30 Carb's a meal and still Vegan!

earthseller

My Dr tells me I have to maintain a diet of 30 carb's per meal while increaseing my protein intake! I have been Vegan for 15 years and would like to stay that way... So what in the world can I eat! I have reactive hypoglycemia. A condition as I understand it that allows the blood sugar to fall or rise to rapidly (some one can correct me if I did not understand this from my dr.) .

I am finding it impossible to eat just 30 carbs at one meal. It seems that all the healthy fruits, nuts and grains that I thought were so great to eat contain so much carbs that I can't get enough caleries and protein.

Does anyone else have this problem, if so share with this group what its like for you and, what do you eat?

So far, for me its been the most discourageing diet I have ever been challanged to undertake. 1 slice of bread is 15 carbs... that means if I eat two slices of bread with out anything on it I have achieved my carb limit! Low Fat Granola has 30 carbs in just 1/2 a cup! 1 cup of grits has 31 carbs! 1/3 cup of rice has 15 carbs.

And forget fruit ~ Just 1 Banna is 30 carbs! 1/2 cup of apple sauce is 15 carbs! Just 17 grapes is 15 carbs! 1 6.5 oz orange is 15 carbs!

1/2 cub of corn is 15 carbs! 1 potato is 30 carbs! 1/2 cup of lentils is 15 carbs... ever tried to eat just 1/2 cup of lentil soup? Red Beans 1/2 cup is 15 carbs!

Non starchy begetables such as 1/2 cup of Asparagus, Green Beans, Broccoli, Carrots, Collard Greens, and Tomato's have 5 carbs.. but we are only talking 1/2 cup!

Help! what do I eat... do I have to give up being Vegan? an Egg has 0 carbs and is looking pretty good right now! so what can I eat...

Any meal plans out there for this kind of diet?

Thank you all for your thoughts and helps on this.

kdlfit

It's pretty hard to go low carb while eating vegan. I've found eating a ton of green leafy veggies and adding pea, hemp & rice protein powders into my smoothies. I've cut down on fruit. Only one or at the most two fruits a day. I've been trying to increase my protein and decrease carbs but end up around 150g carbs a day at the lowest.

rcglynn

Try this article: http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/vegetarian/a/veganlowcarb.htm

set2sin

YES! I was about to suggest this site! I have been trying to follow the vegan low carb, but have had trouble with finding the right type of protein. Tempe triggers headaches and I mean REAL BAD ones!
:smooched: I am hunting on YouTube for seitan recipes and it looks easy enough to make, just time consuming.

rkk1

That's really sad. I'm sure there has to be another solution. I'd do a lot of research on this health condition before I'd ever think of giving up a vegan diet. Eating meat isn't healthy for several reasons... associated with higher rates of cancer, etc.

One thing for sure I know is that cooking foods does increase how fast the sugars are incorporated into your blood, as the cooking process serves to partially 'digest' the food for you in the first place. By eating more raw plant foods, the glycemic index is lower. I'd not suggestion you should go all raw or anything like that. But there are a lot of lower glycemic foods that would be good. In this way, you aren't so much focused on the actual number of carbs, but on eating carbs that don't give you sugar spikes. Thus stay away from all sugars, white rice, white flour, alcohol, etc.... anything that is high glycemic.

Beans, lentils etc are very low glycemic and give you a slow energy. I'm sure these would be great choices. Combine this with salads, tempeh or sprouted tofu, lower glycemic fruit (berries), plus steamed green vegetables, etc for a healthy yet low glycemic meal.

I'm a medical student, though I admit I hadn't heard much about your condition before (certainly I am family with hypoglycemia, but hadn't heard the term 'reactive' hypoglycemia). I was reading up about it online, and it seems that your body puts out too much insulin after you eat. For many people a low-carb diet does work for this condition. But if you read on Wiki, they do recommend other foods like fruits, veggies, whole grains etc. I'd certainly suggest you analyze your diet and see if you are eating any high glycemic junk that you can take out of there. It would be sad if you start eating meat just because you didn't clean up your diet first. I mean, if you are already eating a perfect vegan diet and still have problems.... then I can understand adding in dairy or eggs if you have no other option. I know your health comes first. But I think you should try out a low glycemic plan.... with frequent meals and very clean food that I mentioned above (beans, lentils, nuts, salads, low glycemic fruit, steamed veggies etc). See if that makes you feel any better. Best wishes!

rkk1

Oh by the way, just to clarify.... I know sometimes it confuses people to talk about a low carb or a low glycemic diet to someone who is hypoglycemic. They don't understand why you want to keep the carbs/sugar low if someone has low sugar. The reason for this is because low carb and low glycemic diets help prevent the sugar spike (which results in high insulin, which pulls sugar out of blood and into cells, but can overcompensate and thus makes the blood sugar low by pulling out too much sugar from the blood). So if you eat low glycemic foods that I was suggesting, it will prevent those crazy spikes in sugar which will prevent so much insulin from being triggered, and then you won't get the low sugar response either.

It's good to keep a candy or something instant sugar with you if you are having a hypoglycemic episode. So you can use that if you are feeling out of whack. But otherwise, it's good prevention to eat a low carb or low glycemic diet as prevention, and only keep the sugar candies around in case of necessity.

A lot of the foods you mention are good choices.... they would go over the 30 carbs per meal but they are low glycemic, so it still might not give you any problems. You can read more about this online and figure out what to do. I would stay away from breads and potatoes though as they are higher glycemic and would make your problem worse. See if you can find some lower glycemic grains. Quinoa has a lot of carbs, but it is lower glycemic compared to other grains.

There are also many doctors who are vegan and can give you some guidance on how to help your condition while keeping things vegan. Dr. Greger is one vegan doctor who loves to educated people. Maybe write to him and see what he says? Just an idea.

SexyBoomer

30 carbs a meal is pretty low.. My dietician told me 45 carbs a meal and it was doable.. Now, I am on Medifast and some of their meals do contain some whey, but some are just soy protein, but I doing that to lose weight and reverse my pre-diabetes state. Their meals have 10-15 grams of carbs each and 11-15 grams of protein each.. www.medifast1.com I don't work for them, but in 2.5 months, I lost 30 lbs. and I have 98 more to go.. I'm staying with it until I get to goal. Add soy protein to dishes may help with to keep your carbs low and protein high.. I'm with ya'!

spiceislandvegan

The best diet for vegan is Dr. Fuhrman's Eat to Live or End of Dieting program. Instead of dieting, if we all change our lifestyle according to what he believes, we all won't have any weight gain problems. I just found it recently and changing my lifestyle toward his recommendations. I can stay to be a vegan and be healthy.

cypherwulf

First of all, you should be counting net carbs, which is carbs - fiber (fiber is not digested). It's pretty easy to maintain under 50 net carbs on a vegan diet if you're mostly eating things like green veggies, summer squashes, eggplant, leafy greens, healthy oils, and mock meats. My day will typically start off with a soy protein shake with chia seeds, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, stevia, and coconut milk. Lunch and dinner will be something like a salad or veggie saute with tofu or mock meats and a nice fatty salad dressing. Try shirataki tofu noodles or kelp noodles if you want low carb pasta, and there's a way to prepare cauliflower to have the taste and texture of rice. All my friends agree that my diet is delicious and varied.
So stop starving yourself trying to maintain low carb while eating rice and bread, it's not gonna work! Focus on green vegetables as the staple of your diet, with fats to maintain calories, and things like tofu for protein and you'll be fine