Q&A with Robyn Webb, RD on creating Stress-Free Meals
For her newest book, The Smart Shopper Diabetes Cookbook, award-winning cookbook author, nutritionist, and Food Editor of Diabetes Forecast®, Robyn Webb, MS, set out strategies for stress-free meals from the deli counter, freezer, salad bar, and grocery shelves. She teaches readers how to incorporate new and convenient fresh and shelf-stable foods from nearly any grocery store into amazingly easy meals that meet diabetes nutrition guidelines.
We love the book and asked Robyn to give us some advice on including pasta in your diet!
1. As a cookbook author, culinary instructor and nutritional counselor with a specialty in diabetic cooking – do you have a few quick tips to help our readers make fast and healthy meals?
- Learn to make the supermarket work for you! It’s perfectly acceptable to choose already cut produce from the salad bar, canned beans, frozen vegetables and even foods from a prepared deli like low sodium turkey to prepare quick meals. These are shortcuts that get food in the table quickly that are still healthy, although you might have not started completely by scratch.
- Another key to fast preparation is a well stocked pantry, refrigerator and freezer. It’s not always about the recipe itself, but having all you need on hand really speeds the process. How many times have you seen a recipe that calls for canned tomatoes or pasta or broth? Many times! Set your pantry up so you never run out of staples.
- And keep it simple. You can prepare a quick meal like sautéing a chicken breast, then mixing up some low sodium soy sauce, mustard and a little honey to pour over the top like a sauce; just four ingredients, lots of flavor. The less ingredients or ingredients that need little preparation are key to speedy meals
2.We also know that you are the food editor of Diabetes Forecast magazine from the American Diabetes Association. Are there certain characteristics of recipes which will make them better for someone with diabetes?
The American Diabetes Association recommends that an eating plan that includes lean protein, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, low fat dairy and minimal saturated fat is best. But the approach can take many forms; vegetarian, vegan, Mediterranean, DASH and more. There are many paths to managing blood sugar. When I develop the recipes for Diabetes Forecast Magazine, I’m looking to keep saturated fat and sodium low, increasing fiber wherever I can and using real food simply purchased from any market. Since the dietary needs of all our readers vary, I design recipes that are very flexible so each of our readers can adjust to their specific goal.
3. Can pasta fit into a diabetic diet? Do you have a recipe that you can share with us?
Absolutely! Pasta is a nutritious,inexpensive and filling food choice that fits into an eating plan for people with diabetes. At the ADA, we know when an eating plan is carefully crafted by an RD, all foods can have their place. We don’t endorse heavily processed foods, and pasta is about as natural as you can get! What’s so great about pasta is that a little goes a long way to produce satisfaction. It’s very important, and I’d even go as far as to say crucial that we are left satisfied after our meals. If you deprive yourself, you may end up “foraging” for foods that fill the need to be full, but may end up being not healthy. I usually develop recipes with whole grain pasta and love to pair it with a bevy of fresh vegetables.
Robyn shared her Rigatoni with Sun-dried Tomatoes, Pesto, and Olives from her latest cookbook, The Smart Shopper Diabetes Cookbook. Check out the recipe.
4. What is your favorite part of creating a pasta meal?
I call pasta the “little black dress” of my pantry. You can dress it up any which way you want! I can just go simple with a little o.ive oil, chopped basil and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. Or I can toss it into a vat of soup or even make a pizza crust out of it! It’s truly that versatile!
5. We heard about your new book– how exciting! Can you tell us a little about it?
Yes pasta had a place in my latest book The Smart Shopper Diabetes Cookbook! The book is based on a system I developed by shopping 4 zones of the supermarket to create meals. So the shelf staple foods( that’s where pasta resides, and it’s the largest chapter in the book), salad bar, frozen department and deli are employed to make quick meals that meet the needs for people with diabetes. It’s based on the belief that a ” little helping hand” from the market is a good thing! I’d rather people swing by a salad bar for precut broccoli if they really don’t think they would cut the broccoli or if they would waste too much. The book is a realistic way to look at our food shopping and cooking habits to find middle ground that leads us to achieve wellness.
Check out Robyn’s Rigatoni with Sun-dried Tomatoes, Pesto, and Olives recipe. If you’re interested in Robyn’s latest cookbook, The Smart Shopper Diabetes Cookbook, check it out here: http://www.shopdiabetes.org/1437-The-Smart-Shopper-Diabetes-Cookbook.aspx
About Robyn Webb
Award winning cookbook author and culinary instructor, Robyn Webb has been a passionate advocate of cooking well and eating wisely for most of her life. Because of health problems within her own family, mostly notably diabetes, Robyn learned early on the importance of a balanced, healthful approach to eating.
Her interest and expertise in nutrition have led to her extensive work with the American Diabetes Association (ADA). Combining culinary talents with hard scientific data, Robyn has devoted her energies to educating people with diabetes about how to facilitate the daily challenge of managing their disease through creative, healthful meal planning. She is the Food Editor of the award winning Diabetes Forecast magazine published by the ADA and read by more than a half million people every month in hardcopy and online.
In collaboration with the American Diabetes Association, Robyn Webb has published numerous cookbooks that teach people with diabetes how to maintain healthful diets with food that is satisfying and flavorful. Her most recent release is The Smart Shopper Diabetes Cookbook, by the ADA (2013), which has been named to the prestigious Washington Post Best of 2013 Cookbook List. The book is a based on a system of grocery shopping from the salad bar, deli, frozen food section and shelf stable foods to create flavorful, healthy meals.
In addition to her cookbook writing, Robyn also develops recipes for major food companies such as Nestle, Kelloggs, Keebler and Reilly foods. In this capacity, Robyn has developed diabetic dessert recipes for Nestle, Kelloggs and Keebler and her recipes have been published on each company’s web site. A project for Reilly Foods lead to the development of recipes for people with diabetes using Luzianne Tea Flavorings, also for use on the company’s web site. Another project for the New York based public relations firm, Sudler and Hennessey, lead to the creation of a calendar with monthly recipes for people who suffer from migraines. She served as the culinarian for the Global Stevia Institute, an international board for the awareness of the alternative sweetener stevia. She has also completed two recipe editing projects for Readers Digest. Eat to Beat Diabetes features over 200 recipes and information about managing diabetes successfully and Eat to Beat High Blood Pressure as in the same format. Robyn edited all the recipes and provided the forty pages of text.
You can visit Robyn’s website, or check out her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.