Yummy!!

Let's see...

It's been quite a good week overall. Monday's fast wasn't 100% because I did have some macadamia nuts in the evening. This is what some people call a fat fast - taking in a small amount of food with a very high percentage of fat. Some people find this easier than a complete fast, and it's also a strategy to avoid totally breaking the fast. The logic is that since fat has very little impact on insulin levels, you still get most,of the benefit of fasting.

However, most of the week I have been eating normally, with some interesting twists.

On Tuesday it was our first Bread Church. As you will be aware, dear reader, bread is not on the menu. So I went looking for LCHF 'bread' recipes. I found 5 altogether, but chose the one which would be the least complicated to do up at the church - not needing to separate eggs or requiring use of a food processor or mixer were the criteria. I needed to grind the flax and sunflower seeds, so I did that at home before I went up. The recipe called for six eggs - and since the idea of Bread Church is to make one loaf for yourself and one to give away, that was a dozen eggs I needed to crack.

The recipe makes a batter rather than a dough, and only when I got there did I discover that the trays offered are quite small - so I ended up making four loaves!  It tasted good. I had two buttered slices with my soup and offered it round to the assembled company, most of whom tried it and said it was good. So that was the end of one and a half loaves!  I sliced the left over half and put it in the freezer, and took the two other loaves to two church members who have coeliac disease. You see, when you go grain-free, you also go gluten-free. I'm not allergic to gluten, so I don't need to worry about tiny bits of wheat for myself - I eat the ordinary bread at communion, whereas they can't. But it  made sense to give my loaves to people for whom the gluten-free aspect is important.

Last week I treated myself to a keto (shorthand for ketogenic) Recipe book, and today was my first attempt at making something from it. I chose Danish meatballs, which are cooked in a slightly spicy tomato sauce. The book suggests serving them with cauli rice, but I decided to do them cauli mash and green vegetables. They were absolutely delicious - phew!  I also tried a new ingredient this week - a low-carb 'spaghetti' made from edamame beans. It came in at 18.6g carb per 100g, but 35g was a perfectly adequate portion, giving me less than 7g carb, which is OK so long as the rest of the meal doesn't have too much. The texture and flavour were OK - I preferred them to spiralised courgettes which I've used a few times instead of spaghetti. I'll use it again.

And blood glucose.... my level on Tuesday, after my fast, was 5.3, which was a little higher than I hoped. But this morning it was 5.0, and my average for this week so far is 5.4, which is my lowest so far.... or will be if the next two days aren't too high.  This evening, one hour after my meal of Danish meatballs with cauli mash, asparagus and mangetout followed by mixed berries and cream, I was 6.0.  Another week or so and I'll be going for my repeat HbA1C test. Looking forward to it.