31/03/2011

Breakfast: Oka cheese on rice bread, peanut butter and honey on rice bread and mandarin oranges
Lunch: Leftover burger patty with chips and salsa, side salad
Snack: Soy nuts and raisins

30/03/2011

Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, soy milk, pecans and cardamom
Lunch: Leftover pork loin with homemade lentil soup, carrots and cukes and hummus
Snack: Carob macaroon and fresh mango
Dinner: Burgers and big salad

29/03/2011

Breakfast: Plain yogurt and granola plus 1 mango
Snack: 1/2 banana and peanut butter
Lunch: Amy's soup, leftover fish from last night, leftover veggies from last night, chips and salsa
Dinner: Pork loin with apple sauce and rosemary-roasted yams, side of green salad

28/03/2011

Just starving today. Perhaps because I am trying to cut back on dairy? I need a lot of fat in my diet to keep me warm and satiated. Dairy helps with that.
Breakfast: brown rice puffs from Nature's Path with soy milk
Snack: mandarin oranges
Lunch: Lebanese food from food fair: chicken shish tau-oo, lentils, green salad
Snack: peanut butter cookies
Dinner: breaded sole (with almond flour) and steamed broccoli and sugar snap peas

27/03/2011

Breakfast: Glutino pancakes and sugar-free syrup from Walden Farms, berry compote
Lunch: Tuna salad on rice toast, Amy's lentil soup
Dinner: "Daddy's Breakfast for Dinner": bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns (only a tiny bit for me)

26/03/2011

Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, milk, pumpkin seeds, honey
Snack: Cheddar cheese on oatcakes
Lunch: Serrano ham on rice bread and Habitant pea soup
Dinner: Fondue (meat and shrimp in bouillon) and salad

25/03/2011

Breakfast: Yogurt and half a chopped banana
Snack: protein shake with berries and greens
Lunch: leftover salmon on rice toast with asparagus
Snack: peanut butter on rice cakes
Dinner: Rice pasta by Tinkyada with beef bolognese and steamed kale

24/03/2011

Breakfast: Almond muffin, berries (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries)
Snack: Lundberg rice chips
Lunch: Squash soup, assorted cheese and crackers
Dinner: Baked Salmon with broccoli

23/03/2011

Breakfast: Yogurt with granola
Snack: Organic Active Greens bar
Lunch: Turkey on rice toast with cream cheese, acorn squash soup
Dinner: Falafel balls with hummus and big salad (mixed veggies from frozen, fresh peppers, cukes and spring mix)

Label Reading for Sugars

All of these items are just another name for sugar. While they appear "natural" (whatever that means) they have undergone processing and will cause a rise in blood-sugar levels.
- cane sugar
- sucanat
- brown sugar, golden sugar
- fructose, sucrose,
- HFCS, high fructose corn syrup
- raw sugar, dried cane juice
- sucrose, maltose, dextrose, glucose
- agave, maple syrup

Fruits and starches, as well as honey, provide an unprocessed source of sugars, which should be eaten in moderation. Stevia is a leaf which provides an intense sweet flavour; while it can be processed, it is still a leaf only, and will not affect blood-sugar.

Here are some good reasons for not consuming processed sugar:

It’s an empty food  White sugar (sucrose) has been stripped of most of its nutrients. A whole, unprocessed food comes with its own minerals and vitamins, as well as enzymes to help it get digested in the body.
It spikes blood sugar levels  White sugar is so close to pure glucose, what your body needs for energy, that it is quickly absorbed into your bloodstream. A large amount eaten at once (2 tsps) will increase your blood pressure, speed up your heart rate, and cause your pancreas to start secreting insulin in large amounts.
It’s a strain on your system  Since your body has a tendency to stay in balance, hormones are secreted and your pancreas and adrenal glands work overtime to correct the blood sugar level spike, to restore balance. Regular white sugar consumption can exhaust these two organs in particular.
It will acidify you  White sugar and other highly refined foods have an acidifying effect on the body which inhibits many metabolic processed. For example, if your cells are too acidic, they will not accept any further acid substances such as glucose to enter them. Too much sugar doesn’t mean you will be able to do more work. If your cells can’t accept the glucose, it gets stored as reserves. That means fat.
It makes you lose minerals  Consuming refined sugar will cause your body to excrete a higher amount of much-needed Calcium than it should.
It suppresses your immune system  We’ve heard this before but why? White blood cells help us fight off disease. In a person who eats white sugar regularly, the white blood cells will regularly have to give up their enzymes for the purpose of aiding the digestion of the refined sugar, making them sluggish and less able to do their job. Studies have shown that just sugar decreases the ability for white blood cells to fight infection by at least 25%.
It’s bad for your heart  Sugar can raise triglyceride levels, cholesterol production, systolic blood pressure, has been linked to atherosclerosis, heart disease, reduces your High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) levels
It will make you VERY sick  Sugar consumption has been indicated as a major contributing factor in these diseases: diabetes, hypoglycemia, Multiple Sclerosis, cataracts, periodontal disease, alcoholism, Crohn’s disease, kidney disease, arthritis, asthma, gallstones, appendicitis, and cancer of the breast, ovaries, intestines, prostate and rectum.  Fructose, in recent years, has been shown to accelerate the growth of cancerous tumours.

