Ten years ago Monica’s husband was diagnosed with diabetes. Today, she uses MenuSano’s online nutrition calculator to help control it.
Counting calories is challenging, especially when accuracy is crucial. Reading nutrition labels has become a regular part of grocery shopping for health-conscious people. But for Monica, reading nutrition labels went further than checking calorie counts when her husband was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes ten years ago. Back then, helping her husband control his diabetes was a little simpler. However, two years ago, Monica found her husband was struggling to maintain his sugar count. He was diagnosed as having Type 1 Diabetes and insulin became a part of his everyday life.
Read more: Operating in a Post-COVID World with Jo-Ann McArthur of Nourish Marketing
What is Type 2 diabetes?
According to the Diabetes Canada, Type 2 diabetes is a disease in which your pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or your body does not properly use the insulin it makes. As a result, glucose (sugar) builds up in your blood instead of being used for energy.
Type 2 diabetes can be controlled through a proper food plan, physical activity, and medications while monitoring blood glucose levels.
Read more: A Conversation with Chef Luciano Schipano
What is Type 1 Diabetes?
According to Diabetes Canada, Type 1 diabetes is a disease in which the pancreas does not produce any insulin at all. Insulin is a hormone needed to help your body control the level of glucose (sugar) in your blood. Without it, glucose builds up in your blood instead of being used for energy.
Type 1 diabetes can be controlled by taking insulin and monitoring blood glucose levels.
“At first, I was just depending on my own knowledge gathered from reading nutrition labels and what I understood to be good carbs versus bad carbs,” says Monica. “But my husband would struggle to keep track of his carbs. So I decided to help further. The trouble came in when I would watch the cooking network or find recipes online. Most of the recipes posted did not have nutritional information. So if I made one of the meals at home, I was unsure of how many carbs, or how much sugar my husband was consuming.”
Monica knew what she had to do, and a simple Google search for a nutritional calculator led to a solution. She tried out a few different calculators, but none fulfilled her and her husband’s needs. “The information that I needed to assess my husband’s meals was missing. Choices of food and measurement and the ease of inputting were all missing.”
But then, Monica came across MenuSano. The online nutrition calculator’s extensive database and easy to use system, originally built to help restaurants analyze and present nutritional content to customers, ticked all of Monica’s boxes.
“MenuSano’s database was extensive, which really impressed me. I cook with a lot of whole foods and the nutrition calculators I used previously didn’t have ingredients such as hemp seeds, chia seeds, or super grains in their database. I also had trouble with finding the right measurements. MenuSano allows me to choose between measuring my ingredients with cups, grams, or pieces,” says Monica.
The ability to calculate nutritional information accurately and easily has helped Monica and her husband better manage his Type 1 diabetes. Says Monica, “It makes both of us feel better because we feel confident in what he’s eating. We can calculate everything from his fibre intake to his protein, glucose, and carb intake. I eat the same foods as him and it really does make me feel better too knowing that I’m eating the right portion of everything. Transparency is key.”
Read more: How To Market your Healthy Dishes with Social Media
