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I was seduced by chocolate with polyols

LucySW

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,974
Location
Denmark
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
Look, I was a total innocent happily chugging along having Turned My Back on sweet things nine months ago on T-1 diagnosis. My devilish friends, claiming to want to show me a good time, started pelting me with low carb dark chocolate bars with erythritol and inulin fibre (sounds disgusting doesn't it, but actually it is very very good). Now I've eaten three in the past week and I'm afraid I'm going to start craving carbs again. I'm still in ketosis so still just about safe, but - SHOULD I RESIST ??? Should I give this synthetic rubbish up and just have teeny bits of real 85% chocolate?

Is my immortal low-carbing ketotic soul in danger?? Help. Guidance needed.

Lucy
 
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Well .. if you're anything like me, you're best off avoiding. Even stuff that doesn't raise my blood sugars is damaging for me because it makes me crave more sweet stuff and I don't stop at the 'diabetic friendly' thing I started with. I am an addict, no two ways about it. But you know yourself better than I do. Let us know what you decide
 
I'm on the fence. And I'll likely stay there for a while yet.

Had no problem tolerating two squares a day of Lindt 70% cocoa chocolate until my pre-ulcerative colitis kicked back in, so I'm off all chocolate for a while. The idea of eating anything sweet still makes me uneasy, but I've only been on the LCHF diet for 2 months.

This is something to test if and when we want to and we're ready.
 
Hola Lucy

I bought a couple of Atkins bars from boots the other week as they were bogohp. First one was nice, second one not so nice ( maybe because I had done some more reading on polyols?) and I could 'feel' it rattling around inside me. Research is pretty ambigious on polyols but gut feeling is I won't be buying them again.

Sweet treat for me a finger (or teaspoon in polite company) of peanut butter.

Cheers.
 
Well, it's a tough one. I went through a stage of buying Atkins coconut bars - exactly like Bounty - didn't affect my stomach at all, but like Tim, affected my BG badly, so I was forced into abstinence.

Dark chocolate kitkat is good for a treat - 7g carb per finger - I still have to bolus unless I'm correcting a hypo.

Or bake your own chocolate muffins with almond flour, splenda, sweetner and chunks of 90% Lindt - great with a coffee, freeze really well - and in my oven baking right now!

Smidge
 

When my friend gave me that stuff I saved it and made her a cake with it. I also gave her a pack of 12 toilet rolls. She stopped bringing the 'good for me' chocs and lollies.
 
Pipp said:
When my friend gave me that stuff I saved it and made her a cake with it. I also gave her a pack of 12 toilet rolls. She stopped bringing the 'good for me' chocs and lollies.
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Sounds very much like the diabetic chocolate/biscuit range that Boots sold many years ago when I was diagnosed, a sure fire cure for constipation
 
Speaking of which someone at work gave me some 'diabetic chocolates' at Christmas last year; they are still in my desk. Any takers?

Looking at the contents the polyols are listed as a sugar; what is the deal with that? Does it not affect blood glucose?
 
Swap yah - I've got a High5 energy gel going spare.

Jury is out on the polyols - some say yes but on the other hand some say no.
 

Hey Dillinger! Even the most die-hard polyol recipe writers have now come round to the idea that they DO affect BG to some extent - not sure Atkins Ltd has got there yet though! People see to fall into two camps on this - either they get stomach upsets and no or little BG impact (presumably because they can't digest them so they fester in the small intestine (nice!)) or they get no stomach upset but feel the full impact on their BG - like me! Although @tim2000s seems to get both LOL - sorry Tim!

Polyols are completely carb - but it's this US diet industry idea of 'available carbs' - i.e. deduct the carbs you can't digest and only count the ones that are left. Most of the chocolates made of polyols in the UK use Maltitol - and this hits my BG just like sucrose. Thorntons diabetic milk chocolate uses this.

The erythritol polyol that a lot of people seem to tolerate very well works differently - it doesn't go anywhere near the BG or the small intestine apparently. It gets processed by the kidneys and expelled in the urine. I've seen no really bad reports of it, but I don't fancy the idea of my kidneys and bladder having to deal with that so I've steered well away from it.

Smidge
 
Me neither. I've no intention of sending a chemistry set thro my kidneys. I like my kidneys.
 
Baruney said:
Swap yah - I've got a High5 energy gel going spare.

Jury is out on the polyols - some say yes but on the other hand some say no.
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That sounds like a good deal for me; I could use that to treat a hypo - but what use is there for diabetic chocolates!
 
smidge said:
Hey Dillinger! Even the most die-hard polyol recipe writers have now come round to the idea that they DO affect BG to some extent
Smidge
Click to expand...

Hi Smidge,

Good stuff thanks; I'll just close the drawer on my desk and worry about it later...

Thanks!

Dillinger
 
@simdge, I'd say it varies. My worst experiences were with the greatest of the laxative polyols, Sorbitol. That one always did me in. The max recommended amount was 25g and it would affect me in about half of that. Malitol is not quite so bad, but not great. Malitol does increase my BG levels though pretty much in line with sugar. Can't say I've experiemented much with Erithrytol or Xylitol, but who knows what they'd be like.
 
Dillinger said:
That sounds like a good deal for me; I could use that to treat a hypo - but what use is there for diabetic chocolates!
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You save them as a gift for someone you don't like that much!:***:
 
I starred in a "Watchdog" programme warning against diabetic chocs, a few years ago.

My children saw & recorded it
 
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