and make an effort with the theme and décor. Select suitable tablecloths and colourful containers for the food. Emphasise the festive atmosphere with balloons and music to suit the party theme.
•Devise meaningful ways of keeping the children busy, as the emphasis should be on a group of children, who do not necessarily know each very well, getting together and having a good time.
•Avoid the usual sugar-laden party foods such as cake, biscuits, sweets and cold drinks, which are not good for any child. Think of an event where sugar does not play such a prominent role, such as at a picnic – lay out the picnic blankets and brightly coloured tablecloths, and pack a picnic meal into a festive container for each child. Then you can conjure up other treats and surprises like ideas for games, balls or small gifts from the picnic basket.
•A light lunch of mini pizzas, hotdogs, hamburgers, vegetable and fruit kebabs, filled pancakes and wraps, open sandwiches with colourful fillings and toppings and waffles with ice cream, can also work well.
•For older children you could have a do-it-yourself party where the children make and bake their own pizzas, make their own hamburgers or fill their pancakes.
•Place large bowls of popcorn on the table and choose low-oil or lite
potato crisps.
•When sugary cold drinks are served, it is important to mark your child’s glass of sugar-free cold drink. If you don’t serve cold drinks in their original containers, it is advisable to choose sugar-containing and sugar-free drinks in different colours and to explain the difference to all the children.
•For many people a birthday party is synonymous with a large cake with candles that have to be blown out with a single puff. Consider using one of the cakes or fruit loaves in this book as the basis of the birthday cake. You can also deviate from the traditional birthday cake by using a two-litre container of suitable ice cream, such as Country Fresh Lite sorbet, or choose a savoury tart or cheese cake. Decorate the cake with ribbons, birthday candles and flowers or small toys.
•Bake some of the muffins in this cookbook in smaller muffin trays. Decorate with a small amount of melted dark chocolate or apricot jam and coconut. For children who are not diabetic, the muffins can be decorated with a small amount of butter icing and hundreds and thousands.
•Make jelly boats by letting jelly set in scooped-out orange halves and then cut through the orange halves containing the set jelly to form two wedges. Make a paper flag with a toothpick and decorate the jelly boat with the
little flag.
•If your child is invited to a friend’s party, it is advisable to inform the hostess about your child’s diabetes before the time and to offer to send along suitable eats and drinks.
Tips for hikers and backpackers
Healthy outdoor activities hold more advantages than disadvantages for people with diabetes.
•The type of route, the length of the route, the weight you have to carry and facilities for preparing food will of course determine your choice of food items.
•Use your prescribed meal plan as a guideline when planning the food supply for your hike. You should generally be able to work according to your normal diet prescription for the meal plan plus 25% to 30% extra (approximately equal to your normal breakfast or a light lunch) in the form of snacks.
•Because you will probably be more physically active than on a normal day, there is a risk of developing hypoglycaemia. Always take along glucose sweets that you can suck (e.g. Sparkles or Super C), a packet of raisins, a packet of nuts/seeds and raisins and/or a packet of cool drink powder (e.g. Game or Clifton) as snacks. Sugar-containing jelly powder also works well, but it should be eaten with a few sips of water.
•Pack the following:
Breakfast
Starchy dishes:
•Weet-Bix or Oat-Bix with 10 ml oat bran per portion to lower the GI, All-Bran, Futurelife Smart Food, wholewheat ProNutro, sugar-free muesli, or a mixture of cereals to obtain a kind of “muesli”.
•Oatso-Easy – natural flavour or with raisins; add oat bran to lower the GI.
Milk products:
•Pack milk powder in 60 ml portions per 250 ml water as required throughout the day and mix before use. Milk powder can also be added to the breakfast cereals and mixed with water just before serving.
•Low-fat/lite evaporated milk, long-life milk and low-fat yoghurt will remain fresh for 6-8 hours under cool conditions.
•Sugar-free custard in 250 ml packets (e.g. Ultra Mel Lite) can be used to replace milk.
Between-meal snacks
Starchy dishes:
•Dry crackers such as Provitas, Crackermates Lites, rice cakes, Ryvitas and bran-rich health muffins.
•Instant soup powder (e.g. Cup-a-Soup), especially in cold weather and when you sweat a lot.
•A wide variety of energy or “breakfast” bars are available, but it is important to check their sugar and fat content. A bar should be comparable with no more than a two-slice sandwich with a protein filling, therefore about 1 000 kJ energy; 20-30 g carbohydrate; 7-10 g protein; 5-10 g fat.
Fruit:
•Fresh and dried fruit. Fruit slices and dried fruit such as dried peaches, apricots, apple rings, prunes, raisins and sultanas can be mixed with nuts, peanuts and/or seeds.
•Fruit bars which provide about 350 kJ or 15-25 g carbohydrate.
Proteins:
•Cheese wedges, sliced biltong, nuts.
Light and main meals
Starchy dishes:
Most of these starchy dishes, which have been suggested from a practical point of view, have a higher GI which will cause a more rapid increase in blood glucose. However, in view of your increased physical activity, this can be an advantage.
•Instant or two-minute noodles, spicy instant pasta dishes which can be mixed with boiling water, standard pasta such as spaghetti, instant rice, instant mashed potatoes (e.g. Smash), instant maize meal porridge, canned sweetcorn, spaghetti in tomato sauce, beans in tomato sauce, canned potatoes.
Protein dishes:
•Frozen meat (wrapped in newspaper) for the first day, vacuum-packed meat for the following day, smoked, salted meat or snoek, soya mince or cubes, and soya products such as Knorrox or Imana, which have been seasoned and are ready for use.
•Biltong, hardboiled eggs in the shell (eat within 2-3 days of boiling).
•Tuna and salmon in foil packaging (looks like packets of soup powder), canned fish in small tins for single servings (e.g. tuna, sardines in oil or tomato sauce).
•Instant cheese sauce, instant gravy (e.g. Royco, Knorr).
Vegetables and fruit:
•Canned
