Diabetes

Bryan's first physical in years has brought to our attention that he has diabetes.  Luckily, the doctor thinks we caught it very early, as Bryan doesn't exhibit any symptoms.  Also, the doctor is happy that we already have a good diet, so making changes there will be relatively simply.  He thinks that through diet and exercise alone, the diabetes will be totally manageable.

In terms of diet, the biggest changes Bryan will have to make are to cut out soda, and ice cream.  He's switching to sparkling water, and I am going to find and perfect a sugar free/substitute ice cream (somehow, Bryan is getting homemade ice cream out of this!).  Carbs and white flour are the next demons we'll have to battle.  And we do love our carbs.  Luckily, whole grains are OK, and something Bryan generally prefers.  We usually buy whole or sprouted grain bread, so that's not a problem.  And I've finally found a reason to lug out the bread machine - and it turns out I love to use it.  Bryan prefers whole wheat pastas, so we'll have to make the switch there.  Same for things like tortillas.  He'll have to watch his fruit intake as well.  And the doctor said that the less refined the sugar the better - so he can continue to use sucanat for his coffee, and I can continue to buy the more unrefined bulk sugars from the Outpost for general use (while continuing to look for a good source of raw(er) sugar), while also trying out some sugar substitutes like stevia, Truvia, and xylitol.

So we have a few changes to make, but I think we can take them all in stride.  It will be interesting to see how it affects our menu planning.  So far, it's prompted me to think about more varied grains, and more beans, which is something I want to do but am usually too lazy to.  So from that perspective, it's been a good thing. 

 
I did attempt a sugar substitute ice cream, using Truvia.  Based on a Gale Gand recipe, my goal was to attempt to substitute the Truvia in place of the sugar.  Since Truvia is stevia based, and stevia is sweeter than sugar, I used less Truvia than I would have sugar (3/4 tsp Truvia to 2 tsps sugar).





Everything else was about the same...



Mix Truvia and egg yolks:

Cook your creams with vanilla bean seeds (insanely plump vanilla beans courtesy of the Spice House):

Temper your eggs and sugar into your creams and return to heat:

And process in your ice cream maker:

The ice cream did not set in the ice cream maker - normally, ice cream will set pretty well within 30 minutes in my maker, but this ran for nearly and hour and was still soup.  I stuck it in the freezer, where thankfully it did set into normal ice cream consistency.

The ice cream itself did have a bit of a nutrasweet type flavor (more so in smaller licks rather than big bites, though), and a sort of odd aftertaste, but Bryan doesn't mind.  And I figure a little homemade strawberry preserves on top help matters some.

I did some research and there are better recipes out there - next time I'll try Agave-Sweetened Chocolate Ice Cream.