A rambling diabetes thought
This is particularly for mouseferatu , since he was just diagnosed with diabetes, but it may be helpful for others too.
When I got my diagnosis, I set to work on the recommended dietary changes promptly, and it's paid off in a big way: even with all my other troubles, my blood glucose levels, both short-term and cumulative, have been excellent, and I'm not seeing the kind of degeneration in collateral damage that affects so many diabetics. But I've ended up doing some kinda non-standard-advice things, and want to write about that.
I'm chronically short on energy, often kind of ill-coordinated, and also in some long-term ruts, and I don't do a lot of real cooking. Throw in stomach upsets and digestive problems, and a lot of my eating has been kinda snack-y stuff - meal bars and so on. What I've found is that using my rice cooker a lot is a really significant net gain in carbohydrate and sodium intake, because a potful of rice I mix with beans, peas and carrots and such, maybe some fish, and other things like that is simply lower in those things than whatever I'd get from Atkins, Nature's Path, Health Valley, and the like.
(I had been curious but uncertain about rice cookers for a long time when Frances went ahead and got me one. I am glad she did.)
So that's a thing where I applied the underlying principle of "see what's an improvement given your situation" to get a non-standard outcome, because my situation isn't quite standard. Ari, I know yours isn't either, between your history of fairly extreme trouble already (Extreme Sickness! Having gout while snowboarding!) and my impression that you and Sam actually do cook well. So you'll want to be keeping notes to track this stuff, so that you can look at comparisons out on paper/screen in front of you.
When I got my diagnosis, I set to work on the recommended dietary changes promptly, and it's paid off in a big way: even with all my other troubles, my blood glucose levels, both short-term and cumulative, have been excellent, and I'm not seeing the kind of degeneration in collateral damage that affects so many diabetics. But I've ended up doing some kinda non-standard-advice things, and want to write about that.
I'm chronically short on energy, often kind of ill-coordinated, and also in some long-term ruts, and I don't do a lot of real cooking. Throw in stomach upsets and digestive problems, and a lot of my eating has been kinda snack-y stuff - meal bars and so on. What I've found is that using my rice cooker a lot is a really significant net gain in carbohydrate and sodium intake, because a potful of rice I mix with beans, peas and carrots and such, maybe some fish, and other things like that is simply lower in those things than whatever I'd get from Atkins, Nature's Path, Health Valley, and the like.
(I had been curious but uncertain about rice cookers for a long time when Frances went ahead and got me one. I am glad she did.)
So that's a thing where I applied the underlying principle of "see what's an improvement given your situation" to get a non-standard outcome, because my situation isn't quite standard. Ari, I know yours isn't either, between your history of fairly extreme trouble already (Extreme Sickness! Having gout while snowboarding!) and my impression that you and Sam actually do cook well. So you'll want to be keeping notes to track this stuff, so that you can look at comparisons out on paper/screen in front of you.