Vegan Diabetics

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Permalink Reply by Domo! on April 2, 2009 at 9:36am

My dad sent me this book called Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes. I was convinced that being on a vegan diet would help my blood sugar AND help me lose weight. Well i tried to go grocery shopping for some of the recepies and ended up spending MORE then my usual amount. Since receipes stress me out anyway all the ingridents pretty much went to waste and i just stuck to oatmeal, peanut butter/jelly sandwiches, and veg. soup. I was successful for a day, until my boyfriend took me to bob evans and tempted me with a steak..... i threw the book out and reordered me a steak.

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Permalink Reply by iroseland on April 2, 2009 at 11:08am

back in High school and College I was pretty heavily into vegetarianism. This was back in teh 80's and very early 90's... When I started I had alarmingly high cholesterol, and after a year or two I had alarmingly low cholesterol. Back then there were good days and there were bad days. A big part of the problem though was trying to avoid the trap of a very high carb diet. After a 4 years or so I concluded that adding artificial restrictions to my diet was not really doing much for me. There are plenty of foods that I will not eat because I don't like the way they taste, or because they have the wrong mouth feel. But, I otherwise avoid restrictions as I found that they tend to put the rest of your life in a straight jacket as well.

Mostly, though I would say the big worry would be that its easy to slip into a carb heavy diet. Back when I was in college the vegans and vegetarians I knew had a nasty habit of being a bit bigger than they needed to be... It was probably due to the number of french fries they were consuming per day.

Ivan!

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Permalink Reply by Domo! on April 4, 2009 at 9:19am

no vegans out there? Where are you hiding?

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Permalink Reply by Leah on April 4, 2009 at 11:31am

ok, I am not a vegan, but I do believe there have been a few vegans on here and have also started a thread of two, there might even be a group on here. I can also tell you that there is a link on the this website for "miracle muffins". I had never heard of them until this website. The muffins are vegan and diabetic friendly and I think there is a discount if you go through this website or mention this website. Go to the "member discount" it is toward the bottom of the page on the right side. Hope that helps.

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Permalink Reply by Angie Crabtree on April 5, 2009 at 10:42am

Thanks guys, it's nice to hear from you. Well, I thought being vegan would help my blood sugars and keep me in great shape. My problem being vegan is eating too many carbs. I was completely aware of this from the start, and told myself not to, but it only works for so long and then I freak out and eat all these carbs and spike my blood sugar up and down constantly. I thought it would be easy to stick to grains and veggies. It's totally not. And I ended up gaining 10 lbs only after the first few months. I read this book called "The Diet Cure" that helps carb lovers control their cravings. It emphasizes protein for diabetics, not only because it distracts us from carbs, but that eating them simultaneously (with carbs) slows down the carb-converting into sugar process, therefore minimizing carbs' affect on blood sugars. She highly recommends 20 grams of protein with every meal. She says each meal should consist of 50% veggies, 25% protein, and 25% carbs. I think that is a great idea. But she says being vegetarian or vegan is so much more difficult because it's hard to get that much protein in every meal solely from veggies, or beans. And it's difficult to have that much tofu/seiten/tempeh with EVERY meal. She says vegetarian is better for type 1 diabetics because you have the opportunity to get protein from cheese in your salad, or cottage cheese or eggs for breakfast. That and also protein shakes (which contain whey from milk).
I know that being vegan, and raw, could potentially help my diabetes if I did it right. But it takes so much more effort and it's so difficult for me already. I hate trying so hard and then a week later binging on vegan sweets (they have just as much sugar as regular sweets, if not more). Giving up meat and dairy was easy. But it made my blood sugars way higher. I think I am going to try being just vegetarian and see if it improves my A1C. Maybe if I can get that under control first, then I can make the switch back to vegan once I am more adapted. I really want to get this under control and in a manner that feels smooth so I won't carb binge any more.

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Permalink Reply by Arielle on April 6, 2009 at 5:10am

A couple of things to note: grains and vegetables both contain carbs, so if you're eating those without taking insulin for them, that may be the reason your blood sugars are going high. Seitan is made of wheat gluten, so it has carbs as well. Second, I would really be wary of eating soy-based products, such as tofu and tempeh, so often. Most soy is genetically modified, which isn't good, and soy has natural components in it which can act as hormones and affect your thyroid. People with one autoimmune disease (diabetes) are prone to develop others, and if your thyroid is in good shape, you really want it to stay that way.

