Is it true that you can't have fruit on a low carbohydrate diet? Well, that's certainly a persistent rumor. But unlike many of the ideas going around about low carbohydrate dieting, this one has a more complicated answer than "yes" or "no." The truth is that fruit varies a great deal in sugar content. Some fruits really are too high carb for us to eat often or in any quantity, while others can fit neatly into a low carbohydrate diet - can even be eaten daily, if you like.
I'm pleased to inform you that one of your very best bets on a low carb diet is currently in season, and will be plentiful, cheap, and wonderful all summer: Cantaloupe!
A 1/8th-of-a-melon wedge of cantaloupe has 5.6 grams of carbohydrate, with 0.6 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of just 5 grams - that can fit into anyone's low carb day, even if you're doing a 20-gram-per-day induction. Better yet, cantaloupe is darned nutritious, with 184 mgs. of potassium, 2334 I.U.s of vitamin A, 14 mcgs. of folate, and 25.3 mgs. vitamin C in that same wedge.
What about honeydew? Honeydew is higher in potassium than cantaloupe, with 285 mg., and it also wins in the folate sweepstakes, with 24 mcg. But honeydew's cool green loses out to cantaloupe's rich orange when it comes to vitamin A - honeydew has only 62 I.Us. Most importantly for us, honeydew is considerably higher in carbohydrate, with 11.4 grams in 1/8 of a melon, and 1 gram of fiber, for a usable carb count of 10.4 grams. Still, it's a pretty good carb-bargain, if you've got room in your daily count.
Watermelon is a possibility, too. Because whole watermelons are so much bigger than cantaloupe or honeydew, a portion is considerably less than 1/8 melon! We'll go with 1 cup, diced: 11.5 grams of carbohydrate, with 0.6 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of just under 11 grams. 170 mgs. potassium, 865 I.U.s vitamin A, and just 12 mgs. vitamin C. If you're having a slice at a barbecue, I'd make it a small one, but you certainly don't have to forego the watermelon altogether.
Still, cantaloupe is the clear winner in the low carb stakes. You can enjoy a simple wedge of cantaloupe as-is, of course. But consider some other possibilities:
* Dice up 1/2 cup of cantaloupe and combine it with 3/4 cup cottage cheese for a quick, cool, summery breakfast, with 12 grams of usable carbohydrate, 24 grams of protein, 407 mgs. potassium, 125 mgs. calcium, 2661 I.U.s of vitamin A, 33 mgs of vitamin C, and 180 calories.
* Toss balls of cantaloupe and honeydew with lime juice and freshly grated ginger root for a light, elegant dessert.
* Combine diced cantaloupe with blueberries (10.5 grams of carbohydrate and 1.7 grams fiber per 1/2 cup), add a little Splenda and a few fresh mint leaves, for a pretty dessert with more beneficial phytochemicals than most anything you can think of.
* Cut a cantaloupe in half, scoop out the seeds, and fill the resulting hollow with sugar-free lime gelatin (0 grams carbohydrate.) Chill for several hours, then cut in wedges, for a fun end to a cookout.
* Peel thin wedges of cantaloupe and wrap each one in a thin slice of prosciutto, for a classic Italian appetizer. If you like, you can wrap chunks of cantaloupe in small squares of proscuitto, and spear each one on a toothpick, for an easy summer hors d'oeuvre.
You can even put cantaloupe in your salad! This salad is not only beautiful, tasty, nutritious, and low carb, but each serving has more potassium than two bananas!
Summer Treat Spinach Salad
2 pounds raw spinach
1 ripe avocado
1/4 cantaloupe
1/2 cup alfalfa sprouts
2 scallions, sliced
Vinaigrette dressing, bottled or homemade (I like Paul Newman's Olive Oil and Vinegar.)
Wash the spinach very well, and dry. (Or you can just buy bagged, triple-washed spinach!) Tear up big leaves. Cut the avocado in half, remove the seed and the peel, and cut in chunks. You can also peel and chunk the cantaloupe, or, if you want to be fancy, you can use a melon baller. Add to the spinach, along with the alfalfa sprouts and the scallion. Toss with the vinaigrette right before serving. Serves 6. 11 grams of carbohydrate per serving, with 5 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 6 grams. 5 grams of protein.
(Reprinted from 500 Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender (2002 Fair Winds Press) by permission of the publisher.)
We had our first cookout of the season this weekend, so this column seemed timely:
The scent of burgers on the grill is one of the great joys of summertime, surpassed only by eating them! Americans didn't invent the idea of the ground meat patty, but we did elevate it to defacto National Food. Even vegetarians can't quite get over the yen for burgers, or why are there so many veggie burgers out there?
The humble hamburger has a lot to recommend it. It's reliably inexpensive, quick to cook, and lends itself to endless variation. Too, your family will eat it with no complaints, a virtue not to be underestimated. But how is that burger nutritionally?
A four ounce (cooked weight) broiled hamburger, made from 80% lean ground beef, has zero carbs, of course. It will have 306 calories and 29 grams of protein. But so much bad has been said about red meat that you may be surprised at the vitamins and minerals that burger packs - 15% of your iron, 39% of your zinc, 15% of your B6, 12% of your riboflavin (B2), 33% of your niacin (B3) 55% of your B12, even 9% of your potassium. The bun, fries, and soda may be a nutritional wasteland, but the hamburger patty very definitely is not.
Ground chuck, about 80% lean, is ideal for burgers, and because of the fat running off your finished burger will only have about 20 more calories than one from the leaner ground round, a negligible amount. Since you're likely to broil or grill your burgers, I wouldn't use ground beef with less than 20% fat. Leaner meat is likely to end up being dry and flavorless. With fattier meat, much of the fat cooks out, shrinking your burger and wasting money.
(This is as good a place as any to recommend that you not press down on burgers while they're cooking. Yes, they'll cook faster, but you're pressing out the juice, ensuring your burgers will be dry and flavorless. I'm afraid this also means that electric tabletop grills, which squeeze from both sides, also tend to turn out dry burgers. I tend to save mine for burgers with additional moist ingredients, like minced vegetables.)
Of course, the burgers are carb-free, but hamburger buns have about 22 grams each, in the form of refined white flour. Not good! There are low carb buns available from the low carb etailers - among others, www.low-carb.com lists them. Or you could slap your burger between a couple of slices of toasted low carb bread, which is easier to come by. I'd be more likely to eat that burger with a fork, or wrap it in lettuce, myself.
But a plain hamburger patty on a plate can look pretty forlorn. How to add flavor and interest, and maybe even nutritional value?
* Slap some cheese on top, of course! Cheeseburgers are standard. Can I urge you to use real cheddar on your cheeseburgers, instead of "American singles?" I know those little hermetically sealed slices of pasteurized processed cheese food product fit neatly on a burger, but they're simply not the equal of real cheese, nutritionally, or in flavor. Three-quarters of an ounce of American cheese - the size of a standard "single" - will add 1.64 grams of carb to your burger, while cheddar will add only 0.27 grams. The cheddar has more calcium, too, and is a better source of vitamin A. If cheddar's a little strong, you could use the milder Colby - which you can buy in handy slices at the deli counter.
* Have you tried blue cheese on a burger? To die for. Add a teaspoon of minced sweet onion. Only a trace of carb here.
* Melt a slice of jalapeno jack on top of your burger and top with a tablespoon of salsa, for a Mexiburger. 2 grams of usable carb.
* Or try mozzarella, and top with a tablespoon of jarred pizza sauce - Ragu makes a sugar-free variety. Pizza burger! About 2 grams usable carb.
* Often, though, I just eat my burger with "everything" - except the bun. Lettuce, tomato, sugar free ketchup, mustard, pickles, and mayo. Just one concern here - that ketchup. Standard ketchup has a ton of sugar in it - just one tablespoon will add 4 grams of carb to your burger. That's a lot for just a dab!
