GET YOUR SALSA ON! Healthy HOT Latin Food Options for Hypoglcemia and Diabetes

GET YOUR SALSA ON! Healthy HOT Latin Food Options for Hypoglcemia and Diabetes

Enjoy healthy Latin food options with Hypoglycemia, Diabetes and blood sugar problems. Nachos getting you down? Help your blood sugar and get your salsa on!

Enjoying delicious Latin foods can be difficult if you have hypoglycemia, diabetes, and have to watch your blood sugar levels. Between Mexican nachos dripping in fatty cheeses, burritos swimming in carbohydrates, and super sugary sweets like Cuban tres leches, it may seem impossible to enjoy Hispanic foods without harming your health. And for the hundreds of thousands of Latinos in the United States suffering from diabetes, not being able to enjoy your traditional Latin American family dishes seems like punishment. But you can enjoy your favorite foods, just follow these tips.

Go Whole Wheat and Natural Vegetables Want a simple way to change up your carbohydrate intake to maintain your diabetes? Simply opt for whole wheat tortillas and vegetable chips. The body takes a longer time to break down the sugars in whole wheat products, and many vegetable chips taste delicious with our favorite Mexican favorites like low fat cheeses, salsa, and refried beans.

Another great option is to substitute a lettuce leaf for a tortilla, especially with fish tacos or dip. By substituting real vegetables for high carb tortillas, you can help maintain your hypoglycemia. Be sure to read packages. Corn tortillas typically have less carbohydrates than the flour versions. And if you want to make your own homemade tortillas, split the flour between whole wheat and regular flour to make a hypoglycemia happy tortilla!


The Power of Salsa
No, I am not talking about the hot Cuban dance or the high fructose corn syrup salsa at the grocery store chips aisle. I am talking about making your own natural salsa. All you need is a food processor or blender. Even a good knife will work. You can opt for the easy way out by purchasing a can or two of crushed tomatoes and then cutting in your choice of peppers, onions, and garlic, or go organic by buying fresh organic tomatoes and vegetables.

For a fun twist add in some mango or pineapple. My dietician recommends that I opt for real fruit over other sugar options. Natural unprocessed products are better for maintaining blood sugar levels because you can control how much sugar is put in your food, like salsa. If you like spicy, I recommend chopping in some hot peppers or a few drops of ghost pepper sauce.

Eat this not that!My family is Cuban and Dominican, and if anyone is familiar with Cuban cuisine, vegetables and healthy options are buried under mounds of delicious fried foods. Because my hypoglycemia is severe, I need to choose good healthy options. For example, I eat my frijoles without rice and opt for tostones over their sweet counterpart platinos maduros (or fried sweet plantains). I do not drink my favorite Caribbean soda options like Materva and choose water instead, especially if I know that I want to indulge in a bite of dessert. I will share my dessert with my spouse or a friend, since most postres, or desserts, are extremely high in sugar, even when homemade.

When I go to a Mexican or South American restaurant, I skip the complimentary nachos and will substitute broccoli for yellow rice. Maintaining my hypoglycemia is important to me, and I choose high protein options like steak, chicken, or fish, over food options that are extremely high in carbohydrates like paella, a Spanish favorite that involves seafood cooked with rice. Give me a bistec de palomilla with tostones and I am in food heaven. Delicioso!


Final food pointersAs you can see, it is possible to enjoy good Latin American food favorites without causing your diabetes or hypoglycemia to act up. If you are eating out, skip unnecessary carbohydrates like chips, rice, and soda, and try to substitute low carb options like black beans with salsa. Share sweet treats. Most Spanish restaurants will give you huge portions. Split your dinner with a friend or save the rest for lunch tomorrow. And if you decide to cook at home, find ways to incorporate whole wheat and protein into your favorite family recipes.

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The Failure of Superwoman: A Young Composer's Confession

The Failure of Superwoman: A Young Composer's Confession 

(Originally Published 2010)
In this poignant confession, an overworked mother shares her daily struggles of work and family while giving a seed of hope to working mothers the world over. 

My friends call me Superwoman. 

Singlehandedly I juggle work, music, and motherhood, and still manage to get a healthy dinner on the table before my husband comes home at night. You can find me lecturing on Baroque Music and Beethoven at the local university, composing electronic music for my opera until the late hours of the night, teaching my baby girl proper fingering on the piano, and trying to find ways to buy organic vegetables while cutting my grocery budget by another ten percent.

I appreciate the empowerment my mother's generation gave to Generations X and Y. We grew up believing that we could have it all. Despite all of the bad publicity for being "slackers", we believed that a woman could perfectly balance work, her dreams, and her family without a cost. My parents taught both my sister and I that we could be the best, and that we were the best. I am the overachieving product of an immigrant family - another alien wondering about this lost land.

I am Superwoman. I am tired.

Several months of putting in full time hours in my spare time has sucked me dry. I want to hang up my superhero cape, put away the neat utility belt, and just blend in with everyone else. Musical ideas nag me constantly, but who has time for a symphony when baby has an ear infection, there are fifty papers to grade, and time with hubby is already nonexistent? So many notes flying around in my head - floating and dying, with no creative outlet, like a million snowflakes in a blizzard. They disappear, and I hope that someday I will again have the time to write something great, or just have time to breathe.

I am Superwoman. I am not alone.

As the economies of the world crumble to dust, and millions more join the short path to poverty, billions of Superwomen keep each nation alive. They feed the world's children, till the barren soil, and attempt to help the fledgling generation that is our children have a fighting chance in a rapidly decaying environment.

