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help with snacks ideas

8K views 44 replies 10 participants last post by  Shanny 
Beef sticks like slim jims are easy to have around . . . cheese & nuts are a mainstay at my house too . . . I bake the cheese into crispy little "chips" & even use them with dips like ranch/bleu cheese/guacamole. This thread has lots of comments on how a lot of us do them. I keep a bowl of raw almonds on the table & other roasted nuts handy - you have to watch out for the smoked or seasoned ones which can have sugar in the seasoning mix, but plain dry roast nuts are a good choice.

Other excellent zero-or-low carb choices I keep in the fridge a lot of the time are hot wings, hard-cooked eggs, deviled eggs & cheese sticks. You can make the hot wings by just baking or frying the wings until the skin is good & crisp (no breading allowed), then dousing them with your hot sauce of choice - I use Crystal or Frank's hot sauce (good luck keeping the rest of the family away from your "stash" ;)).
 
I think I'd stop trying to get veggies down him and concentrate my efforts on finding high protein finger foods that he can grab quickly. I rarely eat veggies as snacks, but I graze constantly on high protein goodies.

Take some thin slices of ham or roast beef, spread on some cream cheese & make a plateful of rollups. His cholesterol will be dropping since his diet is low-carb now, so cheese isn't going to hurt him. Just make sure to get natural full-fat cheeses so they aren't adulterated with processed carbs. If he's good about eggs, make a plateful of deviled eggs - they're one of my all time favorites, and again, use full fat mayonnaise to keep the carb content low. Some people pulverize veggies to add to their deviled eggs, but I like mine "straight" - just egg, mayo, mustard, vinegar, salt & pepper.

He may not want to mess with hot wings for snacks, because despite being a perfect zero-carb food, they're messy to eat. But a big plate of hot wings in the fridge keeps me honest for days, and they're just as good cold as they are hot. Plus if he likes to use dip with 'em, a nice thick bleu cheese dip is very diabetes-friendly.

He's a meat and potatoes man all the way. We've been married 47 yrs. and I never realized until he was diagnosed, just how picky he is. When I make vegetable beef soup, he eats one bowl, then refuses to eat it again for months, and it isn't because the soup tastes bad, he doesn't like anyone's veggie soup. Maybe I'll look for some creamed soup recipes with hidden veggies in it, if there is any such animal.

I use 5 net carbs per slice bread, but he only allows himself one sandwich per day. Most days it is hard to get 30 carbs down him, so I have been encouraging him to eat 2 sandwiches per day, and he refuses, so I know he won't go for the mini sandwiches. He is afraid he'll get too many carbs, even though I am counting.

I haven't tried the deli meat wrapped around cheese yet, and don't hold out much hope for that because his cholesterol was high so he refuses to eat much cheese, but I'll give it a try. I have never made lettuce wraps, so I looked on the web and the recipes I found have chicken, beef or sausage in them, so I guess they are served hot. I have recipes that combine meat and veggies that he will eat, I was hoping to find something he could eat cold from the fridge as a snack, but he's so picky I guess that will be impossible.
 
Peanuts & peanut butter are good go-to snacks for us - they might be a little carbier (4 net carbs in 1 oz) than some other nuts (2 net carbs in 1 oz of almonds), but still very beneficial for diabetics. I eat natural peanut butter on a spoon. Where did you find that peanuts are a no-no?
 
I thought hot wings were made with BBQ sauce, so had carbs & sugar. I have never made them. Do you make them yourself or buy ready-made? He likes hot wings if they're not too spicy.
Hot wings are made with hot sauce. Don't buy them ready-made - those might even have breading which is unacceptable.

Raw chicken wings are cheap, especially if you wait for a sale. Fry them or bake them until the skin is crisp, then douse with the hot sauce of your choice. I use Franks or Crystal, but there are others. Even tabasco would work. And you can mix the hot sauce with melted butter or coconut oil before you coat the chicken too . . . that will tone down the spiciness.
 
Looking outside the traditional meal items helps too. If I have hot wings in the fridge, I might eat those for breakfast, or if I have leftovers from dinner, I might be having a pork chop or a nice hunk of beef steak for breakfast. Today I had a handful of almonds & a WASA rye cracker spread with coconut oil, plus my 16-oz mug of coffee with heavy cream. Anything goes for any meal of the day - if you like it, eat it whenever you want. The carb count is the thing - not which meal it's for.

btw, if you're trying to work in coconut oil to your way-of-eating, it's a perfect replacement for butter, only you need about half as much . . . and if you're used to salted butter, just salt the coconut oil. I had a small jar of it from when I was just trying it out, so after I began buying the big tubs of it, I added a little salt to about a cupful of coconut oil & blended it well . . . labeled the small jar as SALTED, & now it lives right beside the butter dish.
 
Hey Rosie? Before all our applecarts got upended, did you ever have breakfast for dinner? That's always been a treat in our family when we'd make up a batch of waffles/pancakes/French toast with all the fixin's and eat it for the evening meal. So I guess I was leaning more toward swapping out meals even before D.
 
I wonder if Trader Joe's or Whole Foods might carry sugar/free bacon? We use low-sodium bacon, and never have a problem. I'll have to check the label. But I've never been in either of those markets, so can't say. (Perish the thought that I might ever GET to go to one - I may go in & never return, having heard about all the wonderful stuff they have!)
 
FDA allows a variance of 20% EITHER way, so if you record 100, then technically the true level could be anywhere from 80 to 120. I think if you're using the same meter all the time & it's consistent with itself, it can give us all the information we need.

Whenever you go for lab tests, take your meter along and test at the same moment the tech draws blood. If your meter comes within a few points - even 10 or 15 - of the lab results, that's prob'ly close enough. You aren't on insulin, and aren't running the risk of crashing lows, so let it be one less thing to worry about. A lot of us are pretty obsessive about this, but we have to accept our meters for what they are - not scientifically accurate.
 
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