Does this sound hard to believe? People reacted with similar disbelief when first told that smoking and suntanning could accelerate the growth of cancerous tumours. Think about how our lives have changed since we've become "civilised":  we sit around a lot and watch flickering screens, take on stressful jobs, eat fast food, drive around in fast cars, drink too much and eat too much food that barely resembles food growing naturally in a field or forest. Giving up sugar is a difficult challenge, but when you consider that are not designed to eat it, and it doesn't do us much good, the choice should be an easier one.

22/03/2011

Breakfast: Almond flour muffins
Snack: Protein shake with berries and half a banana
Lunch: Smoked salmon and Oka cheese on rice toast
Dinner: Marinated turkey breast (Renee's Greek dressing), acorn squash

21/03/2011

Snow on the First Day of Spring?! Warm foods are in order..
Breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins and pumpkin seeds
Lunch: Pate on seed crackers and a huge bowl of pea/cauliflower/kale soup
Snack: Peanut butter cookies (with brown rice flour, protein powder and stevia as a sweetener) and cafe mocha (cocao powder and honey to sweeten)
Dinner: Nachos

20/03/2011

Oh...computer woes!
Breakfast: Rice pudding from last night's rice. Recipe soon
Snack: Fruit salad: blackberries, oranges, honeydew melon and straberries
Lunch: Tuna Melt (on rice bread) and Amy's Lentil Vegetable soup
Dinner: Meat patty with green peas and rapini

17/03/2011

Breakfast: Plain yogurt with stevia and raspberries plus granola
Snack: Cashews and dried apricots
Lunch: Green salad with hard-boiled egg, tuna, pumpkin seeds, olives, chopped peppers
Snack: Fibre bars and mandarin orange
Dinner: Pork loin with french green beans and gravy thickened with guar gum

Dining Out Suggestions

When you switch to a new diet which involves preparing most of your meals from scratch, you'll soon be wanting a break. But now that sugar and starches are off your plate, what in the world can you eat from a typical restaurant or takeout joint? All the low-end options are now out:
- pizza
- submarine sandwich shops
- burger joints (some will fill their patties with breadcrumbs, and of course, no fries with that)
- pasta diners
- sushi (sugar in the rice, yes it's true! and in the mayo, wheat in the soy sauce)
- chinese food (sugar in the sauces and white rice)
- many salad and wraps places (their dressings will contain sugar)

Instead of focussing on the negatives, let's examine our options:
- Burger shops which sell 100% beef patties, no bun please and salad with no dressing, yam fries only in moderation and if you are positive they are not coated in flour.
- Japanese sushi made with brown rice, hold the mayo and sub your own wheat-free tamari for soy sauce. Or sashimi is a good choice if you can find some sauce-free vegetables.
- Mediterranean and Arabic foods: lebanese, greek, turkish
- Mexican: while heavy, this food is often great for the gluten-intolerant since the main starch is corn flour, not wheat. Choose fish and vegetable plates, ask for no rice and go easy on the sauces.
- Thai is also a good gluten-free choice, and if they make food to order you can ask them to hold the sugar. Avoid meals prepared with Sri Racha sauce (spicy ketchup) and soy sauce of course. Don't eat too much rice or rice noodles.
- Indian restaurants will serve you lots of rice so ask for none. Naturally steer clear of any all the deep fried dishes such as pakoras and samosas. That way you can focus on the vegetable and protein choices. Sugar is not a typical ingredient in Indian food, except in the butter chicken, so ask your server which choices contain no flour and no sugar. Also, look for yummy and filling soups and salads.
- Higher-end restaurants will make their food from scratch and will often not add unnecessary additives such as sugar to enhace flavour. Think of Spanish tapas bars or southern Italian venues (think salads, not pastas, and grilled fish and veggies). Also French food is often fine, if you can say no to the bread and desserts.

