Vegetarian Low Carb

[Fio Praeter Humanus]

Ok a little background first. I am a diabetic and currently eat a very low carb diet. It is the only way I have found to control my blood sugar without having to take a lot of pills or insulin. Currently about 70% of my diet comes from meat.

Now the problem, due to certain recent spiritual insights I now have started to feel a little guilty when ever I eat meat. I would like to move toward a vegetarian diet but am unsure if I will be able to really do it while keeping my daily carb count low. To further complicate matters I exercise 5 to 6 days a week so need a good amount of calories just to maintain the body weight I currently have.

I generally try to stay around 60g of net carbs a day. If my blood sugar is running high for some reason I will dial back to 30g and if things are going well I can go as high as 100g of net carbs a day.

I have no moral issues with eating fish or animal products such as eggs and dairy, so that helps. I would rather stay away from unfermented soy products due to some recent health concerns about those products, so where does that leave me?

1 cup of beans has around 30g of carbs in it, so can only use them in moderation. The same goes for brown rice. I am just unsure what options I can have if I go this route and hoping for suggestions from people more experienced in this life style of diet.

Currently I usually eat one or more of the following items for breakfast: yogurt, sausage, eggs, turkey bacon, or a piece of wheat bread with peanut butter. So that is easy to modify.

Lunch usually consists of fish, either tuna or herring, so am good there. But my only sticking point is supper. Currently I just eat meat and vegetables, so am really looking for a substitution for that meal. I'd really hate to eat a salad every single night although could handle it once or twice a week.

Any ideas or suggestions?

[Carbon Class Six]

Hello

Although I am a vegetarian, I'm not quite sure what to recommend as far as low carb goes. I recently found out that quinoa has all amino acids that our body doesn't produce on it's own, so there's a good replacement for tofu or other unfermented soy - but it probably has carbs up the wazoo as it is a grain.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21U1.html

Yeah...70% of calories come from carbohydrates.

Secondly I was going to suggest you look into raw veganism. I know there's a thread on the raw diet here, so you can check that out, but I have read from a few different places that raw veganism has almost eliminated diabetes from many people. I'm pretty sure you could just go raw and be fine (Vegetarian, though even raw omnivorism would probably be fine). Raw omni would probably be considered a paleolithic diet, though, which may be a diet you would want to look into if you decide to stick with meat.