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PREFACE

As a person with long-standing type 1 diabetes (almost 54 years at this writing), I have learned a good deal about this disease over the years. My information has come from doctors, nurse educators, dietitians, family members, and friends. It has come in the form of books, conversations, magazine articles, and, more recently, online articles. And it has come from practicing the art of living with diabetes. Probably the most important thing I have learned in all this time is that I can always learn more.

When I was diagnosed at the tender age of four, diabetes care was very different than it is now. I was taught to categorize and weigh all of my foods (carbs, proteins, and fats alike) by my father, a scientist and professor. He and my mother learned all they could from my doctor at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, Dr. Priscilla White. In addition to diet planning and measuring, our tools included metal and glass syringes with separate metal needles that regularly became dull. My father tested the needles on his thigh as he sharpened them! All the injection equipment had to be kept in a special sterile bath between uses. My parents, and soon I, tested my urine for sugar several times a day using an eye dropper and a tablet that boiled and changed colors in the test tube. In short, we had none of the wonderfully liberating tools of today: glucose monitors, insulin pumps, glucose sensors, carbohydrate counting, the glycemic index, detailed food labels, and a half-century of research and studies aimed at understanding and improving our lives.

I first heard some of the diet myths described in this book when I was in my early twenties, while I attended a class at the Joslin Diabetes Center. Among the students were a number of newly diagnosed patients. I answered their numerous questions and misconceptions with what I hoped were accurate, even encouraging, anecdotes of my own struggles to balance food with insulin and with energy output (both physical and mental). I was horrified to learn that some people believed I could not eat anything with sugar in it! I have always loved fruits and vegetables and could not imagine living without them, let alone without the many varieties of rice, pasta, potatoes, corn, breads, and the occasional ice cream or cookie. I remember the mother of a five-year-old child asking me whether her daughter could ever again live a “normal” life and eat “normal” food. I hope she learned from the classes (and perhaps from me) that she not only could live a long, healthy, “normal” life, but most likely would.

Through the years I have encountered people living in the “diabetes Paleolithic” period, as I call it. They seem to carry the remnants of a genetic memory of a time before insulin was discovered and when having type 1 or “juvenile” diabetes was a death warrant: you could eat no carbohydrate because it would raise your blood sugar, which, without insulin, would slowly take away your life; therefore, starvation caused your early demise instead. It wasn’t a pleasant choice, obviously. Comments from these “diabetes dinosaurs,” such as, “Oh, you’re diabetic? My grandmother died of that. She ate too much sugar,” always sent me into training mode, and I would carefully explain how sugars are a natural part of many foods that we can and should eat, how we have to measure our food intake against our insulin doses and exercise, and how life with diabetes is a balancing act rather than a process of restriction or denial. Sometimes, the person listened politely, and I could almost see the information trickling out the other ear!

But for every diabetes dinosaur I have met, I have known several modern-day creatures: people who are genuinely interested in the subject, open minded, and pleased to ask questions and to learn more about life with diabetes. I hope you are that kind of person—with or without diabetes—because Amy Campbell and Karen Chalmers have here presented a wealth of information to live by. Their presentation is conversational, well organized, and chock full of comforting facts about eating healthfully. 16 Myths of a Diabetic Diet is meant for people with newly diagnosed diabetes, those who have had it for decades, and their families, friends, and neighbors—in fact, for everyone who likes to eat.

Cynthia M. Shaler

Boalsburg, PA