16/03/2011

Breakfast: Oatmeal porridge with pecans, pumpkin seeds, raisins, protein powder, milk and cardamom.
Lunch: Bison pate on seed crackers with dried apricots and raw red pepper
Snack: 1/2 banana with peanut butter, fresh mango
Dinner: Pork roast with french green beans

15/03/2011

Breakfast: almond muffin with blueberries and bananas
Snack: roasted soy nuts
Lunch: Green salad with chopped avocado, hard-boiled egg, tofu, peppers and sunflower seeds
Dinner: Brown rice pasta with asparagus and chicken. Used Classico four cheese pasta sauce, as this brand does not put sugar in their pasta sauce, unlike so many other companies.

14/03/2011

Breakfast: Plain yogurt with fresh berries and honey
Snack: Cashews
Lunch: Big salad with chunks of chicken, avocado, grape tomatoes, chopped red pepper and green olives, and bread and cheese on the side
Dinner: Chicken leg with sauteed kale

13/03/2011

Breakfast: Plain yogurt with stevia and granola
Lunch: Smoked salmon and cream cheese on rice toast, scrambled eggs with dill, fruit salad
Dinner: Roast chicken with carrots and fennel, cauliflower soup
Snack: Fibre bars

12/03/2011

Breakfast: Plain yogurt + protein powder + granola and 2 fish oil pills. Dunno why I've never mentioned this staple of my breakfast before
Snack: almond muffin + raspberries
Lunch: Curried cauliflower soup, leftover baked sole from last night, cucumber slices
Dinner: Turkey patty with melted cheddar, green salad

11/03/2011

Breakfast: Rice pudding (last night's brown rice with milk heated in the microwave, then added butter, raisins and cardamon and honey)
Lunch: Big chopped salad: chicken, boiled egg, olives, seasoned tofu, mixed greens) with Renee's Greek salad dressing, tortilla chips
Dinner: Breaded sole (rice flour and grated parmesan plus a pinch of garlic powder) with steamed broccoli

10/03/2011

Breakfast: Cheddar cheese on brown rice toast, strawberries
Lunch: Leftover burger and salad
Snack: peanut butter and honey on a rice cracker and Elaine Gottschall's almond flour muffins (the banana-blueberry version)
Dinner: Chicken breast with brown rice and mixed veggies

Protein Powders

Everyone always asks, "what type of protein powder should I buy?" The answer depends on how you plan to use it. I mostly use protein powder to add to yogurt or to cookies, and so for me, it is preferable to have a powder with a sweeter flavour, such as vanilla. Add a bit of cocoa powder to make a delicious post-exercise shake.

Of course, when my mother decided to bake her famous gluten-free bread a few visits ago, the sweetened vanilla protein powder was an unwelcome addition to her pastry mixture. Blecccch. It sometimes makes sense to have a plain/natural flavour of protein powder on-hand.

In keeping with a sugar-free Celiac diet, the powder you buy must not have any sugar in it. Many natural flavour powders will have no sweeteners of any kind. The only allowable sweetener is stevia, because sucralose, oligosaccharides, anything ending in "-ose" are just fancy names for sugars, so avoid these. I also never suggest buying anything sweetened with Acesulfame potassium or K, because while it is zero-carb, it has caused some people to have convulsions or other neurological problems. Sweeteners such as maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol are sugar alcohols and may give you gas or diarrhea. Play it safe with the sweet stevia plant!

Another options is whether to choose a vegan source of protein. Yesterday I bought Absolute Vegetarian Protein which is a mix of soy, brown rice and pea proteins. It has 8 of the 11 essential amino acids and I'm happy incorporating more non-animal protein sources into my diet. Soy protein tends to be higher in carbs, although this label says it contains 0 grams. This product is also quite gritty and doesn't blend as nicely as the Proteins Plus I've been using lately.

