You'll EAT it and you'll LIKE it!

[Fresser]

Mama Fresser tells me that during the Depression, cash-strapped mothers would scrape together whatever food they could find and serve it to their hungry kids. To wardoff any kvetching over that day's meal, mothers would admonish their little crumb-crunchers, "You'll eat it and you'll like it!"

Now Mama Fresser never employed this tactic with me, as I grew up in the '70's surrounded by an abundance of Mama's tasty cooking. But I have taken the eat-it-and-like-it motto to heart as I've adjusted to being diabetic.

Shortly after I started taking oral insulin, I suffered from hypoglycemia and the attendant diabetic shakes (think delirium tremens minus the alcohol). To combat this, my doctor suggested that I try eating oatmeal for breakfast to stabilize my blood sugars.

Now for someone who grew up eating breakfast cereal two or three times a day, I never liked oatmeal. To me, oatmeal resembled not so much a hot breakfast cereal as syrupy gruel. But I decided to make friends with the smiling, white-haired Quaker on the front of the box and took home a canister of oats.

My first bowl of oatmeal had the consistency of quick-drying cement. So I plunged in my spoon and stood it upright like Admiral Fresser conquering the North Oat Pole. "Yummy. Now what?" I thought as I reached for some ground cinnamon to spice up the barren tasteland that sat in front of me.

I soon discovered that oatmeal, like grits, is bland by itself by makes a nutritious base for other toppings. So I started chopping in bananas, pineapple and even sugar-free chocolate chip cookies to make a more savory cereal. Now oatmeal is my favorite breakfast food and a healthy one at that. But I never would have tried it had my doctor not told me to eat it.

Similarly, I've become the Happy Herbivore as I chomp on vegetables to satisfy my color and texture cravings. Pre-diabetes, I preferred fruits to the cruncy broccoli spear, but now I eat fruit in more modest amounts, diverting my attention instead to the Leafy Green Forest of my produce market. Vegetables have the same toothsome crunch and eye-appeal of fresh fruit, yet they are mostly sugar-free and thus are the perfect noshing food. If you had told me ten years ago that one day, I'd nuke an entire bag of frozen vegetables and happily wolf it down, I would have proclaimed you to be meshugee. But to control my blood sugars, I had to change the way I eat. So I figured out I might was well enjoy it.

This of course begs the question: if I now enjoy healthy foods out of necessity, do I dislike candy and other verboten foods? To a point, yes. The mere sight of a Boston kreme donut gives me the hives. Not so much because I dislike it, but because I know that if I DID eat it, I'd become sick immediately. So sweets present little-to-notemptation for me. And that's a good thing, given that Mama Fresser and I live right across the street from a Dunkin' Donuts.

I guess this is my diet's way of manifesting itself in a way that's more psychologically palatable, pardon the pun. In other words, if I have to eat it anyway, I might as well enjoy it.

[tsquare]

Read Gluten Free Girl (it's a blog, it's a book, maybe a tv show someday) and you can see how this can become a career.

[K8memphis]

I heartily applaud you with a standing O even.

Good and great for you.

I have fallen off the wagon lately so you are an inspiration.

I'll eat it but I wanna eat chips and chocolate and cookies instead

I can't eat the quick oats. I like the old fashioned stuff.

I cook it slowly so it doesn't glop, it stays in happy little oatsome circles.

I like it savory only cannot do sweet grains!

So I have bit of salt, a tid tad of Smart Balance (buttah) and toss in a few walnuts.

Top o' the mornin' to yah!

[BeeZee]

I think that a lot of adults had similar experience with foods that were supposed to be eaten "because they are good for you"...they were so poorly prepared (bland, plain, uninspired) that good for you = tasteless. In this month's Gourmet mag Ruth Reichl comments on how different it is to eat vegetarian now vs. then. As we all become more knowledgeable about how to properly prepare produce and other foods while retaining their "good for you" qualities, it becomes much easier to incorporate them into a healthier diet.

[mizducky]

Fresser, I totally identify with your tale. If someone had told me two years ago that I'd be chomping my way happily through celery hearts of my own volition, I too would have told 'em they were meshugah. Even as I upped my veggie intake, I thought celery would be the last holdout on my bad-old-diet-nightmare list. But I come to discover celery is quite yummy--IF you only munch on the hearts, and leave the big ol' lumber-like outer stalks for stock-making. Or for your neighborhood rabbit. In the bad-old-diet-nightmare days, I'd dutifully attempt to chow down on those outer stalks, which are about as much fun to eat as green-tinted styrofoam. No wonder I thought I loathed raw celery!

Mind you, I ate veggies willingly throughout my childhood. But in nowhere near the quantities I do now.

