seeing a dietitian

My mom went to see a dietitian yesterday. So today, she wanted me to go see her and look through all the papers she got about how she should be eating.

She isn't a full on diabetic, but she does have "food controlled diabetes", which I don't totally understand, but what I am assuming is that she can control her condition through her diet.

Good. I was pushing for her to eat a better diet anyway. Not good that she has this condition, but at least now she has her doctor basically echoing what I've been telling her all along. Which is, eat better.

I've learned some interesting and shocking things today. One being, I don't want to become a dietitian. The thought has crossed my mind more than a few times, as I try to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life now that all my kidlets are in school. And since I'm nutty about nutrition, I thought that might be a good career choice. But, I obviously don't share the same beliefs that the dietitians are trained to have. One being, you can drink pop.

Yes. I was BLOWN AWAY by this. My mother, is allowed to drink diet soda. It's actually in a category called "unlimited" - meaning, she can drink as much as she wants.

Another little tid bit that fascinated me (because I didn't want to use the term blown away again, although I was) is that she is not supposed to count total sugar grams. What they have her doing is controlling her carbohydrate intake, which is all fine and good, but they aren't really teaching her to stay away from high sugar foods by telling her to ignore total sugar. Yes, the pamphlet actually says "ignore total sugar grams". Wait, what?

Yes, keeping a limit on the amount of carbs you eat is limiting sugar (I guess) to a certain degree, but it says nothing about the fact that you probably shouldn't be eating a particular food if the sugar content is higher than 6g per serving.

She is supposed to "count" carbs. For instance, she can have 3-4 carb "choices" for main meals and 1 carb "choice" for both snacks. Her breakfast should be around 30 carbs, lunch around 45 carbs, and I hadn't looked at dinner so I don't know that number. But all they want her to do is pay attention to TOTAL carbs.

I get that they are solely trying to eliminate the problem with her condition (in this case, too many carbs) and not forcing her to eat a totally clean and perfect diet. Because not everyone is into that. Even when faced with a food specific disease. But you would think that they would preach a little bit about sugar intake. And certainly not tell her to ignore it all together!

Nothing about staying away from white breads and pastas. Nothing about fat intake or protein. Some of their OK'ed snack choices even included Doritos. Really? I figured there would be a much more balanced and holistic approach.

So, I went through her meal options and picked out some healthy choices for her. I even went through her pantry and we got rid of everything that had partially hydrogenated oils (aka trans fat) and I plan on taking her shopping tomorrow. Once she has a good solid foundation of what is ACTUALLY healthy for her and starts eating properly, I have no doubt in my mind that she will not only feel better, but have more energy, lose more weight and be happier.

I'm not trying to put down this dietitian in particular or the profession as a whole, because they probably know many many different diets for all different situations. They are trained professionals and I am not. I was just very....very surprised by a few things. That's all. No offense intended here.