Planning Meals For Diabetics - New Developments

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Planning Meals for Diabetics

Last year, Ms Dinna Dayao suggested that the blog describe how I choose what to eat at each meal, especially outside the home. I beg your indulgence for not having responded to this earlier. But this will be the subject of today's article.

For the most part, selecting my meal is usually a simple matter, since many, indeed most viands are not that ridden with sugar. One has to be careful of certain foods, such as sweet and sour (pork), tocino or most longanizas, or the sugary the so-called "Pinoy spaghetti" (a term which I challenge, since the spaghetti I grew up with was not sugared or sweet). Rice is of course part of the meal, though I don't take too much of it, since eating excessive amounts also raises one's blood sugar levels.

For drinks, I avoid soft drinks, unless these are explicitly light, diet or sugar-free varieties, and specify this to others. Fruit juices, too, most of which are sugared, are also something to avoid, again unless these are explicitly sugar-free. Vegetables are welcome, while fruits are permitted in limited quantities (though I am partial to fruits which are not too sweet). Iced tea is similarly on the off-limits list, unless served from certain restaurants (which have been mentioned in our article on tea) in which light or sugar-free iced tea is served. Coffee is usually served without sugar, so this is allowable. I usually bring sweeteners with me to use instead of the sugar provided. Some restaurants provide house tea, and since this is unsweetened, I request for it. A popular brand of green tea, C2, has a sugar-free version (this is mentioned in our Tea article), and I drink this whenever it is available, since the antioxidants and phytochemicals in the product are good for health.

Desserts , including ice cream, are also something that I do without, again except in the rare times when sugar-free versions are available.

All in all, it's not too much trouble. Given the variety of dishes, and the presence of alternatives, it's generally a simple matter. When one has to make a choice, such as selecting a soft drink, I select a sugar-free drink for everyone, a choice now generally available for colas, to avoid confusion. The situation can improve in the future, and bring about more choices for diabetics, or dieters, if they patronize sugar-free alternatives, to which there are generally few objections, and order these for their companions. I welcome reactions on this from readers, and express gratitude to Ms. Dinna Dayao for her very helpful comments and suggestions.

New Developments

The next part of this article is on new developments on the sugar-free front. As readers will observe, there is an ever-greater variety of sugar-free products available, and two of them will be featured here.

One, a light or sugar-free version of the fermented milk drink Yakult, is something which I eagerly welcome, since I had gone without this source of intestinal microflora for a long time. The product, which is available in the distinctive 80-milliliter plastic bottles, is sold in many supermarkets, giving diabetics and dieters a healthy alternative.

Then, syrups (i.e., medicines) are now available in sugar-free form. I have seen sugar-free versions of the mucolytic Bisolvon (used for cough and colds), again providing a therapeutic alternative for diabetics.

On the negative side, though, many products, some of which have been mentioned in this blog, are now unavailable or difficult to find. This is true of most energy drinks (except for Extra Joss, for the powdered form of which is only available in the sugar-free form) and C2, for many brands of bread, and the few restaurants in which light versions of iced tea are available. Again, we urge diabetics and dieters to patronize products intended for them, and to provide them for their companions when in company. The profit motive is the most powerful one, and if diabetics exercise their choice, they will be provided with a greater variety of food and drink, and at a cheaper, or more reasonable price.

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A Piece of Cake

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Cakes in Language and Literature

In Dictionary of Proverbs [London: Brockhampton Press, 1995], one of the proverbs refers to cakes: "You can't have your cake and eat it," a saw that uses this food article to provide a broader lesson on life. Idioms referring to cake generally imply that cakes have a pleasant connotation (like other sweet things, as we have noted in previous articles). According to Betty Kirkpatrick's Book of Common Phrases (New Lanark, Scotland: Geddes and Grosstet, 2002), "a slice" or "share of the cake" means "a share of something desirable or valuable". Then, "cakes and ale" would signify a "pleasant or enjoyable activity," noting that this is from Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, Act 2, scene iii. The same reference notes that "a piece of cake" denotes "something easy to do."

Sugar-free Cakes

Just like other kinds of sweet food, there are also sugar-free versions of cakes. They were not first to become popular for this because commercially available cakes are geared to the majority of people, of whom diabetics are only a minority, and some sugar substitutes (among them aspartame) cannot be used for products that are subjected to prolonged heat (as in baking). An Internet survey discloses many sugar-free cakes, but most of these are not widely available, presumably because of the rather limited customer targets. But those products which I have come across will be included here.

