Number 80; March 1, 2005

Crystal Mill, Colorado
Photo by Sam Toscano

This newsletter keeps you up-to-date with new articles, Web pages, and books that I have written about diabetes.

• I list and link most of these on my at Diabetes Directory and in the site’s menu.

• From time to time Diabetes Update may also include links to other Web pages of special interest.

My recent contributions are:

• Birds for Better Blood Glucose Testing
  I had a lot of fun writing the fanciful headline for this article. But the subject of the article, the work being done by Pelikan Technologies in Palo Alto, California, is both serious and extremely promising.

  This company has developed the electronically-controlled Pelikan Sun lancing system, which we would usually spell as Pelican in English. That’s one of the birds. The other bird is their acquisition, Albatros(s), which developed the GlucoSens blood glucose meter. Together these two companies have developed a promising combination.

A recent contribution by someone else is:

• Paying Attention To Our Bodies
  I didn’t know Cherie Burbach until she wrote me. Like me, Cherie is a writer who has diabetes and who has written about her experience with it. So when she offered to let me host her story, I didn’t hesitate a moment. You can read it at http://www.mendosa.com/cherie.htm.

Research Notes:

• Drugs That May Affect Blood Glucose Levels
  One of the questions I get the most often is about drugs that affect blood glucose levels. Some drugs can cause hypoglycemia and others cause hyperglycemia. Others have an effect, although less severe.

  Stephen Freed’s appendix in Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution is what I turn to most often to answer that question. But even though I have written for print for more than half a century, I am now more of an Internet person. So I asked Stephen if I could host his list on my site. His reply was even better. Stephen now host the list on his Diabetes in Control.com site. It’s better because he can keep it up-to-date there. The list is a PDF at Drugs That May Affect Blood Glucose Levels.

• Acidic Foods
  A subscriber asked me a good question about the update last month to my article on Acidic Foods,
  Just read your vinegar piece. If lemons work as well, why not make a tri-daily glass of lemonade with a squeezed 1/4 or 1/2 lemon, a bit of Splenda, and water? Would that work as well as the thrice a day salad with vinaigrette?
  Since I didn’t know what to reply, I asked Dr. Carol S. Johnston. She is a professor of nutrition at Arizona State University in Mesa, Arizona, and the lead author of research reported in Diabetes Care that confirms vinegar can reduce blood glucose and may also help us to lose weight. She replied:
  I don’t believe that lemon juice would work as well as vinegar, since it is not rich in acetic acid. It’s the acetic acid — not the ‘acid’ — that is likely the active ingredient. But I have not tested lemon juice so I cannot know for sure. Many who have emailed me consume a lemon juice-vinegar drink (combined) — but the efficacy of the lemon juice (I believe) is unknown.

Book Review:

A Cookbook to Forget


• Slow Cooking
  When a publicist wrote me in February about a “new book [that] gives people with diabetes 550 slow cooker recipes to create with ease,” I jumped at the chance, in part because I have recently got back into cooking with a Crock-Pot.

  Our usual breakfast is McCann’s steel-cut Irish oatmeal. Marian Burros, the food critic for The New York Times, reviewed oatmeals on January 5 and rated McCann’s tops. I love this breakfast. But it took too much time to prepare. Standing at the stove and stirring for almost 30 minutes was too much.

  Times reader Alan Bressler of Billings, Montana, came to our rescue with his letter of January 12 with a simple but brilliant suggestion. He wrote:

  We, too, like McCann’s steel-cut Irish oatmeal. Our simple preparation is to mix all ingredients the night before in a small crockpot. Use a timer on the outlet and cook for four hours before eating time. The results are fantastic, and the oatmeal is waiting as you enter the kitchen in the morning.
  We bought a little timer right away. Initially, the results weren’t good. Our 3.5-quart Crock-Pot was too big for a two-person serving of oatmeal. So be bought a 1.5-quart Crock-Pot, and indeed the results were fantastic. I even wrote Alan a thank you letter.

  Simply, grease the bottom inch or two of the Crock-Pot with a teaspoon of butter (recommended by the Crock Pot book, but actually optional). Dump in 1/2 cup McCann’s steel-cut Irish oatmeal, 2 cups water, some raisins or any other dried fruit, and a pinch of salt. In the morning serve with sweetener, cinnamon, and milk, half and half, or soymilk. There’s no better breakfast.

  There are, however, better slow cooker cookbooks than the one I just got, Fix-It and Forget-It Diabetic Cookbook, by Phyllis Pellman Good with American Diabetes Association (Good Books, Intercourse, Pennsylvania, 2005, 284 pages, $15.95). This cookbook has a large collection of recipes from contributors. None of them look particularly tempting. It is the quality not the quantity of cookbook recipes that counts. Neither does the book offer any slow cooker tips, like how to convert recipes that weren’t prepared with the slow cooker in mind.

  A slow cooker cookbook is certainly a good idea. But there are several excellent ones like those offered at Amazon.com. The Web also has several excellent sites on the subject.

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© Copyright 2005 David Mendosa. All Rights Reserved.

David Mendosa
A Writer on the Web: www.mendosa.com
E-mail: mendosa@mendosa.com

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