Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Trying tro go non gluten and falling for Keto

I am trying to steer towards more wholesome foods the past few months.  I do love some of my own cakes and pies that I sell sometimes but I am now trying to keep my food as non gluten as possible.  Its not been easy as I also love some traditional food that contain a lot of carbohydrates.  Well, did try to substitute the noodles with shirataki but its rather tasteless and springy.  However I found out that it is a probiotic and aids with digestion.
These days I do try to replace wheat flour with buckwheat, coconut flour and almond flour.  However we are so used to the taste and texture of crusty and crumbly buttered pastries.  Chicken pie, white bread and apple pie will never ever taste the same.

After buying all the alternative flours such as oat bran, millet, buckwheat, arrowroot, brown rice flour and  barley flour our health reset class moved rapidly to a newer challenge.  I was not ready for that.  But it was intriguing and I wanted to find out if I could do it.  After all, others were taking the challenge.  I did not want to miss anything!

Another reason was I discovered I was insulin intolerant.  Several members of my framily were diabetic.  They needed to swallow all sorts of pills and had different health issues.  Despite being declared safe from diabetes,   I decided to start checking my blood glucose level several times daily.  This was needed to establish the patterns and to identify which particular food would spike our sugar level.  Being 6 is not so good after all.  its good to have below 5.5 reading but if you go to the clinic, sometimes the nurse would tell us 6.5 is borderline.  Its false security.  6.5 is not good anymore!

Naturally the blood glucose may go up to 8.5 after a meal, especially if we ate carbohydrates like white rice and breads.  Or had a sweet teh tarik or cafe latte!  Young people do not have to worry too much because they are still resilient and are more active.  Lots of exercise and having enough sleep will help a lot.  I never had blood glucose problems until the past 2 years.

 I suspect I am gluten intolerant.  Many people do not know and they happily stuff their faces with all sorts of white poison.  Its easy to actually end up eating fried bihun for breakfast,  nasi kerabu for lunch and white rice with fish and vegetables for dinner. That is considered rather normal even now.

 Soto, mee rebus, laksam, mee kari, laksam, crusty sandwiches and pasta... all these are carbohydrates.  Such dishes have little vegetables and protein.  We sometimes do not have a balanced diet.  And some desserts like macaroons,  pavlova and syrup laden baklavas make a literal kill if we eat it every day.  Actually I love noodles and rice but have to be restrained from now on. We can still eat in moderation but definitely not gluten 3 times a day.

Enough about poor health.  Lets see what we can do to have better health.  Eating nutritious food, have enough rest, exercise like spontaneous bursting exercise movements for 2 minutes a few times a day is easy and fun.  It does not take up much time as I do not like to run outside to be greeted with exhaust fumes and crazy drivers.  The park if beautiful but its not exactly a tranquil setting at 8am or 5pm.  Overcrowded!

Remember, lots of vegetables for cell renewal, 20 percent protein; do not overeat that.  And eat and cook with only good fats, like quality olive oil, virgin coconut oil, cocoa butter, pure butter, grass fed even better.  Sesame oil, walnut oil, macadamia oils are good.  Please avoid canola, rapeseed oil, corn oil and vegetble oil.   Pure palm oil if better if you wish to deep fry food.  And please avoid BBQ as the burnt parts look extremely tasty but they can cause cancer.  We just do what we can and tawakkal to Allah. 

This is just a general reminder.  One should take the trouble to do some  research to verify.  One last reminder is try your best to give up sugar as it damages our organs and cause stress to the body. I will not refuse a sweet treat once a while but no indulget 3 times a day.  It will add up to perhaps 10 or more teaspoons of sugar daily.  Help!!!