As for oatmeal, I tend to make savory porridge out of it too. In fact, I make it congee-style, using broth rather than water, and a lot more of the liquid than for standard cooked oatmeal; I also simmer it on low for at least an hour, so I wind up with a thick congee-like broth, which I then season just like congee (i.e. soy sauce, sesame oil, or a cube of fermented bean curd, or etc.).

[FabulousFoodBabe]

Miz Ducky: You da babe! No one wears a hat like you.

Oh, OT, sorry. Sheepish grin.

[MarketStEl]

My Oakland hosts have exposed me to Irish oatmeal, something I would recommend you check out, Fress.

It differs significantly from the American version in that its texture is more granular, sort of like very, very short-grain rice.

It takes just as well to the various embellishments.

My hosts buy the quick-cooking version of McCann's Irish Oatmeal (the back-of-the-box blurb reads something like: "We have kept the traditional Irish oatmeal you love, but use modern technology to bring it to you in a convenient, easy-to-prepare form." Or something like that.)

I imagine Whole Paycheck should carry it. (There is apparently a cheaper alternative in Oakland called Farmer Joe's.)

[markk]

This of course begs the question:  if I now enjoy healthy foods out of necessity, do I dislike candy and other verboten foods?  To a point, yes.  The mere sight of a Boston kreme donut gives me the hives.  Not so much because I dislike it, but because I know that if I DID eat it, I'd become sick immediately.  So sweets present little-to-notemptation for me. 

I'm like that too - it's a kindness that our minds have done us.

In my own case, since cholesterol (and to a smaller extent sugar) is the enemy, I've realized that I do love fish and seafood and the many hearty things you can do with it and olive oil. And whereas I used to eat thick, fatty rib steaks several times a week (with butter, no less) I'm lucky in that I now look at them and see the enemy. Oh, part of me would love to bite in to one, and many other parts of me are repulsed by it, so I don't do it. I thank my mind for adapting like this, I really do.

And there are so many times when I'd normally have had a couple of hot dogs or some other high-fat, high-cholesterol snack that now I just couldn't enjoy it. I come close, some times even driving by the hot dog cart, but the part of me that knows why I shouldn't makes me not want to.

[annarborfoodie]

I was brought up to not like vegetables - influenced by the fact that my father refused to eat them, and my mother steamed really stinky broccoli in the microwave every night.

In recent years, I have really tried to up my vegetable intake. My new thing is to take a recipe that serves four, cut the protein (and starch if applicable) quantity in half, and add a few handfuls of veggies in its place. That way I have enough sauce to put over the veggies and make them a little more palatable.

[K8memphis]

I was a fairly good girl yesterday. I had a small head of cauliflower for supper with some cheese on it. No chocolate allll day.

Which for me & my issues, carbs beget carbs. If I eat the wrong carbs, it triggers me to crave more carbs which then the carbmonster stores food after that and doesn't burn it off.

And I am going to be much much much more careful with my holiday eating spree/binge this year. I relaxed too much for Christmas & Thanksgiving and I am an all or nothing type person. So it just set my weight gain in motion which messes up my health and I really haven't taken good control of it since then. Wanted to but not wanted to enough y'know?

So this thread is helping me. A lot.

This of course begs the question:  if I now enjoy healthy foods out of necessity, do I dislike candy and other verboten foods?  To a point, yes.  The mere sight of a Boston kreme donut gives me the hives.  Not so much because I dislike it, but because I know that if I DID eat it, I'd become sick immediately.  So sweets present little-to-notemptation for me. 

I'm like that too - it's a kindness that our minds have done us...

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Apparently my mind is not so kind.

I mean I love vegetables. But I love chocolate and chips more but they don't love me. I don't get sick enough when I eat the wrong foods so they are still a temptation for moi.

I mean yesterday I made a load of pizzas for my husband's office for lunch and I did not take one bite! Oh what a good girl was I!!!!

Edited April 10, 2007 by K8memphis (log)

[Fresser]

Which for me & my issues, carbs beget carbs. If I eat the wrong carbs, it triggers me to crave more carbs which then the carbmonster stores food after that and doesn't burn it off.

So this thread is helping me. A lot.

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Glad I could help, Kate!

You need to follow the glycemic index. Some carbohydrates are absorbed MUCH more slowly into the bloodstream than others, and thus don't cause the glucose spike that you've been experiencing.

[LindsayAnn]

One veggie I love (notice I say, ONE, haha) that I think is so satisfying is the wonderful artichoke...

I love em plain just steamed whole or even with a lil dippin sauce, especially the not to healthful hollandais scauce....mmmmm

When I want to make them quick last minute type mode I just cut off the stem, place in a microwavable container with a lil water in the bottom (only about 1/3 inch, jsut covering the bottom of the choke) and cover with saran-wrap - microwave for about 10-16 mins - depends on the size of the artichoke....take out, remove saran wrap (carefully, steam burns like a b*^%h, and dump out water....salt and eat - YUMMY and theres lots of good for you fiber and vitamins