Finally, if you choose to go with a whey protein, choose one from New Zealand or Canada where cows are not fed rBGH (a growth hormone). I think I've only ever seen one organic protein powder on the market and not sure they're even in business anymore.

Keep reading those labels and you will make the choice that is right for you.

09/03/2011

Breakfast: Plain yogurt with protein powder and granola
Snack: Rice flour peanut butter cookie and strawberries
Lunch: Duck pate with seed crackers and Saag (Indian sauteed mustard greens)
Dinner: Burger and salad, carrots and hummus

08/03/2011

Breakfast: Quick-cook oatmeal with chopped apricots, pecans, honey and milk.
Snack: Organic Active Greens bar
Lunch: Leftover beef stew with rapini and chopped green olives
Snack: Tortilla chips, brie cheese and salsa
Dinner: Baked salmon with mayo and dill, green salad with pumpkin seeds and avocado

07/03/2011

Breakfast: Plain yogurt with teaspoon jam and granola, grapes on the side
Lunch: Gluten-free pate with seed crackers, avocado and tomato salad, chips and salsa
Dinner: Beef stew, gave the potatoes and carrots to the family and ate with rapini and parmesan cheese

06/03/2011

Breakfast: Gluten-free pancakes from Glutino covered in honey, crisp bacon (because there is some sugar the smoking of bacon) and strawberries
Lunch: Falafel, roasted vegetables, avocado onion and tomato salad and greek salad.
Dinner: Tinkyada brown rice pasta with tomato sauce, chicken and rapini

05/03/2011

Breakfast: Fruit yogurt (plain yogurt with tablespoon of no-sugar-added jam) and granola
Snack: corn tortilla chips while grocery shopping
Lunch: Salmon salad and chopped avocado with rice crackers, carrots and hummus and greens drink
Dinner: Roast chicken, yam fries, brocolli

04/03/2011

Breakfast: plain yogurt, granola and 1/3 banana chopped up
Snack: raspberries and raisins
Lunch: Tuna with olives, oatcakes, Canton vegetable soup
Dinner: Gluten-free spinach feta pizza, jumbo shrimps, green salad with avocado and peas

Unfortunately, after my mom bought us this delicious Glutino pizza to share, we realised it contained cane sugar. I ate it anyway, so as to not waste it; a bad idea. Sadly, most of the Glutino line of prepared foods contain sugar.

Sauces: Beware!

A word on sauces: unless you make them yourself, assume that sauces are filled with things you cannot eat. Many prepared sauces have many ingredients in them. Take a look at ketchup. It should only be vinegar, tomatoes and sugar but I'm sure yours will have almost 10 ingredients listed.

When out at a barbecue or restaurant, French's mustard is most likely your best bet. Other mustards may have sugar added, but not the typical yellow mustard. All mayonnaises contain sugar. I must search far and wide for one I can eat; right now I am using one from Nutrimax.

At fine restaurants as well, many chefs will use corn starch or other binding agents to thicken their sauces. Even the best-intentioned waiter may not be able to tell you whether the kitchen is using starches or sugars in their sauces. One almost needs a chemistry degree these days to decipher some of the names of certain common ingredients.

The point here is once again, if you have not made it yourself, it may very likely contain unwanted starches or sugars. The only thickeners you should use, if you want to avoid carbs and starches, are starch-free choices such as guar gum.

03/03/2011

Breakfast: Walker's oatcake with cheddar cheese and toasted rice bread with peanut butter and raspberry jam by Natur le fruit (no sugar added)
Snack: Dried apricots, 1/2 a banana
Lunch: leftover chicken shawarma, vegetable soup, tortilla chips and slice of melted Brie cheese
Dinner: Absolutely delicious Goat cheese burger (no bun of course) at Burger de Ville. Came with grilled veggies too.

02/03/2011

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Breakfast: Yogurt and granola
Snack: VeggieGreens protein by Progressive
Lunch: Brussels sprouts, grilled cheese sandwich (on rice bread) and green smoothie
Dinner: Lebanese food (chicken shawarma, mixed lettuce salad with olives, tomato and avocado

01/03/2011

Breakfast: yogurt and granola
Snack: strawberries and raspberries
Lunch: Salmon on mixed lettuce with olives and capers, seed crackers and Balderson's cheese
Dinner: Trout in mustard honey sauce with roasted Brussels sprouts