Chocolat

From it's name, Chocolat specializes in chocolate-based products. Indeed, aside from cakes, it also sells tablea, cocoa "tablets" which are dissolved in hot water to produce a chocolate beverage (unfortunately, there is no sugar-free version of this). It carries several kinds of cakes, including several kinds of chocolate cake and others, such as Banana Walnut. The top of the line is Death by Tablea, although it has no sugar-free version. Their sugar-free cake is the Sugar-Free Chocolate Mousse, which can be bought either whole or in slices.

Goldilocks

This well-known bakery and restaurant chain, which also sells sugar-free mamon, as we have noted in a previous article, also has a sugar-free chocolate cake. This is sold in the form of slices, which are good for one serving.

Kooky Luscious

This bake shop has several cakes, including the Sugarfree Chocolate Dementia. This is available in several sizes, from the single-serving small version to larger versions.

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Indigenous Goodness

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Philippine "titbits, dainties, [and] sweetmeats" are known in Tagalog as "kakanin". These are called "koro [or] kakanon" in Bikol, "kalan-unon" in Hiligaynon and Cebuano, "kánkanén" in Ilocano, "kakanén" in Pangasinan, "makaon" in Cebuano, "karaunon" or "pagkaon" in Samar-Leyte or Waray [Panganiban, José Villa. Diksyunaryo-Tesauro Pilipino-Ingles. Quezon City: Manlapaz Publishing Co., 1972.] and "capangan" or "kapangan" in Kapampangan [Samson, Venancio Q. Kapampangan Dictionary. Center for Kapampangan Studies, Holy Angel University, 2011.]

Though not all of these are sweet, many of them are, so that Dr. Panganiban referred to them in his dictionary as "titbits, dainties, sweetmeats". 

They are attested to early in the Spanish period. Vocabulario de la lengua tagala, for instance, by Juan José de Noceda (1681-1747) and Pedro de Sanlucar, [Source] has an entry for "calamay". But indigenous kakanin would be joined by Hispanicized sweets during the centuries of Spanish colonization, and these, too, would be indigenized and considered as Filipino as earlier kakanins.

Despite the arrival of sweets introduced by the Americans and later innovations, indigenous and Filipinized sweetmeats would be favored by Filipino taste buds until the 21st century. As would be expected, sugar-free versions would also enter the picture, and we are featuring them here.

Sugar-free native Sweetmeats or Delicacies

"Mamon," defined in Vicassan's Pilipino-English Dictionary (Abridged Edition) [Manila:  Anvil, 2006] as "a kind of sponge-like cake or muffin," might be better placed in the company of Western style cakes and pastries. But it has been indigenized, carrying a Spanish-Filipino name, which would have risqué connotations in Spain, and it may be more appropriately included among native sweetmeats and tidbits.  In any case, Goldilocks, a restaurant and bakery, carries a sugar-free mamon.

"Polvoron," also of Spanish origin, is more widely available in sugar-free versions, with more manufacturers and greater variety. HOP (House of Polvoron) has many variants of its product, including a sugar-free version, "crisp rice powdered milk candies." It comes in 234-gram boxes, each containing 18 pieces of polvoron. The sweetener is stevia, a natural product taken from a plant. It is available in many malls and outlets.

Another sugar-free brand of polvoron is NutriVron. All varieties I have seen (I've only found them in SM's Kultura) carry the welcome label "no sugar added". It is available in a 120-gram box containing eight pieces. Flavors include malunggay polvoron, ampalaya polvoron, polvoron mango bits and polvoron pineapple bits. 

A sugar-free version of pastillas is also available. A Laguna-based producer carries products in various flavors, including banana, ube, almond, strawberry and buko pandan.

Clearly, native sweetmeats or delicacies have also caught up with the sugar-free trend. If they are patronized by diabetics and dieters, we can look forward to a greater variety of offerings, and a greater availability.

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All Gummed Up

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The Origin of Chewing Gum

The article of Encyclopedia Britannica on chewing gum defines it as the "sweetened product made from chicle and similar resilient substances and chewed for its flavour."  It observes that "Peoples of the Mediterranean have since antiquity chewed the sweet resin of the mastic tree...as a tooth cleanser and breath freshener, and that "New England colonists borrowed from the Indians the custom of chewing aromatic and astringent spruce resin for the same purposes. Similarly, for centuries inhabitants of the Yucatán Peninsula have chewed the latex, called chicle, of the sapodilla tree...an evergreen that flourishes in the rainforests of the region."

