effects of DD's switch to a healthy, vegetarian diet

Is it possible to be a vegetarian but be allergic to nuts and things like soy, green peas? Many times we don't have a meat with the meal and just have whole wheat pasta and a salad. Would my son get enough protein from the lack of things he could eat?

 

I think it should be said that everyone could benefit from a better diet and more exercise, D or not...it's just that diabetics have a "measuring stick" that non-D's don't have. I was talking to my CDE yesterday and she said, "thank goodness for diabetes, in the sense that it makes us all eat better." I was telling her how DS was using WAY less syrup on his pancakes since DX; by his choice, not mine. (I've taken to measuring my 6 year old's syrup and sugar over hot cereal as well.) I personally have paid a lot more attetion to food in the past year. I don't personally think vegetarian is for me, and we still have donuts or pizza from time to time, but overall I think we've improved a bit. My eyes have been opened to some food myths as well, things I normally wouldn't have questioned.

I would be super proud to have a 14 year old who made personal choices like that, who could make a decision like that and have the discipline to stick with it. It's wonderful to have teachers who can inspire our children in ways we can't.

 

This is one reason I won't even consider doing vegetarian in our house.. I can't have nuts, soy and most (fresh) fruits and veggies (oral allergy syndrom).. so, there would be nothing to eat.. i don't eat much meat as it is.. but can't give up all of it.

 

It really concerns me that Brendan is at high risk for Celiac, like all T1 kids. Because I really don't know what we'll eat if we can't have gluten. It would be an incredible challenge.

 

Yeah, I hear you. Keep your fingers crossed. Every month without is another month without, if you know what I mean.

 

I think another great thing to do is just cut one thing out for one meal. Like say no red meat for lunches...then after a while see if your family can cut more out. When in HS and college I was completely vegan, then when I got pregnant I was told I either started getting more iron or I may need a transfusion...I started eating burgers that day. (I know there are other choices but...it was what I was craving.) What I am saying is that often the "new" diet doesn't work because it is started to quickly and there isn't room for adjustment. I also started using things like ground turkey in meals before switching to soy. Kind of slowly stepping away from the red meat then eliminating it all together.
For me I'm finding it hard for my children to have healthy snacks in public. At preschool and church they're offered the worst things that I would never feed them at home. How would you handle this when your d child already feels a bit different? I know many of your children are older, but what about the younger ones that just want what their friend has?

 

I don't eat meat, but I do eat fish. I've been eating that way for about 7 years now, so the whole time I've had D. I don't eat fish that frequently - the majority of my diet is fairly healthy vegetarian (but perhaps not quite as healthy as your daughter ). My average TDD is 35U: exactly 50% basal, 50% bolus on my 31 day average, and I average at 167 carbs per day. My meter average generally ranges between 110 and 130 (120 right now) but clearly I can't compare that to a diet with meat. My TDD is only 0.59U/kg, which is near honeymooning requirements, but I'm definitely not honeymooning. For the first two years of D, I only needed 20ishU/day.

I think that a big part of the lower TDD is the avoidance of many fat spikes from meat.. If meat was eaten on a regular basis, I imagine that the insulin needed to cover those fat spikes might be added to basal.

 

Yeah, I often felt caught between a rock and a hard place there. I made the decision to let him have what the other kids were having, with the exception of any juice or "juice-like" products. He had water or milk instead. I came down on the side of it being more important to me for him to be like the other kids. I figured that he gets enough healthy stuff at home that a bit of junk wouldn't hurt him, and the emotional impact of preventing him from having the junk wasn't worth it.

 

I think it's a wise approach, and is the one we had taken previously.

You make sure they have good food at home, but not have them singled out for being different when with other kids.

The one thing we've tried to do is to bring a tray of healthy snacks any time we're invited out anywhere. That way there's a healthy choice for DD, and the other kid benefit from it as well. We always make sure it's extra tasty good food too, which I guess is a bit subversive..

 

My kids LOVE fresh veggies and dip.. we tend to bring this places too.. if they don't eat it before we get there!

 

Thanks for your post Wilf!

