Diabetics discover mayonnaise can’t go with everything

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For someone just diagnosed with diabetes, the supermarket can be an uncharted jungle of potentially dangerous food and drink.

That is why the Bermuda Diabetes Association has begun offering special supermarket tours for people with diabetes and those who are pre-diabetic, and their caregivers.

Sarah McKittrick, the association’s clinical dietitian and diabetes officer, will lead six of the tours at Lindo’s over the coming weeks.

“I’ve had clients say that the first time they went to the store after seeing the dietitian they were there for two hours, unsure of what to buy,” she said. “I tell people that it will get easier once you know the products you are looking at. We are trying to show them how to fit healthy eating into their day. We talk about how to shop to get the most not just economically but the most nutritionally so we can be making good nutrition choices.”

She aims to teach people about which convenience foods might be more economical some people might think it is better to buy a range of vegetables rather than an expensive bag of prepared salad mix.

“If you use a bag of pre-cut lettuce or prepared salad mix and eat the whole thing for dinner and lunch the next day it might actually be more savings than buying five or six different types of vegetables which then rot because you don’t use all of them.”

She will encourage participants to plan meals and healthy snacks rather than impulse buy.

Ms McKittrick stressed her aim is not to put people on a diet but to make them think about putting more vegetables, fruits and whole grains into their diet.

One difficult meal during the day can be breakfast, because many breakfast cereals are low in fibre and high in sugar. Ms McKittrick said oatmeal is a great breakfast food if you avoid flavoured oatmeal offerings full of preservatives, and sugar.

“We look at cereals that claim to be whole grain or high fibre,” she said. “We look at the amount of dietary fibre they have and give people guidelines. A healthy box of cereal will have less than six grams of sugar and more than three grams of fibre per serving. If you find a favourite cereal and it meets the recommended amount of sugar, but is low in fibre, you can always mix your favourite cereal with another high-fibre cereal such as Kellogg’s Bran Flakes. That way you will get the right amount of fibre. You don’t want to make healthy eating boring, but you want people to enjoy their food.”

One weakness that many Bermudians have is mayonnaise. One person recently confessed to The Royal Gazette to putting as much as three tablespoons on a hamburger, and mixing it with other high-fat foods such as macaroni and cheese and peas and rice. Ms McKittrick recommended one teaspoon of mayonnaise, at the most, on a sandwich. She said reducing your mayonnaise use could save you thousands of calories per year.

“I am an advocate of using the lighter version of mayonnaise,” she said. “If you go to a fat-free product they have taken out all the fat but you are not sure what they have replaced it with. My strategy for a lot of people would be to try the light mayonnaise which is the watered down version of it. In regular mayonnaise the first ingredient is usually canola oil or soybean oil, in light mayonnaise the first ingredient is water. People either have to go with the real mayonnaise and eat less of it which is harder to do or look for a light version where you are naturally reduced in calories and fat.

“When you are making a sandwich try putting the mayonnaise only on one side of the sandwich and maybe put mustard on the other side. You should only need one swipe of the knife across the bread. Your knife shouldn’t be able to dance in the mayonnaise.”

The tour programme is funded by the Partner Re Women’s Walk.

“If we can run six classes that is the opportunity for 60 women to be helped,” Ms McKittrick said. “We are trying not to call it a ‘women’s-only’ thing, but in reality, most women are responsible for grocery shopping in the family.”

She added that if someone was diagnosed with diabetes it was a good idea for the entire family to adopt healthy eating practices, rather than making up a separate healthy meal for the diabetic.

The next free tour will be on May 31 at 2pm at Lindo’s in Devonshire. Tours are limited to ten people. To reserve a space call 297-8427.

Useful website: www.diabetes.bm.

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