Many grocery stores now carry low carb, sugar free ketchup - Heinz makes one. If yours doesn't, or if the high price of commercial low carb ketchup is too much to bear, try this!
Dana's No-Sugar Ketchup
This recipe has appeared in every cookbook I've written, because ketchup is an American staple. Here I've added the option of using Stevia Plus instead of Splenda, for those of you who don't trust artificial sweeteners.
6 ounce can tomato paste
2/3 cup cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup Splenda OR 2 teaspoons Stevia Plus (stevia/FOS blend)
2 tablespoons finely minced onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon guar or xanthan
Assemble everything in a blender, and run it - you'll have to scrape down the sides; this mixture is thick - until the bits of onion disappear. Store in a tightly lidded container in the refrigerator.
Makes 1 ˝ cups of ketchup, or 24 1 tablespoon servings. 2.25 grams per tablespoon, with a trace of fiber and protein.
First things first: This is the voice of your conscience speaking. Easter is over. You can no longer justify eating leftover jelly beans and chocolate eggs by saying, "But it's a holiday!" Cut that out!
Good. Glad we got that straight.
Now, about those Easter leftovers. Ham is notorious for hanging around forever - indeed, the venerable cookbook The Joy Of Cooking defines "eternity" as "two people and a ham," and they're not too far off. So even though it's been a few days since Easter, I know that many of you are still giving up valuable refrigerator space to the Leftovers That Would Not Die, not to mention technicolor hard-boiled eggs. But hey, it's pre-cooked protein, and for a low carber, that's a beautiful thing! Here are some ideas of how to clear out the fridge without resorting to ham sandwiches:
* Make UnSandwiches. Cut a slice of ham and a slice of your favorite cheese, spread mayonnaise and mustard in between the two, and stuff them in your face. If you're feeling dainty, you may wrap the whole thing in a big lettuce leaf, first; it'll add only a trace of carbohydrate.
* Dice up some ham and throw it in your skillet when you scramble eggs. Heck, throw in some sliced mushrooms (3 grams per cup, with 1 gram of fiber, for a usable carb count of 2 grams) and a little minced onion (1 gram per tablespoon, with just a trace of fiber,) and call it supper.
* Melt a little butter in your skillet, and add slices of ham. When the first side is browned, flip, spread a little spicy brown mustard on each piece, and top with cheddar or Swiss cheese. Let the cheese melt, and serve for a simple family pleaser - with next-to- no carbs.
* Make egg salad. I like mine with green pepper (4 grams in half an average pepper, with 1 gram of fiber, for a usable carb count of 3 grams,) celery (virtually carb-free - 1 gram per stalk, with 1 gram of fiber), and scallions (1 gram apiece, with a trace of fiber.) But my mom likes chopped green olives in her egg salad - and they're low carb, too; like the celery, 2 tablespoons of chopped olives has 1 gram of carb, and 1 gram of fiber.
* Peel and chop up an Easter egg or two when you make your favorite tuna salad recipe - they're a terrific addition.
* Deviled eggs are universally popular, and a fabulous snack for a low carber to have on hand. You'd be hard-pressed to add enough mayonnaise and mustard to bring your deviled eggs up to 1 gram per half! So make some deviled eggs.
Here's a quick-and-easy one-dish skillet supper that will use up both leftover ham and Easter eggs. Of course, the rest of the year you can buy a chunk of pre-cooked ham, and boil up some eggs just for this purpose!
Ham Kedgeree
Kedgeree is traditionally made with rice and smoked fish, but this version with shredded cauliflower "rice" and leftover ham is very tasty - and a whole lot faster than cooking rice, too.
˝ head cauliflower
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 cups ham cubes
4 hard-boiled egg
3 tablespoons minced onion
1/4 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
Run the cauliflower through the shredding blade of your food processor. Put it in a microwaveable casserole with a lid, add a couple of tablespoons of water, cover, and microwave on high for 6 minutes. When the microwave beeps, uncover your cauliflower right away, or it will continue to cook, and become mushy.
While the cauliflower is cooking, cut your ham in 1/2" cubes, mince your onion, and peel your eggs and chop them coarsely.
Melt the butter in your large, heavy skillet over low heat, and add the curry powder and onion. Saute them together for 2-3 minutes. Add the ham, eggs, and cream, and stir well - but gently, so as to preserve some hunks of yolk. Heat through, salt and pepper to taste, stir in the parsley, and serve.
4 servings, each with 340 Calories; 27g Fat; 19g Protein; 6g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 5 grams usable carb. However, if you bought a really low carb ham, your kedgeree will very likely be lower carb than that!
(Reprinted with permission from 15 Minute Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender, 2003 Fair Winds Press)
I published this column here in Lowcarbezine! last year, so this is a repeat of a repeat, but surely someone has subscribed since then who will find the column useful. When I printed it last year, I got an irate email from a reader taking me to task for printing a recipe for Passover that combined mayonnaise and beef bouillon. Apparently the reader was under the impression that mayonnaise contains dairy products of some kind. It does not. The kugel recipe is fine for any meat meal. Please know that since I'm not Jewish myself, I had this column vetted by a Hasidic rabbi. He approved of all the information in it, including the recipe.
Most people are aware of some Jewish dietary laws - that Jews who keep kosher do not eat pork or shellfish, or consume meat and milk products together. The laws are more complex than that, governing how kitchens are run, how animals are slaughtered, and who may or may not prepare certain foods. These rules do not interfere with a low carbohydrate diet.
However, there are additional laws governing foods eaten during the Passover season, and many Jews who don't keep kosher the rest of the year follow the Passover laws, and of course, there are food traditions. Some of the Passover laws and traditions do, indeed, make it more difficult to stick to the diet.
A Passover rule followed even by many Jews who do not generally keep kosher is the ridding the home of chometz - any leavened grain product. In memorial of the unleavened bread eaten by the Hebrews in their haste to flee Egypt, nothing leavened may be eaten during Passover. The chometz is ritually gathered up, and disposed of.
Since grains may contain wild yeasts, they are not allowed during Passover, either. This is not a hardship for us, since we don't eat grains anyway. However, Jews of European descent also shun rice, millet, corn, legumes or foods made from them. This rules out soy and everything made from it - including many low carb specialty foods. It also eliminates rice protein powder, one of my favorite flour substitutes.
Usually, high-carb matzoh meal is used in place of flour. Perhaps you could simply skip things that are very carb_rich, like matzoh balls, but use small amounts of matzoh meal to, say, thicken a casserole. One_quarter cup of matzoh meal contains 27 grams of carbohydrate, and just 1 gram of fiber, so you'll want to go very easy. Potato starch is also used during Passover, but is even higher carb.
Rabbi Hirsch Meisels, who runs www.FriendsWithDiabetes.org, a site for Jewish diabetics, tells me that ground nuts or seeds would also be acceptable flour substitutes. Almond meal is becoming more widely available - Bob's Red Mill brand, now in many grocery stores, packages this. A quarter_cup of almond meal has 6 grams of carbohydrate, with 3 grams are fiber, for a usable carb count of just 3 grams. Or you can simply grind almonds to a cornmeal consistency in your food processor.
Guar and xanthan gums, low carb thickeners, are okay. Guar is derived from a seed, not a grain, and xanthan from a microorganism. One of these would be my choice for thickening gravies and sauces. If you can't find guar or xanthan at your local health food store, Carb Smart carries them. (They have the almond meal, too.)
Mass_market powdered artificial sweeteners, including Splenda, Sweet 'n' Low, and Equal, contain corn products, and are not acceptable. However, kosher for Passover versions are made, including one by Sweet 'n' Low; look for them. Liquid artificial sweeteners and stevia are both kosher for Passover.
