WHAT TO EAT TO BEAT DIABETES

With NHS diabetes expert

LUNCH at Katie Caldesi’s house is a glorious affair — richly flavoured, bite-size samples from her latest recipes are set out on the table, an enticing smorgasbord of savoury, piquant and subtly sweet. But all is not quite as it seems.

The squares of beef cottage pie, studded with diced swede, turnip and carrot, are topped not with traditional mashed potato, but with a crust of nutty celeriac.

The bread rolls, still warm from the oven, contain no flour. Instead, they are made from ground almonds and eggs. And Katie’s rosemary and apple mini muffins slathered in cream cheese frosting are neither cloying nor sugary. They, too, are flour-free and their delicate, herby sweetness is derived only from fruit.

Food writer Katie — who, with her husband Giancarlo, runs two restaurants and a Londonbased cookery school, La Cucina Caldesi — is Britain’s most accomplished exponent of lowcarbohydrate cooking.

Today, as we bring you the first batch in a series of tempting low-carb autumn recipes she’s devised exclusively for the Mail (see Weekend magazine), Katie explains the extraordinary health benefits of an eating regimen that involves neither self-denial nor caloriecounting, but could help you lose weight and more importantly, reverse type 2 diabetes.

As part of this month’s Good Health For Life series helping to put patients back in control of their health, Katie has teamed up once again with NHS GP and diabetes expert Dr David Unwin in a brilliant series of pullout guides for the Mail on how to use a low-carb approach to tackle a problem that affects nearly four million Britons. (A study this week even revealed one in eight new cases of type 2 diabetes in the UK is now in the 18-to-40 age group because of the obesity epidemic.)

One patient was Katie’s husband Giancarlo. Tall, serene and softly spoken, her outward calm belies a restless creative energy that drives her to rise at dawn to cook or write.

Today, Katie glides around the kitchen of the family home in Buckinghamshire, quietly assembling food on plates, while the younger of her two sons, 17-year-old Flavio — rangy and lean — cooks a brunch of spicy sausage and homemade tomato sauce, piling it artistically on to a trencher.

SHe has been devising low-carb recipes since 2011, when Giancarlo was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Yet, despite following a private doctor’s advice (endorsed by the NHS) to cut back on sugar and reduce his portion sizes, he actually worsened.

By coincidence, Katie, 56, stumbled on the real link between her husband’s diet and the disease. Suffering from bloating herself, she decided to eliminate gluten (a protein found in wheat) from the family’s diet. And, when she cut out starchy foods — not just wheat-based products such as flour and pasta, but rice, potatoes and other carbs — as well as sugar-laden puddings, the effect on Giancarlo, 66, was miraculous.

Although his favourite pasta and profiteroles were gone, he didn’t miss out, thanks to the regimen Katie devised.

Her recipes are abundant and flavoursome: full-fat yoghurt, cream, cheese and butter in place of processed low-fat spreads and skimmed milk. Nor is there a prohibition on rich, meaty ragu sauces or aromatic, warming stews.

Under this new eating plan, not only did Giancarlo’s waistline shrink — he lost 3st — and his old energy return, but his type 2 diabetes went into remission. The low-carb diet saved his life.

Type 2 diabetes is a condition that makes it difficult for the body to process sugar, so its levels become too high. Associated with obesity and lethargy, diabetes can, if uncontrolled, also cause sight loss and diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage), which, in extreme cases, can lead to amputations.

Almost four million people in the UK have diabetes, of whom around 90 per cent have type 2. Two out of three will go on to die from its complications if it is not reversed.

Katie recalls its effects on her husband. ‘When I met Giancarlo 21 years ago, he was so lively and energetic his customers called him Tigger,’ she says.

‘But we both loved food and were overweight. We had our sons, Giorgio, now 19, [who is living in Japan and learning the language before he begins a business studies degree] and Flavio [still at school].

‘Then, in 2005, we opened a cookery summer school in Tuscany. We were getting married there six weeks later in Montepulciano, where Giancarlo grew up.

‘Life was frantically busy, and it was all being televised [for BBC series Return To Tuscany], so I really wanted to lose weight for the wedding. I was so terrified of not being able to fit into the dress that I burst into tears at the fitting.’

She continues: ‘I was a busy mum running two cookery schools and I exercised a lot. I got down to my lowest-ever weight, 10st (I’m 5ft 9 in), for our wedding.

‘But Giancarlo didn’t lose weight. He kept piling it on. And he’d say: “I’m getting old. everything aches.” He started taking afternoon naps. He also said his feet were numb and stopped playing football with the boys — though he loved it — as his feet didn’t “work properly”.

‘He had frequent, excruciating attacks of gout, arthritis in his hands, and everything was an effort. He’d come home from work like a bear that hadn’t been fed, saying: “I need to eat! I need to eat!”

‘He’d cook himself pasta and gorge on it straight out of the saucepan, or devour the entire contents of the fruit bowl — one-and-a-half melons, bananas.’ He was also incredibly thirsty.

‘Now we know he had the classic symptoms of type 2 diabetes, but at the time, we hadn’t a clue what was wrong,’ says Katie. ‘Then he started to complain of blurred vision. And, one day in 2011, his sight went as he drove home.

‘He phoned me and said: “Something odd has happened. I can’t see properly.” He was really shaken. We wondered if it was a stroke. He waited in a lay-by until his sight came back and he drove home.’ A private GP ran tests — which revealed Giancarlo was diabetic.

‘The doctor gave him a choice. He said: “I can give you tablets, or you can avoid sugar to try to control it.” Giancarlo said he’d cut back on sugar, which just meant he stopped taking it in his coffee,’ says Katie.

‘No one explained the crucial fact that starch — in bread, pasta, rice and potatoes — releases sugar molecules into the body, causing a surge in blood sugar just as quickly as cakes, sweets and biscuits.’

So Giancarlo, who at more than 16st (he’s 5ft 9in) was clinically obese, continued to eat bowls of pasta.

In 2013, a second set of tests confirmed his blood sugar levels had risen. Then, a year or so later, Katie chanced upon the solution.

Suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, feeling bloated and also