Why Most Diabetic Recipes Taste Like Cardboard, And The Cookbook One Woman Spent Three Years Getting Right

Most people with diabetes know the plate I mean. Plain chicken, a pile of steamed broccoli, two dry crackers on the side, and not much reason to look forward to any of it.

It is "safe". It is also the reason so many people with diabetes stop enjoying food. Doctors tell you what you can't eat. Friends and family are not sure what to cook for you, so at gatherings you end up with something that, in Denise Campbell's words, tastes "more like cardboard than something edible".

And slowly, food stops being a pleasure. You think about every meal in terms of what it contains instead of how it tastes.

She looked everywhere for something better

Denise has lived with diabetes for 20 years. For a long time she searched for a good cookbook, one with quick, easy meals that tasted great and were still right for her. She looked online, in bookshops and in libraries. She asked dieticians, chefs and restaurants if they had any special recipes she could use.

What she found instead was a short list of "allowed" foods and the same tired recipes that have been passed around for decades. In her view, most diabetic recipes are "about as tasty as the paper they're printed on".

Why the recipes are so dull

When Denise went looking for the reason, she kept running into the same three things:

1. The focus is on what you can't eat.Most advice is a list of foods to cut out, with very little about what you can enjoy instead.
2. Publishers don't bother.It seemed to her that publishers didn't think there was enough demand, so they never made the effort to create quality cookbooks for people with diabetes.
3. The same old recipes get repackaged.Much of the food world seemed happy to reprint recipes that had been around for decades.

The result is food written around fear rather than flavour. So Denise decided to do something about it.

So she made the cookbook herself

Over three years, Denise worked with a team of dieticians, chefs and food lovers to put together the cookbook she had always wanted. The recipes were tested in her test kitchen, and the finished book runs to 297 pages with more than 250 diabetic-friendly recipes. She called it The Ultimate Diabetic Cookbook.

It is written for people with Type 1, Type 2 or gestational diabetes, and just as much for the husbands, wives, parents and children who do the cooking for them.

What's on the menu

• Soups and stewsMore than 25, including the Fresh Garden Stew and the Morning Harvest Soup.
• Meat, chicken and fishOver 80 recipes that Denise says will remind you of your favourite restaurant.
• Salads and vegetables25+ fresh salads and veggie combos, even for people who "don't like salads".
• Grains, legumes and pastasComforting dishes built around the staples you love.
• Snacks and drinksA host of snacks for guests, and dozens of drinks, hot and cold, with and without alcohol.
• DessertsMore than 25, including Melting Peach Crumble, Apple Cranberry Pie and Grilled Angel Food Cake.

You don't have to be a good cook

The part that helps most on a busy evening has nothing to do with any one recipe. It is that the hard work has already been done for you:

• Exchanges and conversions are worked out for you, so you can simply follow the recipe.
• Your old favourites can stay. The cookbook shows you how to turn favourite pre-diabetic dishes into ones you can still enjoy.
• A list of staple ingredients means you can make something good even when you haven't been to the shops in days.
• One meal for the whole family, so whoever does the cooking stops making two dinners.

It is an eBook, so you can download it a few minutes after you order, read it on your screen and print any recipe as often as you like. If a page gets splashed while you cook, just print it again.

Three bonus guides come with it, free

• 177 Ways To Burn Calories Safely For Diabetics (eGuide)
• Insiders Guide To Living With Diabetes (63-page eBook)
• The Diabetics Guide To Lowering Your Cholesterol (eManual)

The cookbook and all three guides cost $37, as one payment.

If you are tired of careful, colourless food, or you cook for someone who is, Denise's cookbook is well worth a few minutes of your time.