At the Seder, there is a Seder plate of traditional foods which must be eaten. Eggs are dipped in salt water, to symbolize tears. A roasted bone symbolizes the Passover sacrifices from before the destruction of the Temple. Bitter herbs - usually horseradish - symbolize the travails of the Hebrew people. A green vegetable, such as romaine or celery, symbolizes the fruits of the earth. All of these things are low carb! There is also charoset, a mixture of fruit, nuts, spices, and wine, symbolizing the mortar made by Jewish slaves in Egypt. Very little of this need be eaten, but if you like, you may make it with more nuts than fruit, to reduce the carb count.
Eating 45 grams of carb worth of matzoh is required, unless you get permission from your Rabbi to eat less. Barring medical problems, I'd just eat it. It is a holiday, after all! If you can find it, oat matzoh has more fiber, and thus fewer usable carbs, than wheat matzoh. Four glasses of wine are also required - sounds like fun to me! Make sure it's a dry wine; dry reds have 3 grams of carb per glass or less.
This Passover side dish is great for anyone!
Spinach Mushroom Kugel
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
30 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
2 eggs
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon beef bouillon granules
2 tablespoons almond meal
1/2 teaspoon guar or xanthan (optional)
Preheat oven to 350.
Saute mushrooms and onions in the oil until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms soften. Transfer to a mixing bowl, reserving 9 mushrooms slices for garnish, and add spinach; mix well.
Stir together eggs, mayo, and bouillon granules till the granules dissolve. Stir into vegetables. Stir in the almond meal. Sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon of the guar or xanthan over mixture, and stir in well; repeat with the second 1/4 teaspoon.
Spread evenly in a greased 8x8" baking dish. Decorate with reserved mushrooms. Bake for
1 hour. Cut in squares to serve.
9 servings. 214 Calories; 20g Fat; 6g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber; 4 grams usable carb.
(Recipe reprinted with permission from 500 More Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender, copyright 2004, Fair Winds Press.)
See those stuffed chicks and bunnies in every store? Must be Easter!
Watch out for the jelly beans, cream eggs, and chocolate bunnies lurking next to those toys, or you'll be sorry come Easter Monday. Sugar free Easter candy is becoming more available; if you must indulge, this is a better choice. Russell Stover is advertising sugar free Easter stuff, including chocolate caramel rabbits, chocolate peanut butter rabbits and Easter eggs, and jelly beans. Jelly bean titan Jelly Bellies makes a sugar free assortment. It's worth checking local candy stores to see what sort of sugar free stuff they're offering; these places often have a nice selection. And if you'd like an Easter basket stuffed with sugar-free goodies, some of the online retailers are offering them, including my pals at Carb Smart: http://store.yahoo.com/carbsmart/giftbaskets.html
A word to the wise: Sugar-free jelly beans and caramels are nearly solid polyols. Be very moderate with the quantities you eat, or you'll suffer from gas, or even cramps and diarrhea. Sugar-free chocolate is less polyol-dense, but can still cause problems if eaten in quantity. These are sweets that can actually enforce moderation!
Most folks serve ham for Easter dinner, though I have no idea how this custom arose. In much of the world lamb is served for the Easter feast, and it's the tradition in my family. It fits in with the Passover story, you know. If you're weary of ham, you might consider roasting a leg of lamb as a change of pace. As an unprocessed meat, lamb is more nutritious than ham, and has no added sugar, something that is standard in ham.
If you do choose ham - and I'm betting you do - read the labels to find the ham with the least added sugar. I've seen ham with as little as one gram of added carbohydrate, or as much as 6 grams per serving. That's a 600% difference! How to glaze your Easter ham? Not with brown sugar, that's for sure! Sugar-free pancake syrup lets you make a tasty glaze.
Maple-Orange-Mustard Ham Glaze
1/2 cup sugar-free pancake syrup (I like Log Cabin brand)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon Splenda
1/4 teaspoon orange extract
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
1 tablespoon butter
Combine everything in a saucepan, and simmer over low heat, stirring often, for 5 minutes. Use to baste your ham during the last hour of roasting.
This will add just 6 grams of carbohydrate to the whole ham, not counting the polyol sweeteners in the pancake syrup.
If you plan to buy a pre-cooked spiral sliced ham, call around and ask the various purveyors what sort of carb count their ham has. In my experience, companies are very nice about this sort of thing. Most of these hams are heavily glazed; do yourself a favor and leave the outer surface on your plate.
What to serve with your ham? Deviled eggs would be the obvious choice for an appetizer, since you're likely to have a bunch of hard-boiled eggs on hand. I'd serve asparagus; as I wrote recently, asparagus symbolizes spring to me, it's delicious, and has just over half a gram of usable carbohydrate per spear! If you prefer it, broccoli also has just over half a gram of usable carb in a 5" spear. Add a big salad, some pureed cauliflower "fauxtatoes" and, if you must, some rolls for the carb eaters in the family, and you've got a feast!
Here's an Easter dessert that's just about ideal: It's festive, beautiful, delicious, unusual, seasonal, low carb, easy to make, and highly nutritious. What more can you ask from one recipe?
Balsamic Strawberries with Cream Cheese Sauce
2 pounds strawberries
1/4 cup Splenda
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
For the sauce
4 ounces cream cheese -- softened
1/4 cup plain yogurt OR sour cream
2 teaspoons Splenda
Remove the green hulls from your strawberries, and halve them __ if you have some really huge berries, quarter them. Place in a glass, plastic, or stainless steel mixing bowl. Sprinkle the Splenda over the berries, and toss to coat. Now sprinkle on the balsamic vinegar, and stir again. Stash the bowl in the fridge for at least a few hours, and a whole day would be fine. Stir them again whenever you open the fridge.
Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, yogurt or sour cream, and Splenda together until very smooth - you can do this in advance, too, if you'd like, and refrigerate it till dinner.
Simply spoon the berries into pretty dessert dishes, and drizzle some of the balsamic vinegar syrup in the bottom of the bowl over each serving. Top each serving with a dollop of the cream cheese sauce, and serve.
8 servings, each with 89 Calories; 6g Fat; 2g Protein; 9g Carbohydrate; 3g Dietary Fiber, and a useable carb count of 6 grams.
(Jewish readers, bear with me. Next week I'll reprint my Passover column!)
(Low Carb for Life Reprint: As you can tell from the lead paragraph, this column originally appeared in January. But it's useful all year 'round.)
Now that the holidays are over, while our VISA cards are still smoking in our wallets, it seems an opportune moment to tackle a common complaint regarding a low carb diet: "It's so expensive!"
At first glance, this seems true. If you've been basing your meals on potatoes, rice, pasta, and generic white bread, you've been getting away with a lower cost-per-serving than, say, steak. However, I have several thoughts on this matter.
First, and most important, is this: Any food that makes you fat, tired, sick, and hungry would not be cheap even if they were giving it away. If you are carbohydrate intolerant, if you have the illnesses that have been identified as being related to high insulin levels - diabetes, hypertension, high triglycerides, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and the like - "cheap" carbs are a luxury you can't afford. You'll pay for them in the form of doctor visits, medicines, sick days, dental bills, and new clothes in bigger sizes.
Second, remember that many carb-y foods are not even cheap to buy. I've long suspected that cold cereal is a conspiracy to get us to pay three and a half bucks for fifteen cents worth of grain. Bulk potatoes may be cheap, but Pringles are expensive. Frozen dinners, canned biscuits, boxed potatoes, and other prepared foods are not budget items, and most of them are loaded with junk carbs and bad fats. Cut all of this rubbish out of your food budget, and you'll find a bit more room for protein and vegetables.
That being said, real, good, nutritious food does cost more per pound than the cheapest carb-y junk. How to deal with this?
* Not one of those expensive low carb specialty foods is essential to your success. When I went low carb they didn't exist. Going low carb meant eating unprocessed real foods, and I suspect that some of the health benefits stemmed from this simple fact. You'll save big money eating real food instead of low carb macaroni-and-cheese mix.
* Your body does not care if you get your protein from lobster, steak, and boneless, skinless chicken breast, or from hamburger, tilapia fillets, and chicken leg-and-thigh quarters. Hereabouts those boneless, skinless breasts often run $4.99 a pound, while leg-and-thigh quarters often go on sale for 69c a pound or less. Big difference.
