Jimmy's quickie breakfast

[JimJimJimJim]

People with diabetes, or people at risk of diabetes should eat meals with a balance of:

• high quality protein;
  
• fat; and
  
• carbohydrate.
  

The same amount of calories should come from each area.

The traditional 'healthy breakfast' of cereal or muesli and a banana he describes as 'a killer', presumably because it has a large amount of carbohydrate and little or no high quality protein, and little or no fat.

So my quickie, balanced breakfast is:

• protein: a protein 'shake';
  
• fat: a handful of nuts;
  
• carbohydrate: low GI fruit - I like a bunch of grapes at the moment.
  

For the protein 'shake' I use Whey Protein Isolate. I got the Tony Sfeir's Naturel Whey Protein Isolate at the Mt Ommaney Health food store. It is expensive (about $2 per day). I bought a small container to see if it worked for me, then a much larger, more economical container. When I bought the larger container, I nearly made a mistake and bought an almost identical container with chocolate flavouring, etc. Look for the 'all natural' sticker.

Snuffy says whey protein isolate is the best form of pure protein. He says to look for cross-flow ultra and micro filtration, which preserves the protein quality. Other processes using heat denature the protein. He advises 20 -30 grams for breakfast - 5 or 6 teaspoons. I saw several recipes for making it pleasant to drink, and tried one. But in the end, I just mix it into half a glass of water and gulp it down - just tastes like watery milk. Especially easy if powdered milk has been a part of your distant past!

If you are not familiar with whey (as in 'curds and whey') fresh milk is mixed with junket (a digestive agent) and it separates into lumps (curds) and whey (the milky liquid). The curds are wrapped in cloth, and left to mature. You have probably very familiar with matured curds. It is cheese.

For the nuts, I follow Snuffy's recommendations - Almonds (with skin, rather raw than roasted), cashews, macadamia, and pistaccios. He also recommends hazelnuts, but I have not tried them lately. He says to avoid peanuts, walnuts and pecans. I try keep a variety on hand, but the macadamia nuts and cashews always disappear fastest.

Fruits with low-GI values include: apples, blackberries, cherries, grapes, lemons, oranges, peaches, pears, raspberries and strawberries. You can eat plenty of these.

High-GI fruit includes: cantaloupe, dates, honeydew melon, raisins and water melon. Limit your intake of these (but you don't need to avoid them completely).

Other fruits are intermediate-GI foods.

(Low-GI means good for diabetics or for delaying or preventing diabetes.)

For the rest of the day I have my protein cooked, and more normal meals.

I eat lots of fish (particularly salmon) and other seafood.

White meat I eat turkey breast and chicken breast.

The only red meat I eat is kangaroo.

[Guest Allan Killips]

Thanks Jim i have printed this out,was good to have a chat on this topic,all the best Allan