# No carb breakfast?



## ageez (Jul 23, 2012)

Hi,
Little one has just started with his pump (yay!) and as part of basal testing, we are supposed to give him a 'no carb' breakfast one day this week.

He hates cheese, doesn't eat meat (unless in sausage form!) and isn't a big egg fan.

What can I give him?

Any suggestions would be gratefully received!


----------



## Northerner (Jul 23, 2012)

Sugar-free jellies? Some people find that even a protein-only meal doesn't work as a proper basal test. Have you read: 

http://www.diatribe.us/issues/13/learning-curve


----------



## DeusXM (Jul 23, 2012)

Protein shakes might work. Otherwise, good quality sausages should have very little filler in them and could be 'carb-free' essentially. 

Otherwise, don't be frightened to experiment with things that aren't traditionally breakfast food. If he's not eating cheese, egg or meat, then green veg would seem to be a good bet. Serve them with plenty of melted butter. Or maybe a green salad with olive oil. You can also make a delicious no-carb mashed potato out of boiled and mashed cauliflower with butter and seasoning.

Also, depending on the severity of him 'not being an egg fan', there might forms of egg he might be prepared to put up with - some people hate fried or boiled eggs but could easily eat a good omelette. How severe is the not-eating-meat too - could he manage pork rinds? Or biltong?


----------



## everydayupsanddowns (Jul 23, 2012)

Northie's suggestion of sugar free jelly seems a pretty good one.

You have to be careful of anything much in the way of protein/fat as that cound convert to glucose in the blood and skew your results. Easy enough when you have decided to do it yourself as an adult, but I appreciate it's much trickier when having to persuade a small person, so SF jelly (all lovely tasty e-numbers and no carbs/no protein) seems pretty much made for the job!


----------



## MaryPlain (Jul 23, 2012)

It amazes me that doctors and DSNs still believe that you can eat no-carb meals and still do a meaningful basal test.  How come they don't know this? The other thing that my DSN and dietician both told me is not to count the carbs in vegetables when working out insulin doses because supposedly, they act so slowly on blood sugar that they don't require extra insulin. Is that actually true for anybody?


----------



## trophywench (Jul 24, 2012)

Yes.  It's true for me.

I mean the only way I could really tell I spose is to eat wholly vegetables with nowt else, which I never have, but if for instance I eat a big fat salad for my lunch I don't add anything for the carbs for that.  If you are eating a whole 'portion' (handful) of things like beans (haricot, red kidney beans, chick peas etc) then you would have to allow - but the only root veg I would count and jab for are parsnips.

There are carbs in eg cauli and broccoli, but they are so low you wouldn't need to count em unless you were eating eg a whole large cauli to yourself.  Fried onions you might have to count because when they go brown it's the sugar in the onion that actually goes brown,  But 14g carb for 100g weight of fried onions as opposed to 7g for raw/boiled.  That's A LOT of onions .....


----------



## trophywench (Jul 24, 2012)

PS when I'm basal testing, I eat nowt.  If you do it in 6-hour time blocks over several days, all you do is delay meals rather than completely miss them.


----------



## MaryPlain (Jul 24, 2012)

trophywench said:


> Yes.  It's true for me.
> 
> I mean the only way I could really tell I spose is to eat wholly vegetables with nowt else, which I never have, but if for instance I eat a big fat salad for my lunch I don't add anything for the carbs for that.  If you are eating a whole 'portion' (handful) of things like beans (haricot, red kidney beans, chick peas etc) then you would have to allow - but the only root veg I would count and jab for are parsnips.
> 
> There are carbs in eg cauli and broccoli, but they are so low you wouldn't need to count em unless you were eating eg a whole large cauli to yourself.  Fried onions you might have to count because when they go brown it's the sugar in the onion that actually goes brown,  But 14g carb for 100g weight of fried onions as opposed to 7g for raw/boiled.  That's A LOT of onions .....



I think the issue for me is that as a vegetarian, my vegetable portions are probably a bit more substantial. For example in a salad I would include half a grated carrot, half a red pepper, six cherry tomatoes as well as the usual leaves and cucumber.  With a hot dinner I aim for 3x 80g portions of veg such as carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, peas etc. Not much maybe, but it would certainly throw out any basal testing - even the milk in a cup of tea does that.