* Buy in bulk When hamburger, tuna, butter, canned broth, natural peanut butter, or the like goes on sale, stock up. A freezer lets you take advantage of meat specials. I bought mine used for $225 and it has paid for itself many times over.
* We love rib eye steaks, which run $8.99 a pound. So I wait till whole rib eyes go on sale for $4.99 a pound, and have the nice meat guys slice one into steaks for me. No charge for this service, and I get steaks for several months for the price of one dinner at Outback. I also buy leg of lamb on deep discount, and have it cut into steaks - much cheaper than lamb chops.
* Eat what's in season. Asparagus, lettuce, berries, and melon, all great low carb foods, are sky-high this time of year. Cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower are all in season, and are cheaper - I just bought cabbage for 39c/pound. This makes coleslaw, steamed broccoli, and cauliflower "fauxtatoes" better choices than salad. Turnips and rutabaga (I adore rutabaga!), spaghetti squash, and celery are other winter vegetables that work well for us. Grapefruit is abundant, wonderful and cheap in the winter, and has only about 10 grams of usable carb per half.
* Bagged salad, pre-cut veggies, skinless chicken, pre-made hamburgers are all expensive. The more food preparation you do yourself, the more money you will save. Spend an hour on the weekend prepping stuff yourself, and stash it in the fridge for busy days.
* Nuts are low carb, but so are sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and they're far cheaper. More minerals, too!
* Drink homemade iced tea instead of diet soda.
* One of the lowest carb-and-calorie desserts is also one of the cheapest - store brand sugar-free gelatin.
* Cut way back on eating out. The same food is always far cheaper at home.
* Bag lunches are a great way to use up leftovers - who wants to pay for food to turn green in the fridge?
Here's a family-pleasing supper that cooks while you're out of the house. Buy leg-and-thigh quarters, and spend five minutes cutting the drumsticks off for another meal, and pulling off the skin - you'll save 30c a pound or more.
Southwestern Barbecue
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Splenda
1 1/2 tablespoons jalapeno pepper, canned, sliced
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/8 teaspoon blackstrap molasses
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
4 pounds skinless chicken thighs
Combine everything but the chicken in your slow cooker, and stir well.
Place the chicken in the sauce, meaty side down.
Cover, set on low, and cook for 6 hours. Serve the chicken with the sauce spooned over it.
6 Servings, each with: 215 Calories; 7g Fat; 34g Protein; 2g Carbohydrate; trace Dietary Fiber; 2g Usable Carbs.
(Reprinted with permission from 200 Low-Carb Slow Cooker Recipes)
One of the most persistent criticisms of low carbohydrate dieting is the assertion that eating "all that protein" will cause calcium loss, and therefore osteoporosis. But is this true?
It's hard to say with certainty. There are a lot of factors that contribute to bone density, and they interact in complex ways that are still only poorly understood. Among the factors that affect bone density are calcium intake, calcium absorption, exercise, sun exposure and/or vitamin D intake, heredity, and body weight.
Osteoporosis is one of the few health problems that is more common in people who are slim than in people who are heavy. Again, the reasons are unclear - it could be because body fat increases estrogen levels, protecting bone mass, or because slim folks are eating less calcium, or because the extra weight adds stress to the bones, increasing the rate at which calcium is deposited, or because the gene for slimness is linked somehow to a gene for weaker bones. Whatever the reason, it's nice to know that if you need to lose weight, you're at a reduced risk for osteoporosis to begin with.
I've looked at a fair number of medical studies regarding protein intake and calcium status, and I'm not worried about my low carb diet, even though osteoporosis runs in my family. Recent research is reassuring. Two studies of high-meat diets, both done in 2003, showed no adverse effects on bone metabolism . A 2004 study of diets high in protein, but restricted in both fat and carbohydrate, showed an increased excretion of calcium - but this mirrored a 50% greater calcium intake, and therefore was not a threat to bones. Another 2004 study found that men and women between 50 and 69 who had a higher protein intake had less risk of hip fracture than those with a lower protein intake.
The most important factors in bone health appear to be calcium intake, and exercise., and the problem of people getting too little of both cuts across the diet spectrum. You need 800 - 1200 milligrams of calcium every single day, and most people don't get enough. Many people figure, "I drink a glass of milk every day, so I'm covered," but it takes a quart of milk a day, or its equivalent in yogurt and cheese, to get close to that 1200 milligram mark. Some of the more recent low carb diets encourage the consumption of dairy products - The South Beach Diet recommends low fat dairy products, while The GO-Diet recommends at least a serving a day of yogurt, buttermilk, or kefir. The new carb-reduced dairy beverages are also good sources of calcium,
Other good low carb sources of calcium include green leafy vegetables, almonds, unhulled sesame seeds (find these at your health food store), and especially canned sardines and canned salmon - because the bones are soft enough to eat! It's a good idea to cook chicken on the bone, ox tails, pork neck bones, or other bony cuts of meat, in sauces with tomatoes, vinegar, lemon juice, or other acidic ingredients; you'll end up with a calcium-rich sauce. If you boil chicken or turkey carcasses to make soup, add a couple of tablespoons of vinegar to the water, and you'll get a calcium-rich broth (you won't taste the vinegar.)
And of course, it never hurts to take calcium supplements. I do, every single morning.
Here's a main-dish salad with more than half of your daily calcium requirement per serving!
Ham and Cheese Salad
1/2 head cauliflower cut in 1/2" chunks
8 ounces Swiss or Cheddar cheese, cut in 1/4" cubes (Use reduced fat cheese if you like.)
8 ounces cooked ham, cut in 1/4" cubes
3/4 cup chopped dill pickle
1/4 cup red onion, diced fine
3/4 cup snow pea pods, cut in 1/2" pieces
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon brown mustard
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 clove garlic, crushed
First chop your cauliflower, including the stem. Put it in a microwaveable casserole with a lid, add a couple of tablespoons of water, and cover. Nuke it on high for 7 minutes.
Dice your ham, cheese, and onion, and chop your pickle. Put in a big mixing bowl.
Pinch the ends off of your snow pea pods, and pull off any strings. Cut into 1/2" pieces, and put those in a microwaveable bowl. Add a tablespoon of water and cover. When the cauliflower is done, pull it out of the microwave, and uncover immediately - let it cool a little before adding to the salad. Put your snow peas in the microwave, and nuke them on high for just 1 minute. When they're done, uncover immediately, drain them, and add them to the mixing bowl.
Measure the mayo, mustard, vinegar, tarragon, and garlic into a small bowl, and stir together well.
When the cauliflower is cool enough to not melt the cheese, drain it and add it to the mixing bowl. Add the dressing, and toss to coat.
4 servings, each with 472 Calories; 38g Fat, 28g Protein; 8g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber, 7 grams usable carb, and 577 milligrams calcium.
I thought this column fit into the theme of a low carb diet having plenty of vitamins and minerals...
I'm growing frustrated. Now that the clinical research is in, and it's clear that a low carbohydrate diet causes weight loss, and actually improves blood work for most people, the dietitians are working overtime to find objections. The current cry is "A low carb diet is low in antioxidants!" So let's take a look, shall we?
Dietitians still parrot the myth that a low carb diet excludes fruits and vegetables, which is simply untrue. Even the two week "induction" phase at the beginning of the Atkins diet, the strictest phase of the most restrictive low carb diet, calls for two to three cups of vegetables per day - more than the average American is eating. After that, quantities increase, low sugar fruit is added in. Most low carb diets are even more liberal - many of us simply shun starches and added sugars, while eating vegetables and low sugar fruits freely.
But what about whole grains? Dietitians always mention whole grains when they talk about antioxidants. Are they that great a source?
