On the Search For Good Hypoglycemic And Vegetarian Friendly Cookbooks (Vegetarian and Hypoglycemia Information)

As many people are already aware, I'm hypoglycemic as well as vegetarian. I've been vegetarian for about 13 years (I became veggie in high school), and I think I've had mild hypoglycemia since childhood (I could eat refined flour and sugar in moderation as long as I ate every few hours and my symptoms were mild most of the time). Shortly before I became a grad student my hypoglycemia became severe (mainly due to major stress and adrenal fatigue) causing many strange and unusual symptoms, and my body basically collapsed. Nearly three years later I still suffer from many of the symptoms but they are thankfully less severe and in most cases are mild/moderate (except when they flare up during frequent colds or pms) due to major changes in my diet.

While it is hard learning how to eat a hypoglycemic diet, it is doubly hard being a hypoglycemic vegetarian! My symptoms are much better than they were, and while I eat pretty well, I know I can do even better. Since I have to eat 6 times a day (at least) and protein at every meal or snack, I've been relying far too much on nuts, soy, and fake meat products (like veggie sausages etc which are probably way too processed for me). In addition, I think I recently just developed a mild allergy to cashews, so it is definitely time to re-evaluate my hypoglycemic diet and what I've been eating!

I have been scouring bookstores for good cookbooks for a while. The problem is that there is only a couple hypoglycemic cookbooks, and while they aren't bad, the recipes in it are...well, kind of bland! (My taste buds are spoiled. Though I live in VA/DC metropolitan area, I've been to so many great restaurants (all types of different cuisine) in NYC and Philly that I am a bit of a food snob, LOL! ;P Restaurants in Philly are very underrated, by the way). These books have a lot of good ideas for snacks, and some veggie or many easy-to- convert-to-veggie recipes, and while the recipes are okay, the ones I've tried aren't extraordinary either (they don't utilize spices well to make up for the lack of sugar in many recipes). They contain some good basic recipes for every day, comfort food, but if you crave things like Indian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, and most importantly good American and fresh salad/gourmet-type/'peasant' food dishes--basically food that is healthy but loaded with flavor--like I do, I've found these cookbooks a bit lacking in the taste department.

The low-carb, high protein cookbooks I've seen aren't that great either. While most hypoglycemics follow a lower carb, high protein diet, many of the cookbooks I've flipped through in the bookstore are meat based (eating meat 6 times a day would not be that healthy for an adrenal fatigued hypoglycemic, much less anyone else!), too strict (eliminating all carbs or too many carbs), or the (veggie) recipes simply don't look that good.

Diabetic books aren't that much better. While most eliminate sugar, the ones I've seen do not eliminate things white flour, white rice, etc, or use things like synthetic sugar substitutes (which I avoid like the plague!).

So I've been inventing my own recipes or converting recipes from my favorite veggie books for the better part of the last few years.

When I was in Philly I went through my sister's cook book selection (she is an awesome cook--much better than me--and has a wonderful selection of good cookbooks) and went to one of my favorite used book stores (Molly's Bookstore in the Italian Market). My sister recommended several of her vegan cookbooks (she even gave me one of them; love you, Bexn!) and I found a couple of nice macrobiotic cookbooks at Molly's.

I've found that both the vegan and macrobiotic cookbooks I got are much closer to how I eat than any other cookbooks I've seen. I didn't know anything about the macrobiotic diet, but it looks similar to the hypoglycemic diet because it is based on fresh ingredients (non-processed), mostly vegetarian, based on whole grains and non-refined sugars, and taste is an important factor. It isn't as high in protein than a hypoglycemic diet though, and while there are many recipes I won't have to convert, I will still have to convert some a bit (though just one or two ingredients instead of several).

I was surprised that the vegan cookbooks were much more similar to how I eat than many of my plain veggie cookbooks. It took me a couple days to figure out why: they used a variety of whole grains (like quinoa and spelt--which are high in protein--and not just the common products like refined wheat and white rice); these particular cooks preferred granulated frutose, agave, or other liquid sweeteners over white sugar; since they don't eat eggs or dairy they used a much wider range of ingredients (many of which were high in protein); the cooks/chefs realized if you don't use eggs and dairy you need to pay extra attention to seasonings to be satisfying; and when subbing for eggs and dairy in desserts they used hypoglycemic-friendly things like pureed fruit and tofu. Like the macrobiotic books I won't have to convert most recipes, but even the ones I will have to, I'll only have to change them a little (less chance of the recipe failing).

So I am a happy camper and the recipes I've tried so far are easy to prepare and so good! I am super excited at trying the dessert recipes because I used to be a baker (and not a cook), and in the last three years I've only had about 6 or 7 real baked goods or desserts (not including breads or the occasional grain sweetened chocolate and carob). In the following weeks I'll try to post reviews of all my cookbooks once I try several recipes :)