Foods Good to Reduce Blood Sugar Spikes

I was watching a YouTube video this morning before going out and the doctor that was presenting, listed several of the things I’m already doing.

cinnamon
fenugreek
broccoli sprouts
avocado
nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts)
garbanzo beans (hummus)
fatty fish
chia seeds
beef

This might have been the video that got me to try the “sprouted grains'” breads and I really liked the “Knock Your Sprouts Off” bread from Aldi’s, but the Ezekiel Bread was also good (but not quite as much for me). And, I still like the sourdough bread that I get from Publix, but I haven’t bought that in a while.

I stopped at Harris Teeter and bought another bag of the Blue Corn Tortilla Chips, and a couple of cans of their low/no sodium black beans to compare with the other brands I’ve already bought. Before coming back home, I also stopped by the Natural Foods Store and bought a small bag of fenugreek seeds and have put some in a small glass of water to see if they appear as in the above video.

homemade broth in freezer — Rotisserie Chicken – HT

I broke down and bought a Rotisserie Oven Roasted Chicken at Harris Teeter today, although I didn’t have room for it in my refrigerator. I ate a drumstick and some of the thigh meat and then broke the rest of the chicken apart and bagged up 5 good meal portions in zipped sandwich bags. One bag went into the fridge and the four others went into the freezer. I was surprised to get six good meals from this one roasted chicken and that only $7.99 plus tax.

But also, I took the frozen veggies that I had stored to make homemade chicken broth, out of the freezer and put them into some water, along with the leftover carcass of rotisserie chicken, into my large stock pot. I added a few herbs & spices (garlic powder, bay leaf, S&P) and let them cook on low for about an hour and a half. I’ve removed most of the non-broth items and am letting it cool down before straining the broth and putting it in my empty “Greek Gods Plain Yogurt” containers. I can get about 3 or 4 helpings of broth out of each container and they fit easily in my freezer. I think I’ll have about four of these containers when I’m finished. *No, I ended up with six of the yogurt containers and still am trying to find space for the last two in my freezer. I’ve also got enough broth left over to fix some lima beans tonight.

Earlier today I was trying to find some organizer containers, via Walmart web site, to store all the canned goods I’ve recently purchased in an attempt to overcome the effects of the Trump tariffs. It finally came to me, why not ask Aldi’s (or LIDL) if I could have some of the empty cardboard trays that they display their canned goods in on the shelves. Sure enough, the Aldi employee I asked said they threw them away, and that I could have them, but it would be better to come back at 6 pm (they are open until 8 pm) when there would be more empty trays. I stopped at the Aldi’s nearest me, and got about 5 of these trays. Then I thought to drive across town to the other Aldi’s and boy, they had way more and the young man said I could have all I wanted. I probably got about 7 or 8 empty cardboard can trays. One thing is that the can sizes are not consistent. Some cans are smaller than others, but I think I’m going to be more able to organize my cans, by categories (bean types, tomatoes, and salt or no salt, etc.) and just stack them. There will be about 9 to 12 cans per tray, so just about perfect.

Categories:

by date of purchase
vegetable types
- beans
  - black
  - cannellini
  - garbanzo
  - pinto
- tomatoes
  - diced w/ green chilies
salt or no/low salt
meal style
- Chinese stir fry
  - toasted sesame oil
  - soy sauce
  - spicy chili crisp
  - sesame seeds
- Indian
  - Patak’s curry paste
- Mexican
  - diced chilies

Sprouting Broccoli Seeds

I stopped by Bell’s Seed Store in the old part of town this morning (Friday before Memorial Day) after having my haircut and before driving up to Smithfield. I wanted to see if they had broccoli seeds for sprouting but I didn’t have much hope… but to my surprise, they had 3 varieties of broccoli seeds and I got an ounce of “Italian” Something. I bought an ounce for $4, but an ounce of broccoli seeds takes up little space.

I was also reminded of how okra seeds look and they are quite similar in size and shape to Mung beans. Small, round and green, like BBs.

