TMI

Today campers we're going to talk about your Pancreas. We are going to do this is in whispered tones because your pancreas is an unreasonable bitch and if she hears us and gets mad, which is her only emotional note, there will be hell to pay! The pancreas produces insulin. Insulin is a fat maker of a hormone which is one of the reasons diabetics (that be me) have such a hard time losing weight. Either Madame Pancreas doesn't produce any insulin and we get fat because we can't process our food properly. Or she produces too much and we can't process it and we get fat because we can't process it.

Here's how it works. Let's say your blood sugar gets too low. Missy P wakes from her beauty rest, fires off a bunch of signals saying eat, eat eat. The message isn't eat lean meat or anything healthy. It's eat startchy tasty poison. Candy, chips, potatoes. Anything with a high sugar load will do because she's trying to raise your blood sugar to keep you from going into a coma or in less dramatic circumstances, to make sure you have enough energy to do whatever boring thing you're about to do. For a diabetic, this triggers a huge blood sugar spike and MP may or may not deliver insulin and you may or may not be able to process it so you end up with a hugely high blood sugar number and spend the rest of the day eating more and more and more trying to feel better. Nothing will work. You'll gain weight and the next day you'll have an insulin hangover that's very much like a more common type of hangover. Most if you, if you're honest will understand what I'm talking about because you've experienced the following. You have a glass or three of wine with dinner. You're full but the next thing you know you're face down in a bowl of chips looking for the salsa. Alcohol depresses your blood sugar which makes you want to eat even when you're full. So if you're trying to lose weight, and you're drinking, its like saying I want to run a marathon then cutting your feet off. Extremely self defeating. Do you have to give up booze? Probably not, but pay attention. If you can have one glass of wine and not feel like eating a water buffalo, great. If not, you're a grown up you decide. Just don't bitch when you eat nothing but salads all week then binge and have a bottle of wine over the weekend and show up at work on Monday 2 steps behind where you left off on Friday! If you wake your pancreas up, you will get and stay fat. Keeping her asleep is the only way this can work. So pay attention!

So what's a girl to do? Well, part of why the whole carb obcessiveness going on in America right now is spot on. High carb, Highly refined carbs at that tend to wake your pancreas up and cause the whole insulin triggering. But all carbs aren't created equally and there are two numbers you need to know. Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load. The GI is how much a food affects your blood sugar and the GL is how much you can have of it before that bitchy pancreas decides she's had enough of you and your annoying self. Green peas are a pretty good example, as are most beans for that matter. Most have low GI, so even on a low carb diet they are good things (especially if you're a vegetarian, where you gonna go for cheap protein if beans are now taboo?) but they have a high GL. You can eat them, you just can't sit down and scarf up a dinner plate of beans and think you've cheated the system. Oddly this is part of the problem with Chinese Food too and how you're super hungry an hour after you eat. It's two things. Almost all chinese sauces are loaded with sugar AND you're probably putting it over a copious amount of high GI rice or some o- and despite what you read, from a blood sugar issue, brown is just as bad as white - or some other evil grain. So you have this nice plate of moo shu wraped in grain based wraps and a side of fried rice, tsk tsk tsk, in an hour you're gonna want a Big Mac and fries and after another hour a Supreme pan pizza and so on and so forth until you fall into a food stupor and go to bed.

BUT I CAN'T LIVE WITH OUT GRAINS. And now I'm going to give you the solution. Enter the beautiful, wonderful, complete protein, low GI, low GL seed, Quinoa, that works like a grain, has a neutral taste, is cheap and easy to cook and you can use in place of all grains even for your breakfast porridge. What a wonderful thing! You still get that toothy mouth happy sensation of eating grains without all the nasty side effects. Try it you'll like it!

Today I'm going to be generous and give your two recipes. One, obviously a quinoa recipe because it's not fair to talk about it and not give you something to try and two, because I made a fantastic batch of low GI gluten free pancakes this morning that I want you to try so you'll stop thinking of wheat flour as your go to baking flour!

Quinoa Black Bean Salad
1 cup Quinoa, double rinsed, cooked like rice. Boiled in 2 cups of water, reduced heat, simmer for 15 minutes
2 cans black beans, rinsed. Pay attention to bean labels. If they have fat in them in all likelihood they've used lard to flavor them. Or 1 cup dry beans, soaked and cooked like you normally do
1 softball sized juicy wonderful summer tomato
1/2 bunch cilantro, rinsed and minced.

Combine all of the above (and if you want you can add a can of corn but this raises the GI level pretty quickly) And while the quinoa is hot, add the dressing
Dressing
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 TB water
1 tbs each, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder
Dash of red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste.

Serves 10 -12. Great to take to a summer picnic because there's no mayo in it!

Buckwheat Pancakes
Buckwheat is actually a huge misnomer as Bucks (or more aptly, groats) aren't wheat at all, they are a vegetable that is first cousin to rhubarb of all things! Its gluten free and has a nice low GI
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 sorghum flour (a very low GI flour that's also gluten free)
2 cups buttermilk
3 TB melted butter
1/2 tea salt
1 tea baking soda
1 1/2 packets Stevia or 3 teas sugar
1 large egg or two egg whites, beaten

Mix it all together and then cook on a lightly greased griddle. Makes 12 1/4 cup sized pancakes. They freeze nicely to. To make completely cholesterol free uses a vegan butter substitute and egg whites only. To make vegan, use almond milk, 1/2 tea vinegar, and egg replacer, and you'll want to adjust your liquid volume up a bit to get the right texture.