Tag Archives: erythritol

Recipe: Low-Carb Spaghetti Sauce

Posted on January 13, 2014 | 4 comments
paleobetic diet, low-carb spaghetti sauce

That’s a spaghetti squash in the background

My wife is Italian so we eat a lot of spaghetti at the Parker Compound.

A definitely non-paleo ingredient below is Truvia, a sweetener that’s a combination of stevia and erythritol. Stevia is supposedly “natural.” I don’t know where erythritol, a sugar alcohol, comes from. The purpose of a sweetener is to counteract the tartness or bitterness of the tomatoes. Honey would probably serve this purpose, but I’ve never tried it in this recipe. If you use the honey or table sugar option below, it will increase the digestible carb count in each cup by three grams. Whatever your favorite non-caloric sweetener, use the equivalent of two tablespoons of table sugar (sucrose).

Ingredients:

1 lb (454 g) sweet Italian sausage, removed from casing

3/4 lb (340 g kg) lean ground beef (lean = up to 10% fat by weight)

1/2 cup (118 ml) onion, minced

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 can crushed tomatoes (28 oz or 793 g)

2 cans tomato paste (total of 12 oz or 340 g)

2 cans tomato sauce (total of 16 oz or 454 g)

1/2 cup water (118 ml)

2 tsp (10 ml) Truvia (combo of stevia and erythritol; optional substitutes are table sugar  (2 tbsp or 30 ml) or honey (1.5 tbsp or 22 ml), or leave out sweetener

1.5 tsp (7.4 ml) dried basil leaves

1/2 tsp (2.5 ml) fennel seeds

1 tsp (5 ml) Italian seasoning

1/4 tbsp (3.7 ml) salt

1/4 tsp (1.2 ml) ground black pepper

4 tbsp (60 ml) fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions:

Put the sausage, ground beef, onion, and garlic in a pan and cook over medium heat until well browned. Drain off the excess liquid fat if that’s your preference (not mine). You’ll probably have to transfer that mix to a pot, then add all remaining ingredients and simmer on low heat for two or three hours. You may find the flavor even better tomorrow. If it gets too thick, just add water.

To avoid carbohydrate toxicity—high blood sugar—eat this over spaghetti squash rather than pasta. Here’s a post on cooking spaghetti squash. Small or inactive folks may find a half cup of sauce over one cup of cooked squash is a reasonable serving (about 250 calories). I prefer to double those portions, making it a whole meal.

Sometimes I just eat this sauce straight. But I’m weird. A cup of sauce with some veggies or fruit is a meal for me. If you have other uses for spaghetti sauce other than over spaghetti squash or grain products, please share in the Comments.

Number of Servings: 9 (1-cup each)

Nutritional Analysis: (assumes you retained all fat)

55% fat

23% carbohydrate

22% protein

345 calories

21 g carbohydrate

4 g fiber

17 g digestible carbohydrate

985 mg sodium

1,117 mg potassium

Prominent features: Rich in vitamin B12, iron, copper, niacin, sodium, and selenium

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Artificial Sweeteners and the Paleoista

Posted on November 3, 2012 | 9 comments

Did you know babies under one year of age shouldn’t be given honey?  I saw that warning on a honey container recently and didn’t know why.  Honey may contain bacterial spores that cause botulism in the wee ones.

A pinch of salt helps reduce bitterness in coffee

Paleo diet aficionados can satisfy a sweet tooth with honey or fruit.  Unfortunately for people with diabetes, those items can spike blood sugars too high.  Honey, for instance, has 17 grams of carbohydrate in one tablespoon (15 ml), which is more carb than in a tablespoon of white granulated table sugar.

Most diabetics eating paleo-style will need some limit on consumption of honey and fruit.  Or they could take more diabetes drugs to control blood glucose elevations.  Again, unfortunately, we don’t know the long-term health effects of most of our diabetes drugs.

How about getting a sweet fix with artificial sweeteners?  Paleo purists would say “fuggedaboudit.”  In theory, that’s fine.  But many paleo followers with diabetes won’t forget about it.  They’ll use artificial sweeteners, aka sugar substitutes.

If you’re gonna use ’em, think about stevia.  It’s derived from a natural source, the leaves of a plant in South America.  Admittedly, our forebears in eastern Africa wouldn’t have had access to it 50,000 years ago.  After the plant has been processed, it’s certainly a highly refined product going against the grain of the paleo movement.  Furthermore, one of the stevia market leaders in U.S. (Truvia) is mixed with erythritol.  To help you feel better about the erythritol (a sugar alcohol), note that it is found naturally in some fruits.  Another stevia commercial product in the U.S. is Pure Via.

Dietitian Brenna at her Eating Simple blog reviewed sugar impostors in January, 2012.  She favored stevia over the others, at least for non-diabetics who were tempted.  Brenna also linked to a Mayo Clinic review of artificial sweeteners.

Note that sugar alcohols like erythritol have the potential to raise blood sugar levels.  They shouldn’t raise it as much as table sugar, however.  With regard to sugar alcohols, Dr. Richard K. Bernstein urges caution, if not total avoidance.  Use your meter to see how they effect you.

If you’re in the habit of using one or two teaspoons of honey to sweeten tea or coffee, you’re blood sugar levels should be more stable and manageable if you use stevia instead.  Dr. Bernstein gives the green light to stevia powder or liquid, along with saccharin tablets or liquid, aspartame tablets, and sucralose tablets, acesulfame-K, and neotame tablets.  Stevia is the only one close to “natural.”

Steve Parker, M.D.

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