The most important antioxidants are vitamins A, C, and E, and the minerals zinc, copper, and selenium. Grains have no vitamin A or C. They do contain some vitamin E, but E is found in plenty of low carb foods, including nuts, brussels sprouts, avocados, leafy greens, and the much-maligned egg.
Whole wheat is a source of copper, but so are seafood, nuts, liver, and dark leafy greens, all great low carb foods. Grains are a source of selenium, but so are fish, red meat, chicken, liver and kidney. And zinc? Medline states, "High-protein foods contain high amounts of zinc. Beef, pork, and lamb contain more zinc than fish. The dark meat of a chicken has more zinc than the light meat."
Further, animal foods like eggs, butter, cream, and liver are the only sources of pre-formed vitamin A (plant foods contain carotenes, which must be converted to vitamin A, a process some bodies perform more efficiently than others.) It begins to look as though a diet based on animal foods, non-starchy vegetables, low sugar fruits, and nuts and seeds may supply more antioxidants than a diet in which some or all of the animal proteins or vegetables are replaced with whole grains.
Let's look at two meals. Meal One, the conventional "healthy" meal, consists of 6 ounces of boneless, skinless chicken breast, 1 cup of green beans, and 1 cup of cooked brown rice. Meal 2 has 6 ounces dark meat chicken, which is higher in fat - and nutrients - than the breast, 1 cup of green beans, 2 cups of cauliflower (which will turn into roughly 1 cup of our favorite, Fauxtatoes) and adds 2 tablespoons of butter on the vegetables.
How do the meals stack up? Meal One contains 18% of your RDA of vitamin A, 30% of your vitamin C, 39% of your zinc, and 7% of your vitamin E. It contains 54 grams of carbohydrate, with 7 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 47 grams. Meal Two contains 36% of your vitamin A, 111% of your C, 35% of your zinc, and 11% of your vitamin E for a better antioxidant profile overall. It has 18 grams of carbohydrate, with 9 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 9 grams.
QED: A low-carb diet is not low in antioxidants.
Here's a salad that's loaded with antioxidants - and other nutrients. You'll like if you like chicken livers, and won't if you don't. Mmmmm. Chicken livers.
Warm Chicken Liver Salad
6 chicken livers
2 tablespoons olive oil (30 ml)
Salt or Vege-Sal and pepper
8 ounces bagged mixed greens
˝ ripe avocado
1" wedge of a big sweet red onion, sliced paper thin
1/3 cup bottled Dijon vinaigrette (75 ml)
Cut each chicken liver into 3-4 pieces. Spray a large, heavy skillet with non-stick cooking spray and put it over a medium-high burner. Add the oil and the livers. Saute the livers, turning them frequently, until no blood runs, and no pink spots show on the outsides. Take care not to overcook your livers! Turn off the burner when they're done, and if you have an electric stove, remove the pan from the warm element. Salt and pepper lightly.
Pour the bagged greens into a big salad bowl. Scoop bits of avocado out of the shell with the tip of the spoon, into the salad bowl. Add the sliced onion, pour the dressing over it all, and toss well. Divide the salad mixture between two plates.
Top each salad with half of the livers, and serve.
2 servings, each with 15 grams of carbohydrate, of which 6 grams is fiber, for a usable carb count of 9 grams. 21 grams of protein. 892 mgs. of potassium! Well over your daily requirement for vitamin A and vitamin C, 23% of your zinc, 77% of your vitamin E, 26% of your copper, 100% of your selenium, half your daily requirement for niacin, B6, and iron, and good doses of vitamins B1, B2, B12, folacin, calcium.
(Reprinted with permission from 15 Minute Low-Carb Recipes, by Dana Carpender, copyright 2003 by Fair Winds Press.)
It's spring! You know what that means - perfect baby stalks of asparagus are in your grocery store, excruciatingly fresh, and for once, reasonably priced!
Asparagus hollers "Springtime!" - while it murmurs "Luxury and elegance." It's delicious, quick and easy to prepare, and takes to all sorts of easy variations. And, I'm pleased to tell you, asparagus is also one of the very lowest carb vegetables. A half-pound of asparagus - a fabulously generous serving - contains only 5 grams of carbohydrate, of which 2 grams are fiber, for a usable carb count of just 3 grams. This is one indulgence we can all afford to make more often!
Asparagus is plenty nutritious, too. It's a good source of vitamin A, vitamin K, and vitamin C, and a particularly good source of folic acid. Asparagus also has plenty of potassium.
Knowing this, isn't it time for a low carb asparagus feast? Choose asparagus that is very fresh, with no shriveled stalks, and the tips tightly closed. If you're not planning to eat your asparagus right away, wrap it well, and serve within a day or two.
To trim asparagus, simply snap the bottom off each spear where it wants to break naturally. I don't bother taking off the scales, but if you want to you can use a potato peeler to do this. Your asparagus is now ready to cook.
How to cook asparagus? Quickly. Most vegetables suffer from overcooking, but asparagus, in particular, loses its charm when it becomes limp. I like to microwave my asparagus - I put it in a microwaveable container with a lid, add just a tablespoon or two of water, cover the container, and nuke on "high" for just 5 minutes. Once the microwave beeps, uncover your asparagus right away! Otherwise it will continue to cook, and be gray and mushy.
You can cook your asparagus on the stove top, of course. The classic way to do this is to stand the asparagus on end in a deep, narrow pot, with the bases of the stalks in just a couple of inches of water. Cover the whole thing tightly, place on high heat, and once the water boils, cook it for just 5 to 7 minutes - once again, uncover it as soon as the cooking time is up.
Using this method, the tender tips of the asparagus steam, while the tougher bases of the stalks boil. You can buy tall, narrow asparagus pots, but a great substitute is available cheap at yard sales and thrift shops: Buy an old stove-top coffee perker, and remove the guts, for an admirable asparagus pot!
It may amuse you to know that the proper way to eat whole asparagus spears is with your fingers - even Miss Manners says so. You can dip your asparagus in lemon butter, hollandaise sauce, or aioli (garlic mayonnaise), all of which are very low carb. Cooked asparagus is also wonderful chilled - try dipping it in chipotle mayonnaise: Just put 1/2 cup of mayonnaise in your food processor with one chipotle pepper canned in adobo sauce, and process till smooth. This is enough for 4 people, and will add only trace amounts of carb to your asparagus.
I've recently started grilling asparagus, and it's becoming a favorite. You can do it on your gas or charcoal grill, of course. You'll want a small-holed grill rack to keep it from falling through, or you can make asparagus "rafts" by skewering 4 to 6 spears side by side, with a well-soaked bamboo skewer through either end. You can also grill asparagus in your electric tabletop grill, though, and it's wonderful. Here's a new grilled asparagus recipe I came up with just the other day:
Grilled Asparagus with Balsamic Vinegar
1 pound asparagus
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat your electric tabletop grill. Snap the ends off the asparagus where they break naturally. Put them on a plate, and drizzle with the olive oil. Toss the asparagus a bit, to make sure it's all coated with the oil.
Place the asparagus on your electric grill -- you'll probably have to do it in two batches, unless your grill is a lot bigger than mine. Set a timer for 10 minutes.
If you've had to do two batches, put the first batch on a plate and cover it with a pot lid to keep it warm while the second batch cooks. When all the asparagus is done, and all on the plate, drizzle with the balsamic vinegar. Roll it about to coat it, then top it with the Parmesan, and serve.
2 generous servings, each with 184 Calories; 16g Fat; 6g Protein; 7g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber, and 5 g. usable carbohydrate.
(Reprinted by permission, from 500 More Low-Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender, copyright 2005 Fair Winds Press)
Do you love broccoli? You have a lot of company. Do you hate broccoli? You have a lot of company. This Italian cousin of cabbage has grown in popularity over the past few decades, to become one of the most enjoyed vegetables in the US.