As my first test I’m going to try to sprout a tablespoonful of these seeds, which may be close to the whole ounce. It should take about five days. The basic process is soak the seeds in water overnight, then rinse them twice a day to clean them and provide them with moisture, but immediately drain off the water, and let them air dry. *[05/28/25]: Well, I finally started the broccoli seeds for sprouting, and I used a 1/8th cup of the seeds which appears to be over half (Maybe 2/3rd of the seeds I bought, and that small packet cost $4 plus tax. So it looks like my first jar of broccoli sprouts is going to cost about $2.50.). But, if I like the flavor as much as I do the Mung bean sprouts (and I have another batch of those in the fridge), it will be worth it. I just added some Mung bean sprouts, yesterday, to my homemade guacamole and they were delicious. Provided a extra crunch. All that green stuff (avocado, tomatillo, cilantro & sprouts) working together.

I drove up to Smithfield to see if JR’s had any of the Avanti Cafe Mocha cigars. They are cheap and small, and I first bought them at JR’s, but then they discontinued selling them. That was about the time that Avanti changed the packaging from a greenish package to a reddish one. Nope, none and I didn’t want to try the licorice flavored version.

I then headed to Goldsboro, but made a detour to drive through Princeton and then out to the Nahunta Pork Center. I had never been to this butcher shop, but had seen it advertised for years, and it is out in the wide open farmland, but there were quite a few cars, both in front of the shop, and off in a parking area that I took to be for employees, of which there were quite a few staff both packaging items and waiting on customers. Since this is Memorial Day weekend, I’d imagine the Center is full of BBQ items for all the “get togethers” that people will be having with their families and friends. *I almost forgot. Near the head of a long counter stocked with assorted pork products, there was a whole hogs head, frozen and staring face up at you. And, I don’t recall the exact price, but it seemed very reasonable, if you ever needed a whole hogs head for some purpose.

*Don’t park in front because when you start to back out, if there are cars beside you they block the view of any traffic that may be coming along the highway.

I didn’t come prepared to buy anything, no ice chest or ice to cool things for the long drive back home, but I just felt the need to buy something. I first thought it might be some country ham bits, but then I focused upon the Liver Pudding and then the Souse that was beside it. The souse was vacuum packaged in approximately $5 portions. I took one package up to the register, of which they had two registers and were quickly waiting on those shoppers ahead of me.

As I handed the package to the clerk she asked if I wanted a second package for $1 and after a micro-thought I said “Yes.” I hesitated because I already knew I couldn’t keep the one package cool for the drive back, and was planning to stop for lunch in Goldsboro & maybe even the Library. so two packages of souse would be even more of a problem.

Not being the first time I’ve faced such a situation, I walked out with my two packages of souse and was almost immediately followed by a woman who had her packages with her. She walked quickly past me, but I called out to her and asked, “Would you like a package of souse.” I then went on to explain that I had come unprepared to cool the meat, and that I had accepted the deal of a dollar for the extra package. I asked if she liked souse, and she said something about a relative that liked it. She took the souse from me and thanked me and went on to her car, and I walked on to mine.

I found a plastic knife, in the car console, and then proceeded to cut through the plastic and a small corner of the souse. I tried it, and it was perfectly good. Not overly seasoned and I even tried another bit, but knew that I would be eating lunch shortly so I rolled the opened package up in the plastic bag and put it under a sweater on the seat beside me. Hoping to keep it as cool as possible. I think I did, but we shall see. I put it in the fridge as soon as I got back home but that was several hours later. The package still felt cool to the touch. *I tried some souse later and it still tasted good and many hours later I’ve had no negative reactions, so it must have remained cool enough without ice.

Currently I like Pender’s souse best, and Neese’s not as much.

I said this wasn’t the first time I had faced a quandary of having too much of an item and wanting to gift it to someone, not necessarily someone that I knew. The time previous to this was when I was at Lee’s Fresh Market in Benson several months ago. I had seen that they had a 2 for 1 sale on chicken livers and I bought two containers. I didn’t need two, or couldn’t use two packages in a short time and didn’t want to freeze one, so I asked a couple of customers and at first no one wanted the chicken livers. I then found a black man who said he liked them, and I gave the extra package to him. *This kind of thing is you need to find someone on the premises because it might be questionable if you drove somewhere and then asked someone else. They might question if the package had been tampered with.

