether for people with diabetes or not, are usually based around plants. Particular foods eaten include vegetables, fruit, grains, legumes. Animal products such as meat and dairy are avoided, as are added fat and sugar. People on vegan diets often take vitamin B12 deficiency supplements. Isn’t a vegan diet for diabetics hard to stick to? Eating a vegan diet does require some compromise, but getting the right diabetes recipes and planning your diet well will make following a vegan diet for diabetes easy. When planning your vegan diet, you need to make sure that protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals are balanced. Vegan diets do not usually demand that portions be stuck to or calories counted, making them easier to follow than some diabetes diets. Can I lose weight using a vegan diet? Many people with diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes, have a firm goal to lose weight. Weight loss is well understood as one of the best ways of achieving diabetes control. Vegan diets with a lower glycaemic index and a higher level of fibre are an excellent way of losing wei Continue reading >>
A Diabetic Vegan: An Interview With Adrian Kiger
Adrian Kiger is a writer who grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia. She’s had type 1 diabetes since she was eleven. After years of struggling with weight issues and blood sugar levels, she found a diet that works for her – vegan. Adrian, who has written a children’s book “Veronica, the Vegetarian Diabetic,” talked to ASweetLife about her path to veganism and how it’s helped her improve her health. You’ve been a type 1 diabetic for 25 years. Did you (or your parents) change your diet when you were diagnosed? My mom had always been a gourmet cook and paid a lot of attention to the quality of food in our house, even I before my diabetes came along. We, my dad and two younger brothers, ate only whole wheat bread, wholesome foods, and a big salad that accompanied supper, which we ate together as a family almost every night. Absolutely no sugary cereals or sodas were around. My mom prepared most things from scratch and always had a garden. When I came home from the hospital after being diagnosed, there was Crystal Light drink mix in the house. It was new on the market at the time. There were a lot of sugar-free products too. Other than that, there wasn’t much of a need for a big, dramatic change. My mom also began making some sugar-free desserts. The biggest change was the fact that suddenly someone in the house had diabetes, and the intensity around food was heightened. What led you to become a diabetic vegan? Were you a vegetarian first? I was not a vegetarian first. Although I have never eaten a lot of meat, I did love a good cheeseburger and a tasty piece of salmon. But I never really liked the smell of cooked meat, so I rarely made it for myself at home. My best friend from childhood was raised completely vegetarian, so I was exposed at a young age to the Continue reading >>
Diabetic Vegan Pregnancy
A few days ago I got an email from Flaming Vegan, asking why I haven’t posted lately. There’s a big reason why I haven’t shared in a while- I just had my baby girl, December 10. It was a vegan pregnancy and all went well, really well. Apart from being a vegan pregnancy, I am also a type 1 diabetic. So let’s call it a diabetic vegan pregnancy. I have to say that health is the number one wealth. It has only been ten days and I feel perfectly normal. Actually, I felt pretty normal the morning after Luna was born. I woke up and was ready for a shower and to come back home. I want to share my experience with you to convince yourself that it is doable. Many people might tell you a vegan pregnancy is not healthy for you or your baby, but it is. My baby is very healthy. Type 1 diabetics usually have a higher incidence of complications and of poor outcomes – not me! I followed a healthy vegan diet throughout my pregnancy and my blood sugars were really well controlled most of the time. (I wish I could say all of the time, but pregnancy hormones make your blood sugars crazy at times). My baby girl was born naturally at 39 weeks, and weighed 6 Lbs 9 oz. Most babies of diabetic women are born with higher-than-average weights (fetal macrosomia) due to poor blood sugar control and end up in c-sections. This was not my case. I ate healthy vegan meals and exercised almost every single day. I put on twenty-five pounds and lost them by the third day. I am breastfeeding and feeling great. Managing type 1 diabetes while pregnant is very difficult, but I really feel that a vegan diet helps. I always had energy throughout the day, so that kept me going. I never had morning sickness either. It was really a great time. So I wanted to encourage anyone who is vegan or diabetic (or both Continue reading >>
Ken's Engineered Type 1 Diabetes Whole Food Plant Based Low Fat Lifestyle
