Low carb, all flavour
Cookbook author and restaurateur Katie Caldesi wants to help combat diabetes without compromising on taste. By PRUDENCE WADE
Giancarlo, with WHEN type Katie 2 diabetes was Caldesi’s first over diagnosed husband, a decade ago, the couple “didn’t take it seriously”, she admits.
Katie and her husband are restaurateurs, so food is a massive part of their daily life – and they initially didn’t consider making any major changes to Giancarlo’s diet.
“We didn’t take it seriously, we just thought, ‘Oh well, lots of people have that’. It’s just one of those things,” Katie, 60, says.
Giancarlo, now 72, was told to cut back on his sugar, so he stopped taking it in his coffee, “But there wasn’t much [more] information available at that time,” Katie says.
But then he got “much worse”, she remembers. “He was told he was gluten intolerant, he had all sorts of aches and pains, he had terrible gout, terrible arthritis.”
This spurred him to give up gluten – no mean feat for a pasta-loving Italian – which Katie says “probably saved his life”.
a diet. diabetes journey From In there, 2015, to had discover the Giancarlo’s been couple the turned low-carb went type into on 2 pre-diabetes, was in remission. and by 2017 he
diabetes, Katie doesn’t but she have says type 2 she’s low-carb benefited lifestyle. from “You a have more energy,” she says. “If you keep your sugar levels stable, you don’t get the tiredness and you don’t get the extreme hunger.”
Her 18th cookbook is dedicated to crafting a low-carb eating plan. It’s advisable to see a doctor if you have any queries around type 2 diabetes, but these are Katie’s tips for anyone who wants to try a lowcarb diet.
Know that starch is sugar
This is the first point Katie wants everyone to know: “Starch breaks down most people to sugar, don’t and realise I still that.” think She suggests that when Giancarlo first gave up sugar, it didn’t make much of a difference because he was still eating a lot of starchy foods. “That’s the message he needed to have from the start. Clearly giving up sugar didn’t help his diabetes, because it got worse. It wasn’t until we gave up the starch element that he started to not only lose weight very quickly, but the inflammation went down, his arthritis went, his gout went. And when he got checked for his HBA1C [a test of your blood sugar levels] it came down to pre-diabetes levels, and then eventually came down to normal levels.”
Use alternatives
When Giancarlo first had to give up gluten, Katie says she “started experimenting” with his favourite recipes, finding a low-carb option.
“I remember giving him his favourite ragu recipe, which is his father’s, sort of like a bolognese – a meaty Tuscan ragu,” she recalls.
“I remember giving him that on ribbons of white cabbage, that really looked like tagliatelle” – and he loved it.
That’s her favourite hack for a low-carb diet: “Using non-starchy vegetables as an alternative to [things like] pasta has been a game-changer for us.”
But you don’t have to cut out pasta entirely.
Katie says: “Pasta isn’t all bad. I mix, say, 25 grams of pasta with courgette ribbons – that’s really nice, because then you feel you’ve had a bit of pasta and you’ve got the bite of pasta.”
Don’t make things restrictive
Instead of cutting out all the things you love, Katie emphasises the importance of replacing less healthy food with something delicious – that might be slightly better for you.
She particularly realised this when slowly shifting her children onto a low-carb diet. “I took crisps away and I put cheese and almonds out instead,” she says. “The boys never said, ‘Where are the crisps?’.”
Going all-in on the low-carb diet can be daunting, so Katie doesn’t want you to stress if you don’t stick to things 100% of the time.
“People might fall off the wagon and then give up entirely, because they think they’ve “ruined it now”, Katie explains.
“If you’ve overindulged, don’t blame yourself. I hope you really enjoyed it – and then get back on track again.”
■ The Diabetes WeightLoss Plan by Katie Caldesi is published by Kyle Books, priced £22