Chewing Gum as a Mass Commodity

The article continues that in the 19th century, chicle intended for the manufacture of rubber was instead sold in the form of small portions of flavourless chicle to drugstores "as an alternative to the sweetened paraffin that had itself outmoded the less-refined spruce resin for chewing."  Inventor Thomas "Adams patented his concoction in 1871, and, though the formula was not the first chewing gum patented in the United States, with the addition of various flavours it became the most popular." According to the article, "After World War II various waxes, plastics, and synthetic rubber virtually replaced chicle in chewing gum manufacture. Artificially sweetened chewing gum found a wide market in the United States in the late 20th century, while mint remained the favourite among a wide variety of flavours." - ["chewing gum." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite.  Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2014.]

Sugar-free chewing gum of course came later, after sugar substitutes were developed, popularized, and used for other products.

Sugar-free Chewing Gum

Today, several brands of sugar-free chewing gum are commonly sold locally in a variety of outlets, including supermarkets, drugstores (which have diversified and sell non-drug products, including many groceries and consumer goods) and convenience stores. Perhaps the most widespread may be Mentos, which might come in multicolored plastic packs weighing 27 grams, with flavors like winter green, spearmint, cooler lemonade and berry lime - all of them supposed to contain green tea. Mint-flavored Mentos gum drops also come in blister packs weighing 12 grams. . Mentos also comes in plastic jars weighing 52.5 grams.

On the other hand, Wrigley's Orbit chewing gum comes in plastic bags containing 18 pellets each. I have found two flavors, peppermint and sweet mint. The fact that it contains a sugar substitute is used as a selling point, not only to diabetics and dieters, but also as a solution to tooth decay: "For Healthy Teeth, After Eating, Chew Orbit" - a comforting thought for diabetics  and dieters, and for manufacturers of other sugar-free products.

A new Wrigley's product, Wrigley's Extra, comes in two packages. One of these is an 11-gram blister pack, each containing eight pieces, and comes in two flavors, sweetmint and peppermint. The other is a resealable 28-gram plastic pack, each containing about 21 pieces of gum, and also comes in sweetmint and peppermint.

Then, there is Project 7, which appears only in a limited number of outlets, such as in malls, and appears in flavors such as mint julep.

Another product also produced abroad but available locally is Starbucks Sugar-Free Chewing Gum, which is sold in Starbucks outlets.

All in all, just like candies, sugar-free gum products are not yet ubiquitous, but are becoming widespread. Like candies, they are usually associated with children, and this, coupled with the fact that most type 2 diabetics are adults, may be a factor. But the sales pitch that their use discourages tooth decay may widen their market, both among children and in general.

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Candy Man

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Candies are usually associated with children and childhood, and, by the time people reach adulthood, they would have "graduated" to something else.  That is perhaps one reason why they might seem awkwark candidates to be given sugar substitutes. But the ARE eaten by adults, too, and so this is a product category to fill.

“The library is like a candy store where everything is free,” writes American novelist Jamie. - [Source] If anything, his compatriot, poet Ogden Nash, is only more emphatic: “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” (Ogden Nash in Hard Lines). - [Source]

Candy,  perhaps even more than our other products, is sweet and associated with sugar, so that it would be the last thing to be associated with diabetics. That is perhaps the reason why candies are not among the major products associated with diabetics, and why such sugar-free products are not widely known. But given the attractiveness of sweet things, and the presence of sugar substitutes, sugar-free candies breaking into the market would only be a matter of time.

Sugar-free Candies

Which brings us to our products. Ricola Swiss-made sugar-free lozenges come in elderflowers, spearmint, blackcurrant,  lemon, lemon mint, eucalyptus, cranberry. The product available in the Philippines comes in 45-gram boxes. There is new, smaller packaging, a resealable envelope weighing 15 grams and containing six pieces.

Then, there is Fisherman's Friend lozenges. It comes in 25-gram packs, and sugar-free flavors include lemon, mint and cherry.

Also available locally are Wrigley's sugarfree mints which come in peppermint, spearmint and winter frost, and come in hinged aluminum boxes (the entire package weighing 23.8 grams), each containing 25 mints (a new pack, a plastic package, has 20 mints and weighs 12.4 grams).

Mentos sugarfree mints are packaged like Wrigley's mints, but come in larger boxes containing 50 mints (although the weight is not indicated), and come in two flavors, spearmint (with green tea extract) and peppermint, both with green tea extract. Smints are also in similar-sized aluminum boxes, in peppermint and spearmint.

A third brand of sugar-free candies, the menthol-flavored Bonlite, used to be common in certain convenience stores, but went out of stock in the past two years, leaving a blank which has not yet been filled.

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