[NOTE]: The following segment is a rabbit hole that helped me explore a few North Carolina highways that I am familiar with, but never saw the “big picture” of each. Hwy. 24, Hwy. 42 and a little bit of Hwy. 70. [end NOTE]

The drive on to Goldsboro had two interesting sights. I think I was passing under Hwy. 70 and there was an extended overpass that was interesting to me. *No, I just realized that this couldn’t be Hwy. 70, and I now see it is Hwy. 42, and depending upon whether you look at the Google Street View or the Google Maps, in maps the highway isn’t completed, and in street view you can see the finished overpass and drive along the finished highway. This reminds me of a segment of Hwy. 70 near Havelock. Some of that is finished, and I’ve driven on it, but on Google Maps you can still see the overhead view and only the overpasses are nearing completion (no paved segments between the overpasses). That segment is a by-pass for Havelock, for people coming down from Raleigh and going on to the beach (Atlantic Beach & Morehead City). I am familiar with some parts of Hwy. 42 but I don’t know how far it actually runs across North Carolina. Hwy. 42 has one end in Colerain about 20 minutes southeast of Ahoskie, North Carolina. One segment passes the Smithfield’s Chicken -n- BBQ where it crosses I40. And the other end of Hwy. 42 is in Asheboro, North Carolina, of which I’ve become very familiar in the past year. **I think it was Ahoskie High School that beat Swansboro High School in the football playoffs (maybe basketball), back when it counted for me. Not really. I do recall riding the Trailways Bus through Ahoskie, and hearing the bus driver on his intercom repeat, “Ahoskie, Ahoskie.” So, I would guess that Hwy. 17 goes through Ahoskie also.

I grew up near a segment of Hwy. 24 which ran from Jacksonville, NC through Hubert, and Swansboro, and on down to Morehead City and eventually dead ending on the Coast. * I just read online that Hwy. 24 is the longest state road in NC going from the Coast to Charlotte. I know there is a segment of 24 through Fayetteville. So, 42 and 24 meander across North Carolina.

But there was also a business of some type, “Benson Bros.” or some such (Benton & Sons Fabrication) and the strange thing was there were a large number of metal sculptures of dinosaur type creatures in various sizes from about the size of a man to about the size of “a dinosaur.” Not sure why, or if they sell these commercially, but from the looks of the quality, they could easily. Shiny metal sculptures.

In my brief reading on their web site, I see that the owner gave his employees projects to create these metal dinosaur structures during the economic downturn in 2008/9. They continued to hone their fabrication skills and were getting paid to work.

I enjoyed my lunch at Longhorn Restaurant. My usual. The cheeseburger special, medium with all the fixings, and as a side, the Lobster & Crab Chowder. Coke Zero this time, and yes, their appetizer bread, with a dollop of butter.

I left “The Men We Became” (about JFK Jr.) at a LLL in a nice neighborhood in Goldsboro. I’ve left other books at that location previously. This book, I found at a LLL in Benson, and I realized that I must have left it months ago and no one had taken it, so I took it to try and find somewhere else that might appreciate it. This is one of the biographies that I’ve read in the last several years that I really enjoyed. “Becoming” by Michelle Obama was the most enjoyable, then maybe the Dick Van Dyke bio and also the Tim Rossert bio, but that one was mainly told by friends and acquaintances speaking well of him.

I stopped at the Pharmacy in Newton Grove and had an ice cream cone. One scoop of “the most chocolaty” ice cream they had. I also stuffed a business card, from the No. 1 China Buffet in Asheboro, on which I had written on the back the request, “Bring Back Roadrunner Raspberry, please!” along with a $1 tip. Their one scoop of ice cream on a regular cone is still only $2 with no tax.

This morning my weight was down by .2, which isn’t great, but with all that I ate yesterday, that’s almost miraculous. And that I snacked on souse, late night, amazing. My resting BGL was 131, which is high, but because I snacked, and had an ice cream yesterday, that’s just nature taking it’s course. Don’t eat healthy and you will suffer the consequences. But, yesterday was an exception to the way I eat. I don’t eat a cheeseburger, chowder and an ice cream every day, or even once a week (usually). My trip to Goldsboro, or Asheboro might be once a month or less. Goldsboro would be a cheeseburger, seafood chowder and the whole loaf of appetizer bread at Longhorn, and in Asheboro would be breakfast at David’s (which might include part of a pancake with low sugar syrup) and the lunch at No. 1 China Buffet which might have some noodles.