Diabetics, Don't Fear the Foreign

Being a diabetic in the US is becoming more and more common. It's not surprising that the once rare disease is now as American as apple pie, the US is a carb-a-licious country. With our love of breakfast cereals, snack cakes, chips, and soda, it should have surprised no one that we are in the world's top nations for diabetes rates. Rates that are growing every year. Strolling through any national chain grocery store in the US and you will enter a world of carbs, carbs, carbs. In fact, finding something to eat that isn't carb, sugar, or salt laden, can be quite a feat in some stores.

I recently took a day trip to Portland, Oregon, stopped by a local Safeway store to pick up a little something for a picnic lunch, and was shocked by the lack of healthy options I had. I really had to search for something I could eat. Deli salads were drenched in chips, croutons, and sugary salad dressings. Cheese and meat snack packs were caked in salt. Hot deli chicken was battered in carbs. There was almost nothing ready made that I could eat! I ended up resorting to grabbing a bag of pre-chopped greens from the produce section and a foil packet of tuna from the canned food aisle, the deli had nothing for me.

Shopping in a standard American grocery store might be a bit depressing for a diabetic, but not every grocery is that way. In fact, some can be a secret treasure trove of tasty options! Out side North America, in the great big beautiful world there is a wide variety of food cultures, and not all of them are as carb-a-licious as the US. In fact, some are just naturally quite healthy. Just because these food cultures are from far flung countries doesn't mean that the food is unavailable in the US. If you are willing to be a bit adventurous in your shopping, there could be all sorts of unique and healthy flavors right around the corner. I'm talking about international stores. Most medium to large cities have at least a few international grocery stores. Once you start looking for them in your community, you might be surprised by how many there is. Just down your street there might be a panaderia (Hispanic bakery) quietly tucked away near down town might be a little pyun-uijum (Korean convenience store) hidden in the suburbs might be a jolly delikatessen (German deli) for you to stroll. And in all of these special stores you will find a vast array of options that can be lower in carbs, sugar, or salt compared to their North American counter parts.

Here are some healthy and tasty options to keep your eyes open for!

Tofu Knots!

In the vegetarian world, tofu and tofu sheets have been eaten and loved for decades. Tofu sheets are made by cooking soy milk, skimming off thickened layers of the milk, and then drying them. This process results in a high protein, low carb, chewy, pasta like food. The sheets are fine enough to use, but one thing that brings these plain pasta like sheets to the next level of tastiness, is knots! Yes, these sheets are available tied into knots and then dried. They are available in bags that can stay in your pantry just like dried pasta and noodles. These tofu knots taste just like dried tortellini when cooked in sauce! So tasty! And best of all, they have a small fraction of the carbs that standard pasta would have and much, much more protein. The one little down side is that you do need to soak them for a while before cooking, so you do need to plan ahead of time before using them. These wonderful pasta replacements are available in most Asian grocery stores. They are very common in traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cooking and go by many names. Tofu sheets, tofu skins, bean curd sheets, ect. Just look through the dried noodle aisle at your local Asian market and they should be there.

Delbe Protein Bread!

You might think that now that you are dealing with diabetes that bread is completely off the table for you, and you are not wrong in thinking that bread tends to be a high carb food that you should try to avoid. Though not all bread is high in carbs. In the chilly northern countries of Scandinavia bread isn't so light and fluffy, their much more hearty bread is filled with tasty seeds and nuts and made from whole grains like barley and rye. What it's not filled with is carbs! Let me introduce you to the tasty protein bread made by Delba! If you love crunchy toast, than you are going to love this. Thin, crunchy, and full of flavor, this high protein bread is great toasted with a little bit of cream cheese. Being a European company you can find packages of Delbe protein bread in most Slavic, Scandinavian, Eastern European, or European grocery stores. Though this is called bread, it often wont be in the bakery department, but instead in the cracker aisle. At least that's the case at my local German grocery where I buy mine. You might be able to tell from the photo above, but this bread freezes wonderfully, so it's great to stock up. One down side to this bread is it does tend to be a bit pricey.

Wasa Crisp Bread (giant crackers)!

Love crackers with your soup, but don't love the heaping helping of carbs and salt that come with them? Why not try some Wasa "crisp bread" crackers from Sweden? These light and crispy crackers taste very similar to saltines, but about as big as a graham cracker sheet. Not only are these crackers (I don't know why they call them bread on the label) are light on salt, they are very light on carbs at about 5g per giant cracker. Best of all, they come in a variety of flavors. My favorite flavor is the light rye. One word of caution, this company makes light crackers and not light crackers. The not light crackers have the same amount of carbs as a standard North American cracker, so make sure you read the label and are getting the low carb version. These tasty crackers can be found in most European grocery stores, and even better, some American grocery stores are starting to carry them too!