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Permalink Reply by Leah on April 5, 2009 at 2:05pm

are you adverse to fish? I have some friends (non-diabetics) that live a vegetarian life style with the exception of fish, so basically they are pescatarian (fish only).

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Permalink Reply by Bek on April 5, 2009 at 2:19pm

i don't think vegan would be a very good choice for a diabetic. when you cut out tradition sources of protein, you either end up malnourished or need to find alternative sources of protein. for a vegan, this would mostly consit of complentary proteins. the down side of this is that complementary proteins all inculde starches (beans and rice, hummus and pita, etc.). it's just not condusive to being low-carb, and most diabetics seem to do well with that. vegetarian is a better bet if you want to stay away from meats and keep it low carb to help avoid too much insulin and higher sugars.

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Permalink Reply by Donna Heun on April 5, 2009 at 3:19pm

Angie,
Wow? If I weren't doing so well with a vegan diet I could certainly get discouraged here. I went completely vagan last fall and am loving it. I am probably eating about double the amount of carbohydrates but they are all such healthy carbs that my blood glucose levels are great! I rarely spike high BGs after meals and there is protien in every meal I eat whether it comes from soy yogurt, beans, tofu, lentils, tempeh, nuts, or a combination of foods including whole grains such as quinoa, millet, black or red rice, wheat berries, or barley (all in proper portion size) that all have a small amount of protien in them. I have great variety at home but going out to eat can provide very limited choices. I have lost about 6 lbs (which was not my goal as I was thin enough) and all my numbers (BG, BP, cholesteral, etc.) are in the target ranges.

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Permalink Reply by Colleen on April 5, 2009 at 3:50pm

I'm almost vegan. I've been vegetarian for over 9 years, and developed an allergy to cow dairy about 6 years ago. At that point, basically the only animal products I had were eggs and some goat or sheep dairy every now and then. Then I became diabetic (type 1, dx last July). Since then, I've placed a lot of importance on having protein at every meal. For breakfast, I got that by having an egg with my cereal. However, by the fall I had developed an allergy to egg whites, and was kind of at a loss of what to do, having lost a very important source of protein. Since then, I found a good protein powder (rice-based, to get some variety from the other types of proteins I get each day) that works well mixed with oatmeal or another hot cereal, along with slivered almonds.

In addition to all this, I have celiac. Because of all these restrictions, I'm thinking about not being a vegetarian anymore. I would maintain a mostly vegetarian diet, but eat meat perhaps a few times a week. Right now, I just can't stomach this idea, but I'm trying to get myself to the point where if I feel I need to for my health, then I can.

All this is to say that I am a successful nearly-vegan. The veg-ism works really well for me, and hasn't been a problem for my numbers or weight or anything. The only thing that makes it hard for me is other dietary restrictions/allergies (I have a number of other random ones).

I would also agree that it's hard to be a successful vegan/vegetarian, and not fall into a lot of grains and "veggie junk food." It's definitely doable and I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it, but it takes a bit of work, especially at the beginning. Since dx, I've drastically cut down on my carb intake (mostly reducing grains), and that has helped a lot in my numbers as well as weight. I'm totally used to it now (near vegan, and moderate carb (maybe at most 80-90g/day)), but it takes adjustment.

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Permalink Reply by Chuck Lin on April 5, 2009 at 4:04pm

Veganism is really not a diet but more of a philosophy. The vegan "diet" is driven by a philosophy of not using animal or animal byproducts. It was not design as a way to eat, but a way to live according to a animal-rights principle.

The problem with that for diabetics is that in order to get enough protein, you would have to eat higher quantity of vegetable products, which also contain carbohydrates. This is also the cause of many vegetarians being overweight on a diet they believe to be less "fattening".

In my opinion, if you believe in the philosophy of not using animal products, then go vegan. If you don't have problems with drinking milk or wearing leather, then its probably healthier to be vegetarian without the extreme of being vegan.

However, if you love a delicious cheeseburger with thick cut bacon, then I could recommend a few restaurants.

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Permalink Reply by Katarina on April 5, 2009 at 4:37pm

I tried being a vegetarian but CHRIST! It sucked! I have to have some meat. So I just avoid red meat and limit white meat consumption. That's as close as I get.

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