Previous experiences with my doctors were extremely difficult because they wanted to control my Type 1 diabetes by prescribing specific medication doses and defining what I should eat. But, none of that was working. I felt extremely diseased and disabled. I was kind of terrified from all that and so decided to apply the techniques of my profession: fault analysis and electronic design. In addition to studying cellular level biology at the Midwestern State University library, I began an elimination diet to find out what foods did what. All the foods my doctors were telling me to eat were not working. In fact, those foods made things far worse. That was how I discovered that plant based foods, very low fat and low protein with no animal products were the best foods. I found starches and fruits made diabetic control and my life extremely easy. Every time I would go to my doctor, however, I would end up in an argument. He would review my blood work and tell me that my blood work was the best he had ever seen. My A1c was 5.1 my total cholesterol was 100. Then his next sentence was that he wanted to put me on Lipitor. I asked him why and he told me it was because "All diabetics should be on Lipitor." He then proceeded to explain that my diet was all wrong because it was not a proper diabetic diet. He explained that my A1c was too low and should be in the diabetic range - since I am a diabetic. This went on until June of 2012. 2012 was the year I discovered Dr. McDougall during some casual Google surfing. I did not know before that time that there was such a thing as a plant based doctor. I found a list of plant-based doctors on his web site and found Dr. Carney in Buda, Texas. I thought this is awesome, now I can go to a doctor without having to be told that my diet is all wr Continue reading >>
Vegan Diet For Type 1 Diabetes
Someone recently wrote me asking for information on eating a vegan diet and Type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is when your body is not making any insulin and so you have to take insulin injections. The person writing me said that even though she could take more insulin to deal with the higher amount of carbohydrate in a vegan diet, “more and more research shows that type ones can build up an insulin resistance if too many carbohydrates are consumed.” I have only had a question from someone with Type 1 diabetes about two previous times and do not currently know anyone with Type 1 diabetes eating a vegan diet. I do not know of any published studies on the subject, so any advice I give is fairly theoretical. I responded by saying: “A whole foods vegan diet has been shown to be beneficial for Type 2 diabetes in three studies that have been conducted on people with Type 2. I am actually working on an article combining the results of these studies. A lot of the benefit of such a diet is due to lower caloric intake, which probably won’t help someone with Type 1. However, I could see that the higher fiber content of a whole foods vegan diet could release carbohydrates more slowly into your blood and result in lower insulin needs, even if the carbohydrates are a higher percentage of your diet.” I also enclosed an article from a 1999 Vegetarian Dietetic Practice group newsletter that addressed Type 1 diabetes in vegetarian children. I’m wondering if there is anyone out there who has been vegan for awhile and has Type 1 diabetes, who can help this person (and myself) know more about their experience. Thank you! Continue reading >>
One Man Compares Ketogenic And Vegan Diets For Type 1 Diabetes
Diets that require less insulin are popular among people with type 1 diabetes because less insulin required means a higher likelihood of more easily managed blood sugar levels. To put that more clearly: Each time you give insulin, a certain amount isn’t properly absorbed. This happens to a varying degree each time, whether you inject or use an insulin pump. Each time you give insulin you are also dealing with a different set of variables that may impact the way the insulin works for you. We all deal with these ever-changing variables like stress, digestion, fluctuating hormones, and different levels of activity. The more insulin we give, the more outside our target range we risk being. This is the “law of small numbers” which Dr. Richard Bernstein coined to help explain why low-carb eating equals tighter blood sugar management. A ketogenic diet is a low-carb diet like the one Bernstein follows except it includes a larger amount of fat and a bit less protein. Another popular diet right now is the vegan diet. Those who eat this way while omitting refined or processed foods and grains say doing so leads to high levels of insulin sensitivity which help lower insulin needs and better blood sugar levels. Comparing Ketogenic and Vegan Diets for Type 1 Diabetes Steve Richert is a documentary adventure photographer who also has type 1 diabetes and eats a ketogenic diet. You can visit his website, LivingVertical.org to learn more and read about his latest project–a documentary about insulin access. In a recent post, Steve compares his experience and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) data while eating vegan and ketogenic diets. Two very different ways of eating, both of which appear to work out better than the standard American diet (SAD). There is a clear winner for Steve Continue reading >>
