Deborah Krueger

My name is Deborah Krueger, I am 74 years old, a diabetic chef, and I live in Portland, OR.

My (real) working life was in all phases of the restaurant business.  Until about 5 years ago, I had been making quilts for ten years, selling them to people around the world.  You may see many of these quilts at www.kingsizequilts.com

In 1972 my parents, already in their early 50’s, opened The House of Health in Greensboro, NC and had it for over 20 years.  They are gone now but that store is in the same location and is still in my family today, owned and operated by one of my parents’ grandsons.  My brother and sister-in-law have two health food stores, one in Winston-Salem, NC and the second in Cana, VA.  Most of my adult life has revolved around food in some way.

I was a chef most of my foodie life and it has been very easy for me to take recipes and make them KETO~LCHF so I hope you at least enjoy reading the recipes and certainly trying some of them. Some may look more complicated than others but really, most come together quickly. I use lots of herbs & spices and tried a lot of them with my restaurant customers so I know they are good…Please Enjoy.

My life took a drastic turn when on September 17th, 2010 I was served with the diagnosis of diabetes after three shots of steroids within a one year period prior to my diagnosis. (Sadly, I was ignorant of the effects of steroids and doctors pass them out like candy).  Starting that day I began a food diary and testing my glucose levels 3-4 times a day.  Though I now know pretty much what I can and cannot eat, to this day I still diary all of my food and test 2-3 times a day.  I wanted the opportunity to see if I could turn this around with a huge lifestyle change.  I was 5’6” and weighed 175 lbs which, though not grossly overweight, was way too much.  I lost 40 lbs. and have maintained 135-137 lbs. for the last 9+ years.  In the past year and a half I lost an additional 15 lbs. (illness) and am now back to my very respectable 135-140 lbs.  I have chosen a keto, low carb lifestyle which may not be for everyone but it has worked very well for me.  When faced with taking medication or worse, injecting insulin, I wanted to try controlling my diabetes with what I ate and to this day, I am very carbohydrate sensitive and drug and insulin free.  The foods I eat are all of the many recipes posted.

If you are interested, all my personal statistics are listed and charted on Odds & Ends
And Personal Statistics

I do not adhere to much of anything the American Diabetes Association advocates and I certainly do not believe eating “whole grains” is the answer to anything but your lifestyle and what you chose is your business.  This is not about what I believe. The whole purpose of this website and my keto~lowcarb recipes is to give you the opportunity to eat in the best ways possible while eating great foods.

The above label says the diabetes resource you can trust?  I say, would you trust this toilet paper?  Well not me baby, not me, but I think I would trust the toilet paper before I would trust the ADA.  When you put your trust in what they say you will be put on & stay on drugs for the rest of your life.  Is that what you want?  A drugged up life?  Well, it was not what I wanted and I put my diabetes in my own hands where it remains almost 10 years since being diagnosed. No drugs for this old chicky-at least not yet.

This chart is taken from the ADA website.  Are you kidding me 180 1-2 hours after eating?

In the early 1970’s when the original late Dr. Atkins’ book appeared I thought the premise made sense and I tried it.  My weight as the time was what I weight now-135 lbs.  I went from this weight to 118 lbs and being the idiotic 24 year old that I was, I thought I looked great while my friends were telling me I was too thin.  When I started eating (normally?) again I went back up to about 130 lbs. which I maintained for many years.  Yes, I worked in and owned restaurants and it was also a demanding life and my weight seemed to stay in check without much thought.  Things changed for me at about age 60.  The reasons could be many but as we age our metabolisms slow and so did mine and in conjunction, I was living a more sedate (sane) life making quilts.  I slowly (it is always slowly) gained weight.  Today, I can pretty much eat as much as I want.  I use heavy cream (40%) by the half gallon and so much butter, lard, tallow, coconut oil, and olive oil that it’s almost obscene.  Because of my life’s involvement with food, and my vast repertoire of recipes, it has been very easy for me to convert just about any recipe to low carb.  I feel so, so grateful that as a chef, I can so easily cook.  Too many people struggle with the business of work and/or children that they don’t have time to cook and in far too many cases they don’t know how to cook.

Diabetes is a progressive disease and rarely is the person taking drugs or injecting insulin ever able to get off them. Something to remember as you look at my personal glucose testing results of various products dotted throughout this site:  I have never taken either oral drugs or injected insulin so I am a perfect diabetic candidate to test any purported low carb food item.  Many diabetics, when on one medication or another, can and do eat many carbs at a time.  The medications they take are designed to allow this.  If a non-diabetic tests a product and their insulin systems are working well they will not see an appreciably significant blood glucose increase.  I have a dear friend who can easily eat 75-100 carbs at a time and her glucose level stays within 20-30mg/dL of what it was before she started eating and is then back down from her small increase within 1-1½ hours.  She has what’s called very tight glucose control.  When you see different people on the internet who have tested various supposed low carb products it is very important to know if they are diabetic and if they are, do they take medication or inject insulin.  Otherwise any product can indeed be stated and tested as low carb and not actually be.

For a list of products you may not be familiar with and used on this site, please read Low Carb Pantry Essentials.  I am NOT sponsor-compensated for recommending a product that I use*** And here, in one tidy package, are over 550 Keto~Paleo~Low Carb~Diabetic Chef’s Recipes