This is very good news, because broccoli is a nutritional powerhouse, and it's seriously low carb, too. A whole cup of cooked broccoli - a generous serving - has 8 grams of carbohydrate, with 5 grams of fiber, for a teeny carb count of 3 grams - and just 44 calories. Yet you'll get far more vitamin C than you would in a 4-ounce glass of orange juice, a whopping 194% of your daily requirement. You'll also get 43% of your vitamin A, 20% of your folacin, 13% of your potassium, 11% of your B6, 7% of both your calcium and iron, 4% each of your thiamin, niacin, and zinc. Surprisingly enough, you'll even get 5 grams of protein! Clearly, broccoli is your very good friend, nutritionally speaking.
Broccoli is also a great source of sulforaphane, a very powerful antioxidant that is being studied as a cancer preventative, and that may help the body detoxify itself. Hard to beat that. (It's good to know that broccoli sprouts are far higher in sulforaphane than the mature vegetable. If you can get them locally, throw 'em into your salads for a big nutritional boost.)
Yet many people loathe broccoli - we've even had a president declare his antipathy to the vegetable. I suspect that many of those folks have only ever had broccoli that was horribly overcooked. The old "boil vegetables until dead" school of cooking is particularly hard on broccoli; it goes from brilliant emerald, sweet and tender-crisp to gray, mushy, and sulfurous all too quickly. Better to steam or microwave it lightly, or stir-fry it, stopping far short of mushiness.
It's up to you whether you want to cook with fresh or frozen broccoli; the frozen stuff is certainly easier, while fresh is a bit tastier. Should you choose fresh, do yourself a favor - instead of lopping off and discarding the stems, use your vegetable peeler to remove the tough skin, and cook them along with the florets. They're wonderful. If you choose frozen broccoli, it's interesting to know that chopped broccoli is a tad higher in calcium than broccoli spears or florets, because the calcium-rich leaves are included.
Here are a few ideas for upping your broccoli consumption:
* Most grocery stores sell bags of broccoli and cauliflower florets. With bottled ranch dip, these make a great snack to put out while you're cooking dinner, and if you hide the chips it will probably get some veggies into your kids.
* Many groceries also carry "broccoslaw" - shredded stems leftover from those florets we just mentioned. Use in place of or along with cabbage in your favorite slaw recipe for a big nutritional boost. You could also add a handful to a tossed salad - it'll mix in more easily than florets would.
* Steamed or microwaved broccoli is fine with butter, but it's also easy to dress it up. Try a squeeze of lemon juice, or a little soy sauce and ginger, with a scatter of toasted sesame seeds.
* Readers submitted several variations of broccoli salad for 500 More Low-Carb Recipes with grated cheddar cheese, a little onion, and crumbled bacon, plus a dressing made with mayonnaise, vinegar, and just a touch of sweetness. Filling!
* Thawed frozen broccoli marinated in bottled vinaigrette dressing is as easy a salad as you'll ever find, and mighty tasty, too.
* Don't forget about broccoli in stir-fry. I think thawed frozen broccoli "cuts" - bigger chunks than chopped broccoli, but smaller than florets - are ideal for this.
* Broccoli soup is a perennial favorite. Here's a great version out of 500 More Low-Carb Recipes, sent in by reader Amy Dungan, who says it's her decarbed version of the soup her aunt used to make. My recipe tester Julie McIntosh called it "great in all aspects" - including that her kids liked it!
Broccoli Ham & Cheese Soup
3 cups of steamed broccoli (chopped into bite size pieces)
4 ounces of cream cheese (softened)
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cups water
1 chicken bouillon cube, or 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules or concentrate
pepper to taste
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup of chopped, cooked ham
4 ounces shredded cheddar cheese
First, of course, you'll steam your broccoli - you can steam a whole head and chop it up, or you can buy frozen broccoli "cuts," and use 3 cups of them.
Combine 1 cup of the broccoli, the cream cheese, heavy cream, and 1/4 cup water in your food processor, with the S-blade in place. Process until smooth. Transfer mixture to a large saucepan. Add bouillon, pepper, the rest of the broccoli, the mushrooms, the ham and the rest of water. Simmer over medium heat until the mushrooms are soft. Add cheddar and stir until melted, then serve.
Makes 6 servings, each with: 279 Calories; 25g Fat; 10g Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 3g usable carbs.
The bonus in this column reprint is that the salad would be fabulous for a Valentine's dinner tonight!
If I ever have doubts about the wisdom of my low carb diet, I'll just look at the arguments coming from low carb detractors. The lack of logic is often breathtaking. These folks have to twist themselves into knots to find reasons why a low carbohydrate diet is a bad idea.
Witness an article that recently appeared in my local paper. In it, Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk program at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, warns that women of child bearing age shouldn't eat a low carbohydrate diet, because they won't get folic acid, and folic acid deficiency can cause birth defects.
There's no doubt that folic acid, or its naturally occurring counterpart, folacin, prevents neural tube defects. But do we have to abandon the health benefits of our low carb diets?
Koren refers to the enrichment of bread, pasta, and breakfast cereals with folic acid, and says that without these foods, we will be deficient in this nutrient. Notice the word "enrichment" - in other words, these foods are not good sources of this vitamin naturally. Instead, folic acid is added to them. There is no difference between eating a food to which a vitamin has been added, and taking a vitamin pill - except for the carbohydrates and calories involved, of course. And surprise, surprise, tacked on at the very end of the article we find, "The problem could largely be avoided if all women of childbearing age took a daily multivitamin that contains folic acid." Good idea.
"Enrichment" is something that is only done to grains that have been refined and heavily processed. These are mostly carbs of the worst kind, with a sky-high blood sugar impact, and little-to- no fiber. Even if you're on a program like South Beach that allows some "good carbs", these products ain't it. To recommend highly refined and processed junk carbs for women of childbearing age because they have a few artificial vitamins added is just dumb - especially since high insulin levels can cause health problems that make conception difficult or impossible, and diabetes and high blood pressure are common risks of pregnancy.
It is more than possible to get plenty of folacin from low carbohydrate foods. One slice of white bread has 21.5 micrograms of folic acid, or roughly 1/20 of the 400 micrograms needed each day. It also has 12 grams of carbohydrate, and almost no fiber. One cup of orange juice - another source recommended by Koren - has 26 grams of carbohydrate, and less than a half a gram of fiber. How much folacin? 74 mcg. Three cups of romaine lettuce, on the other hand, has 228 mcgs of folacin, or over half our daily requirement - and only 4 grams of carbohydrate, of which 3 are fiber, for a usable carb count of just 1 gram. Looks like the low carbohydrate source wins.
The thing Koren seems to have missed is that when we cut carbs, we add other foods to replace them - and quite a few of those foods are high in folacin. I, for example, will often order the insides of a sandwich on a bed of lettuce, instead of on bread. Lots of folacin! For that matter, the cauliflower we substitute for potatoes and rice has more folacin than either.
All green leafy vegetables are low in carbohydrates and high in folacin, so eat your salads! Cooked vegetables like spinach, broccoli, and asparagus are good, too. An egg has a little more folacin than that slice of white bread we mentioned. Peanuts are a pretty good source, and even meat and dairy products contribute a bit.
Indeed, it seems that the only reason there was a need for folic acid enrichment was that so many people base their diets on cheap, starchy foods. Remove the junk carbs from the diet, and there's plenty of room for foods that are naturally high in folacin.
This salad is spring-y and beautiful and extraordinarily delicious. It also has 238 micrograms of folacin per serving!
Spinach-Strawberry Salad
1/2 cup Splenda
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons minced red onion
1 1/2 teaspoons poppy seeds
1 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 pound prewashed baby spinach
1 cup sliced strawberries
3 tablespoons slivered almonds, toasted
1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
Combine everything from the Splenda through the salt, and shake or stir well.
Put baby spinach in your big salad bowl. Pour on the dressing, and toss well. Top with strawberries, almonds, and feta, and serve.