I also think that good nutrition helps a great deal ... our family primarily eats chicken, seafood, eggs and lots of fruits, veggies, granola, yogurt, whole grains and nuts and hardly any processed foods. And when you get the kids away from all of the junk food, they (at least mine) don't even seem to miss it. I think that has really helped our dd. When we see a fat spike it is due to eating out and all of the hidden fats that restaurants include.

Kudos to your daughter and especially to her teacher!!

Lisa

 

Gluten is a protein, and all of the gluten foods- wheat, rye, oats, barley, spelt- provide protein. Rice has protein but not complete proteins so it's not a good source if it's your main source. Various seeds- sunflower for instance- have significant amounts of protein. One of my favorite sources of protein is that vegan meat, yeast.
Various vegetables have protein, although usually not very large amounts. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, quinoa, avocado (okay, those last two aren't exactly vegetables) have significant amounts of protein.
Legumes are a huge source of protein, often having as many grams of protein as they do of carbohydrates. Some include: lentils, all the beans you usually think of, green beans, green peas, chick peas, carob, etc.
I think I could go without legumes and get enough protein, especially if I could still eat yeast and if I could eat gluten foods. If all legumes and gluten were off limits, then what would be left would be yeast (very important, yeast), starchy vegetables (and avocado), rice, quinoa, and some seeds. Not a great recipe for prevention of further allergy development, but it might work.

For a few weeks earlier this year I added up all of the calories from everything I was eating, looking mostly at how many total but also how many from each source. I am a total vegan and my caloric intake was one quarter protein.

 

Wilf,

I'm glad you posted this. Although Leah is not vegetarian, her choice of diet is similar to your daughter's. We have also found that healthy food choices make control much easier. On those days when she may eat something very high glycemic or high fat, control is much harder. When I mentioned this last year, people jumped to the conclusion that Leah must be on an unreasonably low-carb diet, whereas her diet was typically 200+ carbs a day of low glycemic, low fat, healthy foods. It's good to see that someone else is finding, as we did, that simply avoiding the worst foods also avoids the worst days of BG control.

 

It used to be that people with T1D were on very restrictive diets.

Now-a-days the line most often heard is "I can eat whatever I like as long as I inject insulin to cover the carbs".

The new line will be "Although I can eat what I like, I find I have the most success with blood sugars when I make healthy food choices (and am active)."

 

We believe that wholeheartedly!

 

Just picked DD up from her dance camp and dropped her off at her next (Quaker) camp, and recorded the numbers off her meter.

She actually had better numbers at her dance camp this year (with her making the decisions about insulin dosages) than she did at diabetes camp with all its doctors and nurses last year. That is not to put down those conscientious doctors/nurses, and it is not to say that she has over the last year become great at managing her D (though she is making progress there).

I think the main difference is simply her diet last year compared to this year, and the fact that it makes managing the D so much easier.

 

This is a great thread!

This has become more of an issue for us over the last year or so. When DD was younger she mostly ate what I selected/served. Now that she is out with friends more often her diet has really suffered. Couple that with pre-puberty and the numbers just ain't what they used to be.

It is a fine line. I want to say "don't eat that, I'll be up all night getting you back in range" but that makes us both feel bad. We have been trying to be more active and that certainly helps. A nice bike ride does help to even out that donut she had after practice with her friends.

 

What about packing a lunch or sending along a tray of healthy snacks for her and her friends when she's away? :cwds:

This is what I have resolved to more of in the fall. Because DD will eat the more nutritious food/snacks if there is a choice available.

 

I think the benefit comes, not from what your not eating, but from what you are eating. If you are choosing nutrient dense foods like fruits and vegetables and avoid, sugar, flour, white rice, and other fast carbs, you will have better glycemic control. Ironically, this may be one reason why some do well on reduced carb diets. We have to watch terms here. The Atkins diet restricts carbs to as little as 20g per day. Ithink the Bernstein diet does, too. But Chris usually eats about 60g per meal. Nevertheless, a dietitian once asked us why we had him on such a low carb diet!

Chuck