Eating cake and really savouring it!

Diabetes New Zealand's 47th Birthday.  Diabetes New Zealand staff intend to hold a special party in celebration of its 47th birthday.

“Have your cake” says Diabetes New Zealand dietician Alison Pask, “but don’t have enough cake for two.”

Diabetes New Zealand dietician, Alison Pask, says there’s a lot of food that you can eat if you have diabetes.

Diabetes New Zealand will be celebrating with a cake made from a recipe in the popular Diabetes New Zealand Cookbook Deliciously Healthy Recipes for the whole family, by Alison and Simon Holst. The “Special Fruit Cake”, is a recipe that contains no butter, sugar or salt. Deliciously Healthy Recipes has recently been re-released. It was first published in 2006 as Easy Everyday recipes for the whole family. It sold over 20,000 copies.

Dr George Blair-West, medical practitioner and psychiatrist, and the Australian authority on the psychology of weight loss, says that “what history has shown us is that depriving people of taste ultimately results in them overeating fattening foods.”

His particular area of expertise and interest is the psychology of motivation and in understanding why people drop out of weight loss programs. “With my diabetic patients I would get them to find a low GI food that they love and savour a small portion of this.”

“People don’t appreciate just how important dietary management is in the management of diabetes.” Says Professor Jim Mann Edgar National Centre for Diabetes Research.

Those with diabetes need to be extra cautious about what they eat. Deliciously Healthy Recipes for the whole family makes it easier for those with diabetes to decide what to eat.

Diabetes New Zealand was established in February 1962, in Wellington. It was the first time a nationally co-coordinated approach had been taken to diabetes support education. It was called the “Diabetic Association of New Zealand”. The name changed in 1987.

With every passing year, diabetes becomes more prevalent. There are now 270,000 New Zealanders with diabetes and 500,000 with pre-diabetes. Pre-diabetes if left untreated, may turn into Type 2 diabetes in five to ten years.

Diabetes New Zealand is now 47 years old and is continuing to fight a disease that once affected mostly those in their forties and older. But as Diabetes New Zealand gets older, those struck down by Type 2 diabetes are getting younger. Some are no more than children.

The New Zealand Diabetes Cookbook Deliciously Healthy Recipes for the whole family, by Alison and Simon Holst, is available from DSL Supplies LTD