Not only that, but have you read this?

http://www.diabetesdaily.com/forum/articles-members/33081-effect-zero-carb-foods-blood-sugar

It explains and demonstrates very well I think that it's not only carbs which raise blood sugar.


----------



## everydayupsanddowns (Jul 24, 2012)

I think for me it's a matter of what else is going on in the meal. Most often I include some sort of readily absorbable carbs, so even something like carrot/peas/tomatoes etc I would more or less ignore. I also am not a scrupulous weigher and measurer any more. Mostly the whole quantity of the major carb (potatoes/rice/pasta) is weighed/measured, but then it's divided onto plates by eye which allows me to knock a bit off here and there if I feel like the misc extras are beginning to add up a bit. I can't count pulses for their full values either (excellent description of how the carbs in pulses are broken down lhere: http://www.healthcentral.com/cholesterol/c/7986/112680/carbohydrates) because they seem to be very slowly absorbed for me. Mostly I'll make an estimate of 'half carb value' which seems to work OK.

So yup - I pretty much ignore all veg all the time (victim perhaps of being Dx/introduced to it all at the time I was, when the only thing they told you to watch for veg-wiise (as TW says) was parsnips.


----------



## MaryPlain (Jul 24, 2012)

everydayupsanddowns said:


> I think for me it's a matter of what else is going on in the meal. Most often I include some sort of readily absorbable carbs, so even something like carrot/peas/tomatoes etc I would more or less ignore. I also am not a scrupulous weigher and measurer any more. Mostly the whole quantity of the major carb (potatoes/rice/pasta) is weighed/measured, but then it's divided onto plates by eye which allows me to knock a bit off here and there if I feel like the misc extras are beginning to add up a bit. I can't count pulses for their full values either (excellent description of how the carbs in pulses are broken down lhere: http://www.healthcentral.com/cholesterol/c/7986/112680/carbohydrates) because they seem to be very slowly absorbed for me. Mostly I'll make an estimate of 'half carb value' which seems to work OK.
> 
> So yup - I pretty much ignore all veg all the time (victim perhaps of being Dx/introduced to it all at the time I was, when the only thing they told you to watch for veg-wiise (as TW says) was parsnips.



That's interesting - I suppose what makes a big difference is that I don't normally eat the concentrated carbs such as bread, potatoes, pasta, rice etc.  A typical main course for me is around 30g total carbs so carrots, peas etc would make a difference in percentage terms.


----------



## trophywench (Jul 24, 2012)

Well I have this theory that people who low carb (and I don't, I still eat the same 80 - 110g carb a day I always have, give or take) start converting pritein and fat into glucose (well BG anyway!) whereas people who don't restrict carbs, bodies, don't routinely do that.

I've never seen anything that convinced me one way or the other on this, in theory every single g of carb ingested by my body ought to need Xu of Novorapid to dispose of it - but mine, doesn't .....


----------



## Otenba (Jul 30, 2012)

What's he like for vegetables? Could try a salad if other options don't appeal to him (be wary of added potato of course).  

I love a raw carrot stick myself - yum!


----------



## DeusXM (Jul 31, 2012)

> Well I have this theory that people who low carb (and I don't, I still eat the same 80 - 110g carb a day I always have, give or take) start converting pritein and fat into glucose (well BG anyway!) whereas people who don't restrict carbs, bodies, don't routinely do that.



It's not a theory, there's a process called gluconeogenesis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis

The important thing to note is the GNG forms glucose far more slowly than metabolising cabohydrates, but it can be done at pace that prevent BGs from dropping too low, which is why it may be a good option for T2s.

Incidentally, 110g of carbs a day is low carb, according to the Food Standards Agency. The FSA recommends 50% of your calorie intake should come from carbs, but 110g of carb is 440 cal. So unless you're only eating 880 carbs a day (ie starving yourself), technically you're low-carbing. If you were to eat 50% of your calories from carbs, you'd need between 250-320g of carbs a day, depending on your gender and activity level.


----------

