BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Low Carb Processed Food

I would really recommend anyone who considers cooking with rice to seek out other alternatives - chopped up cauliflower does an AWESOME job. Rice isn't just a medium carb food - it is extremely high carb with little nutritional value. It is what hard working farmers eat because it is so high in calories, it helps them survive their day.

In fact what most people in the US eat is white rice which is not only super high in carbs but has been "polished" to be white, meaning all the nutrition was polished off Then some fake vitamins are sometimes added back in.

If you must eat rice, go for wild rice in its natural state, which retains the nutrition, the fiber, and is naturally much better for you.

Here's my article on healthy rice!

Healthy Rice Options

Rice is so hard for me to eliminate from my diet. As a Japanese child, cooking rice was my daily chore!

But I am diabetic and it is bad news for my blood sugar and weight.

I will try the cauliflower substitute.

But maybe if I add a lot of fiber to the meal, the rice will slow down its conversion to sugar! Will it?

I will always highly recommend eating a lot of fiber and eating slowly in small portions so that your food digests slowly. This is critical no matter what your eating style or aims. You want your food to digest well, for your blood sugar levels to stay even and for your body to "recognize fullness" properly. So yes definitely, no matter what you eat, and no matter what diet you follow, you should eat slowly, watch for signs of fullness and eat a lot of fiber / drink a lot of water with your meal. Eat mindfully!

Since starting lo carb the only canned food I eat is canned tomatos...There are so many varieties that make your food interesting.. I mix the fire roasted ones with brownedground beef cabbage and onion then put it in a casserole sprinkle with grated fresh romano ( I like it better tan parmesan), bake it for around 3-45 min...and mmmmmm. The other processed item I buy is chicken soup base. I use it when I don't have enough of my own home made chicken stock. I do like to buy my brussel sprouts in those individual frozen bags. I'm the only one here and sometimes veggies get forgotten unless I plan to make soup every week, which I don't.

Yes veggies are really key to being healthy! I'm an active proponent of those steamer freezer bags. The veggies cook up quickly, the steaming keeps their vitamins intact and they are very flavorful!

That is so great that you make your own chicken stock! We only do that rarely - most of the time we used the canned version too.

At the market where I get my chicken breasts, when I get 10 lbs they bone them for me..so I take the bones and cook them off. Makes about 2 1/2 qts of stock.

That is really nice of them! We just get them pre-packaged, maybe we should talk with them about doing larger volume and getting the bones too!

This is the farmers market I go to.....they are real nice there.

If you have a meat market, butcher, or packing house, you can ask for special services like this. We do this with one of our local butchers. He makes us up chicken parts packages that we use for soups, stews, chicekn salad and such. It is the trimming meat when they do thighs, breasts and so forth. Then he also packs up 20-40 boxes of bones that we buy as well to make our stock. The same can be done of beef.

My hinderance in eating more fresh or even healthier....my husband. He doesn't like vegies other then corn on the cob and green beans and once in awhile asperagus. That's it. Oh and mashed or baked potatoes. He doesn't like white meat chicken, only dark meat. I am not sure how to cook most fish even if I did I don't think he would eat it any other way but friend. When we first started dating, the man only ate sausage patties, pre-flattened hamburger patties from the freezer section, cans of tuna, and peanut butter and jelly. That's it and I am serious! Now we have spaghetti at least once a week. I tried making wheat pasta. I got away with it 3 time til he saw the package in the garbage then went on and on about how he knew something tasted different and it was nasty. I tried switching to low fat miracle whip. I got away with that for awhile too until he saw the package. He only likes bananas and pineapple for fruit. And he will eat vanilla yogurt. It is frustrating. And most of the time i don't have the energy to fix 2 different meals or do the dishes after he is done and I am done.