Serves 4 to 6. Assuming 4 servings, each will have 227 Calories; 19g Fat, 8g Protein 11g Carbohydrate; 5g Dietary Fiber, 6 grams usable carb
Bananas must have a killer press agent. Over and over folks ask, "But if I can't have bananas on my low carb diet, where will I get potassium?" It is true that bananas are a pretty good source of potassium; one medium banana has 422 milligrams, or about 12% of the RDA of 3.5 grams. However, that banana also has 27 grams of carbohydrate, with only 3 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 24 grams - about half of my daily maximum carb intake, and more than the 20 gram upper limit for those of you who are in the induction phase of the Atkins diet. Clearly we can't count on bananas for our potassium! But where will we get it?
It's easier than you think.
There is a surprising quantity of potassium in the animal protein foods that are the backbone of our diet. A four ounce serving of pork loin provides 411 milligrams of potassium, and a quarter-pound hamburger patty provides 234 milligrams. Six ounces of sole fillet provide 584 milligrams of potassium, and four ounces of scallops provide 524 milligrams. Four ounces of chicken breast provide 282 milligrams of potassium, and four ounces of turkey breast provide 317 milligrams. All of these potassium-rich foods are carb-free, of course.
So already things are looking pretty good for us where potassium is concerned. But it's when you get to the rest of our diet that things really start looking up! After all, we're the ones saying things like, "Instead of the rice, could you bring me some steamed vegetables?" and "Do you mind putting those gyros on a bed of lettuce, instead of in a pita bread?" This is a terrific way to get plenty of potassium. A half-cup serving of white rice has a mere 32 milligrams of potassium, while a half-cup of broccoli has 166 milligrams - and the switch will save you 20 grams of usable carbohydrate, too, not to mention 75 calories. That pita bread has just 72 milligrams of potassium, with 32 grams of usable carbohydrate - no bargain. Have your gyros on a bed of 3 cups of romaine, instead, and you'll get 415 milligrams of potassium, and just 2 grams of usable carb!
But the true, undying low carb potassium champion is the avocado. All avocados are great, but if you can, buy the little, rough-skinned California avocados; they're a tad lower carb than the big, smooth-skinned Florida variety. One California avocado contains 15 grams of carbohydrate, but 12 grams of that is fiber, for a usable carb count of just 3 grams! And for those three grams, you'll get a whopping 877 milligrams of potassium. Avocados are also a great source of monounsaturated fats, the same heart-healthy fats found in olive oil - a real nutritional bargain, all the way around.
So eat avocados, early and often! You can put chunks of avocado in your tossed salad, of course, but try a simpler approach: sliced avocado on a bed of lettuce, sprinkled with lime juice, salt and pepper, or a simple vinaigrette dressing.
Guacamole is a favorite, and it's hard to beat, but without chips, how are you going to eat it? Try spreading it over a grilled steak; it's to die for. Guacamole is also a terrific omelet filling, especially with some Monterey Jack cheese melted with it. My favorite thing to do with guacomole, though, is to stuff it into tomatoes, and serve them as a salad. A medium tomato will add about 4 grams of usable carb, and another 273 milligrams of potassium.
Consider the half-avocado. Once you've removed the seed, you've got a nice big hollow, just perfect for putting things in. Consider stuffing avocados with tuna salad, chicken salad, cold shrimp, or anything else you can think of! Here's a recipe for crab salad in avocados:
Low Carb For Life Reprint - Low Carb Cold Care
As you can see from the first paragraph, this column originally appeared in the autumn of 2004. It may be late winter now, but I still know plenty of people with colds! I've altered this column a bit to bring it up to date with the state of the low carb market.
Summer's gone, autumn's here, the leaves are changing. You know what that means. Right, the cold and flu season is upon us. Indeed, as I write this I have a scratchy throat, a snorky nose, and a tight chest. Ugh.
So I thought it would be timely to fill you in on low carb cold care. Low carb cold care? Yep. There actually are a few potential pitfalls, let me help you skirt them.
Please don't decide, "I'm sick. I deserve pampering. I may as well go off my diet." Nutritionists from Dr. Atkins to Ann Louise Gittleman, MS, CNS have long insisted that eating sugar will weaken your immune system, and indeed a little research turned up a 1995 study showing that the activity of immune system cells called leukocytes decreases significantly when blood sugar levels rise. If there's any chance that eating a lot of carbs will keep you sick longer, you don't want to do it!
Just as important, if you've been low carb for even a few weeks, you've probably noticed a dramatic increase in energy. Do you really want to give yourself one of those energy-sapping blood sugar crashes that come after the blood sugar rush? Talk about feeling wretched.
Here are some ideas for low carb cold care:
* Juice is not your friend - it's a great way to take in tons of sugar, without any of the fiber that would buffer its absorption if you were to eat the fruit.
* Sadly, Hood's Carb Countdown Juices are no more. But Minute Maid has a line of reduced-sugar juice drinks with 1-2 grams of usable carb per serving, and added vitamin C. If you really crave juice, they're an option. Still, they're a highly processed food, and some of them do include the extremely evil high fructose corn syrup, if only in small quantities. (Some also contain something called "GLYCEROL ESTER OF WOOD ROSIN," which sounds bizarrely like shellac, to me...)
* You could always take vitamin C in pills, you know.
* Hot beverages are soothing to a scratchy throat, and loosen chest congestion. Tea is the obvious choice (she said with a big pot of tea sitting close to hand.) If you're used to honey in your tea while sick, be aware that just one teaspoon has 5.7 grams of carbohydrate, all sugar. There are a couple of brands of sugar free imitation honey on the market - Steele's and HoneyTree. These are remarkably good, and available through online retailers and low carb specialty stores.
* We've been drinking Sipper Sweets brand sugar free raspberry lemonade mix, made hot. This is very good, very easy to make (nuke a cup of water, stir in a little mix,) and has just 1 gram of carb per serving. The lemonade and apple cider mixes by Sipper Sweets would be good hot, too. (NOTE: Since I wrote this, the market has changed. I'm still finding these products advertised on line, but some stores are saying they're on clearance, which makes me wonder if they've been discontinued. )
* Beware of cold medicines! Cough syrups and liquids like NyQuil have a lot of sugar. Buy NyQuil, DayQuil, and the like in soft gels, instead. Pharmacies carry sugar free cough syrups, often labeled "diabetic formula."
Again, your best bet for these is a pharmacy, not the grocery store or a discount store.
* Chicken soup is standard for colds, but most packaged chicken soups have noodles or rice in them. If nothing else will do, it's good to know that Campbell's Chicken Noodle has 8 grams of carb per serving - not great, but not terrible. Chicken Rice has 7 grams of carb.
* If there's a local Chinese restaurant that delivers, consider sending out for egg drop or hot-and-sour soup. Though recipes vary, both tend to be lower carb and higher protein than canned chicken noodle. Hot-and-sour soup - my cold-care favorite - has the added advantage of hot peppers to help clear out your nose.
Can't get delivery? With boxed or canned broth in the pantry, this egg drop soup is quick and easy enough to make in your weakened condition.
Eggdrop Soup
1 quart chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon guar or xanthan (optional)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 scallion, sliced
2 eggs, beaten
If you're using the guar or xanthan, first put a cup or so of the broth in your blender, turn it on low, and add the guar. Let it blend for a second, then put it in a large saucepan with the rest of the broth. Add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, and scallions. Heat over medium high burner, and let it simmer for five minutes or so, to let the flavors blend. Have your eggs beaten in a glass measuring cup or small pitcher - something with a pouring lip. Take a fork, and start stirring the surface of the soup in a slow circle. Pour in about a quarter of the eggs, and stir as they cook and turn into shreds, which will happen almost instantaneously. Repeat three more times, using up all the egg, then serve. 3 biggish servings, or 4-5 small ones; easy to double! Assuming 4 servings, each will have 2 grams of carbohydrate, a trace of fiber, and 8 grams of protein.
(This is a reprint from my column, "Low Carb for Life".)
