Best carb?

[Rod]

Hi,

I am a diabetic and so have had to pay careful attention to maintaining energy levels to keep myself going all day.

I have found porridge oats with chopped brazils / dried apricots is a good morning mix to get me going. The oats are easy on your stomach and release engery slowly and consistantly. I sometimes add raisins or honey (the stuff you squeeze from the bottle) if I'm felling particularly "frisky" in the mornings

Oat cakes make an easy to manage lunch basis - squeeze cheese and chorizo / jerky etc etc

Pasta / super noodles are good for tea and I have found keep me feeling full and comfy at bedtime. Low fat horlicks is not bad to drink half hour or so bedfore you turn in. You can get this in handy sachets too.

Smash is great to thicken stews. Rice is good but your body absorbs the sugars from this very quickly. [Ever wondered why after you've had a chinese you want another about an hour later? Your body's already processed the sugars.]

The main thing I have found is to try to make meals from scratch - or use a boil in the bag Wayfayrer meal with added carbs (rice / noodles / smash).

hope this helps

 

[bushtuckerman]

I have found porridge oats with chopped brazils / dried apricots is a good morning mix to get me going. The oats are easy on your stomach and release engery slowly and consistantly.

ah yeah that's a good point actually, i imagine the added energy of slight cooking will increase the GI? also, yeah porridge does digest well, it's a good breakfast, but plain oats on the other hand are the opposite as far as i know, since they absorb a lot of water, so in the stomach they expand. porridge cooked oats have already expanded outside the body.

just thought i should add that.

 

[Keith_Beef]

ah yeah that's a good point actually, i imagine the added energy of slight cooking will increase the GI? also, yeah porridge does digest well, it's a good breakfast, but plain oats on the other hand are the opposite as far as i know, since they absorb a lot of water, so in the stomach they expand. porridge cooked oats have already expanded outside the body.

just thought i should add that.

I seem to remember that heat, in the presence of vitamin C, can crack long starch molecules into shorter sugar molecules that enter the body more quickly (this is the process of boiling grain for whisky, rather than malting it). This is refelected in the higher GI.


K.

 

[bushtuckerman]

That's certainly the general process i meant, but do you know how the vitamin c is used in the process? does it act as a catalyst?

 

[Keith_Beef]

My dodgy memory was responsible for the "Vitamin C" remark...

I've just dug out my venerable copy of "Wines and Spirits" (L.W.Marrison, Penguin Books, 1962).

"The long chains of the starch molecure can be chopped up into their sugar units by boiling starch with acids." ... "The procedure is to mix an unmalted grist... to a mash with water, then to add sulphuric acid diluted with water, and finally to heat the whole with steam slowly" ... "the acid in the partly saccharified mash is neutralized by adding milk of lime, then chalk. The sulphuric acid ... forms a sludge of calcium sulphate" (page 232)

Maybe vitamin C, which is also known as ascorbic acid, would have the same effect over a longer period of time. I have to admit that I have never tried.

K.

 

[Tobies Sack]

Malt loaf, I eat this for days on the hills walking and I find it gives off an excellent slow burn carb release and it is delicious. It is also worth trying it toasted mmmm.

 

[pierre girard]

what is the best starch based carb to take with you. taking into consideration taste, ease us use, weight, shelf life and adaptability to name a few?

Would it be a powder? Or a dried grain?

mozzy

Do you have wild rice in the UK? Excellent stuff, and really nothing like rice. I've heard that it is actually a water grass seed, rather than a true rice.

Hand harvested and hand processed wild rice cooks in half the time, and tastes much better than farmed and machine processed.

PG

 

[neo_wales2000]

Rice is grass seed

 

[neo_wales2000]

Don't worry too much about vit C for a few days, eat a couple of oranges before you set off and you have enough in your system to keep you going for the weekend.

The Diabetic diet is good for everyone in some ways really, eat small and often; this will release energy all day. Cooked oats good, raw oats bad, when raw they take fluid from your system to hydrate them and help digestion.

Banana's are good, fresh and to a lesser extent dried, the usual nuts and dried fruit are always good. Digestive biscuits work well (not the chocolate ones as much) you can eat them with both sweet and savory snacks

That's my Penny's worth

 

[bushtuckerman]

i don't think eating small and often is really that good for everyone (personally i am a compulsive snacker...or grazer as my friends put it), it puts quite a lot of stress on your organs if they are working all the time. and you generally feel quite drowsy...well i do anyway...

yeah, that's what i was trying to say about the oats!

 

[JimH]

yeah, that's what i was trying to say about the oats!

There is (so far as I am aware) nothing intrinsically "bad" in eating dried cooked or uncooked oatmeal PROVIDED you have ample potable water and don't overdo it.

In fact, the increased amount of calories you can get inside swiftly can be an advantage - see various pinole related threads/Kepardt.

Jim.

 

[gregorach]

Yeah, I often used to eat a mixture of uncooked porridge oats, natural yoghurt and honey for breakfast. It's kinda like marshmallow, and it makes you sweat before you've finished eating it...

 

[bushtuckerman]

HONEY YOGHURT 'N' OATS!! loverly stuff