How much longer can the Superwomen fight before kryptonitic exhaustion robs them of their waning powers? Are we the shadows of women's liberation, or are we the militant mother soldiers of the New Great Depression? Are we forging a new path or are we simply trudging along a well-beaten trail? Only the her story books a century from today can tell.

Look in the mirror, my sister. You might find the face of a Superwoman staring back at you.

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Insomnia Strikes Musician Mom!

Insomnia Strikes Musician Mom

You know the feeling, it's 4am and you need to sleep, your body says it's time to sleep, but your mind is racing over the latest issues of the day. Maybe you are worrying about that cough that Maria has had the last week, the test that John may or may not pass, maybe you have a big project at work or need to buy groceries tomorrow but don't have the time. Maybe a relative really, really got on your nerves or your spouse has been insensitive. Maybe you are stressing about getting pregnant or about the newborn that has just managed to fall asleep in your arms while you brain is wide awake. 

Whatever the case, whatever the reason, all moms go through this - insomnia. 

Tonight's insomnia was brought by work and music. If you don't know already, I am a composer and last year I finished my first opera. It took two years. That means for half of my daughter's life, mommy has been working on an opera, which only makes sense since I was writing an oratorio when she was in utero. Our lives became so enmeshed in mommy's opera that my hapless preschooler would proudly bang on her toy piano and announce, "I am writing MY opera!" (To date, she has decided not to continue the task, although there are two songs that she has been singing for a year that still stem from her earlier opera days, one of which I hope to record later this year.)

Mommy and her Angel

My mind has been racing. I finished the opera earlier in the fall and it has been premiered. It's an animated opera, so it's up on YouTube. Welcome to the 21st century! In any case, I have been enjoying a less creatively stressed out time, although I have to admit that I have other projects and classes to teach that always take up time, but compared to finishing an opera, well, this has seemed less stressful.

I've enjoyed teaching our daughter. We are going through kindergarten material right now and it really is fun to see how much she enjoys the little projects that we do. She really likes science and math and loves books, although reading has been a chore of sorts.  

She loves all of this one-on-one mommy-time, and I enjoy seeing her grow and learn and explore the world.

So why the insomnia? Maybe it's decades of pressure as a classical musician, always trying to one-up myself on the next project, maybe it's the positive response to the opera that has encouraged me to expand on the project considerably, maybe it's just pride in my work, but in any case, a part of me wants to continue to work on the project, make it bigger, better. 

But why? And perhaps that's the biggest issue. The why...My daughter is young, we are hoping to expand our family this year (fingers crossed)...

The next opera or symphony or film can wait until those days where my daughter doesn't hang on my every word and the silence of the house needs to be filled up with the sounds of music.

 

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The Lonely Mom (Dad/Grandparent) Club

I belong to a not-so-elite club: The Lonely Mom Club. You know the one, where to be a member you need to be a stay-at-home parent/caregiver with young children who longs for the real outside world and tries to ignore the nagging feeling to scream the fifteenth time your toddler peed his pants today. 

To be in the Lonely Mom Club you don't have to be a mother, you can be a stay-at-home dad or even a grandparent. But what we all have in common is that day-in and day-out we care, love, clothe, bathe, and nurture young ones. 

Maybe you signed up for the Lonely Mom Club, like I did, not realizing how long 8 hours can be with a preschooler (especially if you, like me, try to avoid filling those hours with TV and video games and don't have transportation or a support network). Or maybe life threw you a couple of little ones unexpectedly and the other parent is not in the picture anymore. Maybe your adult kids, strapped for cash and working like dogs in today's economic depression, have left you with a couple of grandkids running around when you thought you would be sipping margaritas and living it up in your golden years. Or maybe you watch your nieces or are one of those brave souls that take in foster children, knowing that someday the children you love today can be literally gone tomorrow. 

The minutes stretch into hours, and hours into literally a millennium.  

You look at the clock, wishing you could cherish every single moment like the sappy movies tell you to or every parenting book assumes you can, when in reality you sometimes wonder what it would be like if the bathroom could teleport you just for 15 minutes to a sandy beach in Hawaii, where you can refresh your tired soul and then return energetic and ready to engage in the latest "But I can't put my socks on today! mommy-mommy-MOMMY!" 

And as my daughter literally 30 seconds ago brought me a pair of pink sandals so she could match Mommy (who in Floridian stubbornness wears sandals with socks instead of boots every winter) I realize that the truth is that even when I'm tired, exhausted, with zero in the gas tank, I have a child that needs me, loves me, and for some reason, wants to be like me. 

These children are precious, and you are precious for giving them the love and care that they need to make it through this insane world. So maybe you can't go out with your non-parent friends today or enjoy a romantic getaway because babysitting costs are prohibitive. Maybe your golden years are full of diapers and not daiquiris, or you're a stay-at-home dad that knows more about fabric softeners than last night's football game. But it doesn't matter...

In the end, what your kids are going to remember is that you were there to hug them, wipe away their tears, and give them what no nanny service, daycare, or television program can give: LOVE. 

Thanks for visiting Mami Mozart! I would love to hear about your thoughts. Share this blog with your friends and share your thoughts in the comments.  
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Sabrina Pena Young is a stay-at-home mom and professional composer/writer. She enjoys long walks on the beach, chocolate, and painting her daughter's toenails.

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