Now that the holidays are over, while our VISA cards are still smoking in our wallets, it seems an opportune moment to tackle a common complaint regarding a low carb diet: “It’s so expensive!”
At first glance, this seems true. If you’ve been basing your meals on potatoes, rice, pasta, and generic white bread, you’ve been getting away with a lower cost-per-serving than, say, steak. However, I have several thoughts on this matter.
First, and most important, is this: Any food that makes you fat, tired, sick, and hungry would not be cheap even if they were giving it away. If you are carbohydrate intolerant, if you have the illnesses that have been identified as being related to high insulin levels – diabetes, hypertension, high triglycerides, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and the like – “cheap” carbs are a luxury you can’t afford. You’ll pay for them in the form of doctor visits, medicines, sick days, dental bills, and new clothes in bigger sizes.
Second, remember that many carb-y foods are not even cheap to buy. I’ve long suspected that cold cereal is a conspiracy to get us to pay three and a half bucks for fifteen cents worth of grain. Bulk potatoes may be cheap, but Pringles are expensive. Frozen dinners, canned biscuits, boxed potatoes, and other prepared foods are not budget items, and most of them are loaded with junk carbs and bad fats. Cut all of this rubbish out of your food budget, and you’ll find a bit more room for protein and vegetables.
That being said, real, good, nutritious food does cost more per pound than the cheapest carb-y junk. How to deal with this?
* Not one of those expensive low carb specialty foods is essential to your success. When I went low carb they didn’t exist. Going low carb meant eating unprocessed real foods, and I suspect that some of the health benefits stemmed from this simple fact. You’ll save big money eating real food instead of low carb macaroni-and-cheese mix.
* Your body does not care if you get your protein from lobster, steak, and boneless, skinless chicken breast, or from hamburger, tilapia fillets, and chicken leg-and-thigh quarters. Hereabouts those boneless, skinless breasts often run $4.99 a pound, while leg-and-thigh quarters often go on sale for 69c a pound or less. Big difference.
* Buy in bulk When hamburger, tuna, butter, canned broth, natural peanut butter, or the like goes on sale, stock up. A freezer lets you take advantage of meat specials. I bought my deep freezed used for $225 and it has paid for itself many times over.
* We love rib eye steaks, which run $8.99 a pound. So I wait till whole rib eyes go on sale for $4.99 a pound, and have the nice meat guys slice one into steaks for me. No charge for this service, and I get steaks for several months for the price of one dinner at Outback. I also buy leg of lamb on deep discount, and have it cut into steaks – much cheaper than lamb chops.
* Eat what’s in season. Asparagus, lettuce, berries, and melon, all great low carb foods, are sky-high this time of year. Cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower are all in season, and are cheaper – I just bought cabbage for 39c/pound. This makes coleslaw, steamed broccoli, and cauliflower “fauxtatoes” better choices than salad. Turnips and rutabaga (I adore rutabaga!), spaghetti squash, and celery are other winter vegetables that work well for us. Grapefruit is abundant, wonderful and cheap in the winter, and has only about 10 grams of usable carb per half.
* Bagged salad, pre-cut veggies, skinless chicken, pre-made hamburgers are all expensive. The more food preparation you do yourself, the more money you will save. Spend an hour on the weekend prepping stuff yourself, and stash it in the fridge for busy days.
* Nuts are low carb, but so are sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and they’re far cheaper. More minerals, too!
* Drink homemade iced tea instead of diet soda.
* One of the lowest carb-and-calorie desserts is also one of the cheapest – store brand sugar-free gelatin.
* Cut way back on eating out. The same food is always far cheaper at home.
* Bag lunches are a great way to use up leftovers – who wants to pay for food to turn green in the fridge?
Here is a family-pleasing supper that cooks while you’re out of the house. Buy leg-and-thigh quarters, and spend five minutes cutting the drumsticks off for another meal, and pulling off the skin – you’ll save 30c a pound or more.
Bananas must have a killer press agent. Over and over folks ask, “But if I can’t have bananas on my low carb diet, where will I get potassium?” It is true that bananas are a pretty good source of potassium; one medium banana has 422 milligrams, or about 12% of the RDA of 3.5 grams. However, that banana also has 27 grams of carbohydrate, with only 3 grams of fiber, for a usable carb count of 24 grams – about half of my daily maximum carb intake, and more than the 20 gram upper limit for those of you who are in the induction phase of the Atkins diet. Clearly we can’t count on bananas for our potassium! But where will we get it?
It’s easier than you think.
There is a surprising quantity of potassium in the animal protein foods that are the backbone of our diet. A four ounce serving of pork loin provides 411 milligrams of potassium, and a quarter-pound hamburger patty provides 234 milligrams. Six ounces of sole fillet provide 584 milligrams of potassium, and four ounces of scallops provide 524 milligrams. Four ounces of chicken breast provide 282 milligrams of potassium, and four ounces of turkey breast provide 317 milligrams. All of these potassium-rich foods are carb-free, of course.
So already things are looking pretty good for us where potassium is concerned. But it’s when you get to the rest of our diet that things really start looking up! After all, we’re the ones saying things like, “Instead of the rice, could you bring me some steamed vegetables?” and “Do you mind putting those gyros on a bed of lettuce, instead of in a pita bread?” This is a terrific way to get plenty of potassium. A half-cup serving of white rice has a mere 32 milligrams of potassium, while a half-cup of broccoli has 166 milligrams – and the switch will save you 20 grams of usable carbohydrate, too, not to mention 75 calories. That pita bread has just 72 milligrams of potassium, with 32 grams of usable carbohydrate – no bargain. Have your gyros on a bed of 3 cups of romaine, instead, and you’ll get 415 milligrams of potassium, and just 2 grams of usable carb!
But the true, undying low carb potassium champion is the avocado. All avocados are great, but if you can, buy the little, rough-skinned California avocados; they’re a tad lower carb than the big, smooth-skinned Florida variety. One California avocado contains 15 grams of carbohydrate, but 12 grams of that is fiber, for a usable carb count of just 3 grams! And for those three grams, you’ll get a whopping 877 milligrams of potassium. Avocados are also a great source of monounsaturated fats, the same heart-healthy fats found in olive oil – a real nutritional bargain, all the way around.
So eat avocados, early and often! You can put chunks of avocado in your tossed salad, of course, but try a simpler approach: sliced avocado on a bed of lettuce, sprinkled with lime juice, salt and pepper, or a simple vinaigrette dressing.
Guacamole is a favorite, and it’s hard to beat, but without chips, how are you going to eat it? Try spreading it over a grilled steak; it’s to die for. Guacamole is also a terrific omelet filling, especially with some Monterey Jack cheese melted with it. My favorite thing to do with guacomole, though, is to stuff it into tomatoes, and serve them as a salad. A medium tomato will add about 4 grams of usable carb, and another 273 milligrams of potassium.
Consider the half-avocado. Once you’ve removed the seed, you’ve got a nice big hollow, just perfect for putting things in. Consider stuffing avocados with tuna salad, chicken salad, cold shrimp, or anything else you can think of! Here’s a recipe for crab salad in avocados:
Thai-Style Crab Salad in Avocados
1 ripe California avocado
3 tablespoons lime juice
6-ounce can crabmeat, or 6 ounces cooked lump crab meat
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoon pepper, or to taste
Salt, if desired.
Split the avocado in half, remove the seed, and sprinkle the cut surfaces with 1 tablespoon of the lime juice to prevent browning.
Combine the crabmeat, remaining lime juice, lemon juice, mayonnaise, cilantro, scallion, pepper, and salt in a mixing bowl, and mix well. Stuff into the avocado halves, piling it high. Garnish with extra cilantro, if desired, and serve.
2 servings, each with 9 grams of carbohydrate and 5 grams of fiber, for a total of 4 grams of usable carb and 20 grams of protein. Plus 932 milligrams of potassium!
Reprinted by permission.
Recipe is copyright 2003 by Dana Carpender, reprinted from 15-Minute Low-Carb Recipes