Want to buy a non-american vegetarian diabetic cook book

[FreakyFreekeh]

I would like to buy a cook book which is vegetarian, diabetic friendly, and which has recipes I can cook without lots of faff (hence non american, as the ingredients and measurements will likely be strange otherwise)

So, quite a niche book.
Does such a thing even exist?
I could not find one on Amazon.

 

[shyvas]

Rose Elliot has a collection of low carb vegetarian books. Her recipes are quite simple and very often original. I have at least 6 of her books including the Low carb recipes and Vegetarian Christmas :

Rose Elliot, the official Rose Elliot Website,Books

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

Thankyou I have just ordered one of her books from Amazon, so it should be here quite soon.

 

[shyvas]

Thankyou I have just ordered one of her books from Amazon, so it should be here quite soon.

Which one did you order ? I really like her books.

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

I think it was the first low carb vegetarian cookbook looks helpful!

 

[Joe]

You may not be interested in doing this, but I believe Betty Crocker sells software where if you input the recipe in "American" units, you can push a button and instantly convert it to metric units (or vice versa). There may be other kinds of recipe software that do the same things.

 

[Tom L.]

I'm not at all familiar with Rose Elliot. I'll have to look in my local library. Her book of bean recipes interests me.

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

Thankyou for telling me. This sounds like useful software!

 

[Joe]

Thankyou for telling me. This sounds like useful software!

You are welcome. You can probably get older editions of the software in discount department stores or similar places.
You'll probably need to research it carefully, since this conversion feature is just one of many features and may not be very well advertised.

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

Hmmm I just got my cookbook but disappointingly many recipes are the kind which usually would have sugar as an ingredient but instead she has just put "stevia or your choice of low carb sweetener , to taste" . . which is a real cop-out. I have not yet tried stevia and have yet to find a place to buy it from. She says uk shops dont sell it and so i will have to order it online. And as she admits, lots of folk think it tastes crap. When I do have some, I will have no idea how much to use. Artificial sweeteners AFAIK are all worse than sugar for causing blood spikes, and tend to wreck metabism, cause sweetness cravings and all manner of other issues.
This just seems like a huge cop out. If I wanted this, I could just get standard recipes and mentally replace sugar with "I dunno, stevia or something. Dunno how much just guess."
:-(

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

Oh wow, she says it is actually illegal to sell stevia in the UK , well that explains my difficulty finding any to buy.

Guess I shall have to import some and hope the "bitter liquorice taste" (just what everyone wants from a sweetener ) isn't too revolting.

 

[shyvas]

Oh wow, she says it is actually illegal to sell stevia in the UK , well that explains my difficulty finding any to buy.

Guess I shall have to import some and hope the "bitter liquorice taste" (just what everyone wants from a sweetener ) isn't too revolting.

I don't know which book you have purchased but it looks like it is a 90's edition. You can buy Stevia from Tesco's or H&B and it doesn't have a liquorice taste. The new Stevia products taste very good. Moreover Stevia is a plant and it's not an artificial sweetener.

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

How on earth am I meant to guess how much to use though? She doesn't even give a suggestion.

I guess if she has the pure sort in a little shaker she maybe isn't sure how to quantify how much though as the amounts used in each recipe will be so small.

Being diabetic involves so much bollocks and now this, it just takes the pee. I got diabetic halva with maltitose in. Thought I was doing stuff right as it is a natural sweetener and the bloody stuff is Turkish diabetic association certified. Turns out maltitose is barely any better than sugar for diabetics. I am so fed up and gather that diabetes never goes away. :-(

 

[Joe]

If I were in your shoes, I guess I'd try contacting PeTA-UK or the Vegan Society or the International Vegetarian Union and ask for help or guidance.

Stevia is pretty widely available in the US. It is not bad. Not great.

I know this may shock you, but I have just tended to use saccharine. Stevia is natural, though, so the healthier choice.

Sugar substitute - Wikipedia

This table supposedly gives sweetness densities in comparison to sucrose. Stevia rates a 250, whereas I guess sucrose rates a 100. So stevia is 2.5 times as sweet as sucrose/sugar.

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

@shyvas, ah! We posted at the same time. Oh! Yes, the book is from 2006 I had not realised Amazon were flogging such out of date versions of books. This is great news! thankyou so much for your reply.

 

[shyvas]

How on earth am I meant to guess how much to use though? She doesn't even give a suggestion.

I guess if she has the pure sort in a little shaker she maybe isn't sure how to quantify how much though as the amounts used in each recipe will be so small.

Being diabetic involves so much bollocks and now this, it just takes the pee. I got diabetic halva with maltitose in. Thought I was doing stuff right as it is a natural sweetener and the bloody stuff is Turkish diabetic association certified. Turns out maltitose is barely any better than sugar for diabetics. I am so fed up and gather that diabetes never goes away. :-(

It depends on the type of stevia (some is pure and other brands have added ingredients) that you are using. You always have the equivalent of the sugar to stevia on the packet or jar. I have no problem with using it for baking and cooking. It also depends on your taste buds so it's always a good idea to taste as you go along.

 

[shyvas]

Stevia Conversion Chart

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

I walked out to a likely shop which does indeed stock stevia. (Remarkably expensive stuff compared to sugar) , making coffee just now. Shall see how that goes.

Given the price of this stuff (and the box telling me that it can give you the runs if used 'excessively' with no clue how much is too much) I doubt it will be much use for her recipes especially as she doesn't bother to even suggest an approximate sugar quantity to use the equivalent of. Oh well, there are a bunch of savoury recipes I can try. I probably won't be getting more of her books though tbh, as I expect similar vagueness across the range and it was sweet recipes I was most interested in.

 

[Joe]

Well, my math tells me that if that sweetness ratio is right (100 sucrose = 250 stevia), then 100/250 = 0.4. So use 4/10ths of a teaspoon of stevia to replace one teaspoon of sugar. Use that as a starting point, and experiment from there.

I also think it might be worth your while to contact the Diabetes Association UK. (One caution: they may not be sympathetic to veg*nism.) How we help - Diabetes UK

 

[FreakyFreekeh]

The coffee was better than expected. Stevia is not bad. As you say , not good either. But not bad. It is definitely not as potent as the box claims, which I fully expected to be the case. I take 1/3-1/2 TSP of sugar in coffee, and chucked in a whole packet of stevia (supposedly 1tsp sugar equivalent) and it was not much different. It was like if I use cheap shitty white sugar instead of brown cane sugar like I usually do.