Food innovations

In this season of feasting, it's noteworthy that the government has announced that it would be rolling out a noodle that is OK for diabetics.

- ANA MARIE PAMINTUAN

I'm interested to find out what the noodle is made of. Aside from being a cooking enthusiast, I also have to plan the meals that will suit the health condition of members of my household. One is borderline diabetic; another suffers from gout; still another has had a mild stroke and must avoid cholesterol-laden food.

I've taught them to shift to low-glycemic brown rice, so now they don't feel deprived of the country's staple. For arroz caldo, we use millet or "yellow rice," whose consistency when cooked is similar to broken rice.

After a lot of trial and error, I also managed to produce a 100-percent whole wheat bread with zero added sugar in any form (no honey or molasses), which doesn't taste like darak or rice bran for animal feed and doesn't harden like a rock after only a few hours. The borderline diabetic and I genuinely like the bread.

I also managed to come up with a 100 percent whole wheat homemade fresh pasta that was actually edible. I was tweaking the preparation process when I came across a new product in a Korean grocery: glass noodles made of 100 percent sweet potato flour.

Hallelujah! I've since set aside my handheld pasta shaper. The diabetic tried the noodle and was ecstatic to learn, after a lab test, that her now much lowered blood sugar level remained stable.

Glass noodles in the market are made of one or a combination of starches made of pea, mung bean and potato. The one with gout reacts to pea starch, and the glycemic index of potato is similar to that of refined wheat. So the compromise noodle for all in the household is the one made of low-glycemic sweet potato.