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SWEET TOOTH

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PaulinePassmore

Newbie
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3
My son, aged 19, recently diagnosed as Type 1 (02 November 2017) has a sweet tooth and loves sweets and chocolates. Does anyone have any advice what sweets, if any, have a low carbohydrate content.
 
PaulinePassmore said:
My son, aged 19, recently diagnosed as Type 1 (02 November 2017) has a sweet tooth and loves sweets and chocolates. Does anyone have any advice what sweets, if any, have a low carbohydrate content.
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How is he managing his diabetes? Is he carb counting? It's perfectly possibly to have normal chocolate with the right insulin dose, it can help to bolus for it as part of a meal, but it is doable. Type 1 doesn't mean he has to give up chocolate and sweets (although depending on the sweets they might be difficult to manage - might be good hypo treatment though) it just means he has to learn how to manage his insulin to deal with them.
 
I never ate a lot of sweets before being diagnosed, but having to force myself to eat them for hypo treatments quickly made me lose all interest in lollies. Aside from the taste, it reminds me of being low and feeling scared. I can and do eat chocolate. For example I ate chocolate ice cream for breakfast today! I think it's actually a really good choice of treat since it is a source of calcium. Just make sure you buy smaller ice creams, around 15g carbs or less. I don't think it's worth wasting more than 1 serve of carbs per meal on chocolate when there are many other nutritious options.
 
Hi @PaulinePassmore . One suggestion I would make is that you avoid going down the " diabetic sweets/ chocolate " route .
They are no better than normal sweets/ chocolate, cost more and can lead to more time in the little boys room.
Ultimately it would be nice if your son could make some small sacrifices, but as alluded to already there's no need for a total ban.
Not the easiest time of year to be making cut backs on " nice " stuff.

Good luck.
Welcome to the forum as well.
 
obviously he will need to cut back if he is eating loads. the odd treat if he wants something is fine. try him on some of the fancier darker chocolate. personally i would not eat them but if he is type 1 and knows how to adjust his insulin its not an issue. sweets are less than ideal but again his choice. as he is only 3 weeks into his diagnosis i think being a little more conservative may be wise. dont use diabetic stuff it really is not needed. there are loads of diabetic cakes that you could make.
 
Hi, thanks for all the advice. He is carb counting and seems to have got to grips with it. He is trying to eat normally and does allow himself chocolate. I just thought that maybe there were some sweets that were better than others. Thanks again.
 
PaulinePassmore said:
Hi, thanks for all the advice. He is carb counting and seems to have got to grips with it. He is trying to eat normally and does allow himself chocolate. I just thought that maybe there were some sweets that were better than others. Thanks again.
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You can get sugar free sweets although they’re not as nice of normal ones.
Have a look when you do your food shop and have a look at the labels.

Are the sweets/chocolates he likes available in smaller packets?

I would avoid diabetic chocolate though. Not nice at all and can have laxative affects!
 
I completely agree with @catapillar: he can have sweets and chocolate if he is carb counting as long as he has insulin for them.
Best to keep an eye on the affect on his BG.
 
You can make anything low carb/sugar free if that's what you're looking for, just search something in google but put 'low carb' at the end and you'll find a recipe


For pre-made stuff Sainsbury's do Oppo ice cream which is really tasty. Waitrose do Cavalier chocolate which is made with stevia, and there's an online store called 'Pundits' that do low carb chocolate. Some Tesco/Morrisons do 'chocologic'.

There's also the online store sugarfreemegastore.com that does lots of chocolate and sweets that are low carb/made with sweetener.

Through trial and error (and research and community help) he will find out how much he can have without needing to bolus/how to bolus for some of them
 
How much does he love them?

Are we talking about grazing on chocolate bars in between meals? If so, I'd tell him regardless of being diabetic or not that isn't healthy.

Sweets don't have a low carb count, that's pretty much the opposite of the definition of sweets!

Having said that, I have a proper sweet tooth too, just count the carbs and dose for it. Just... have a healthy diet as any diabetic or non-diabetic should. And that generally means not eating a lot of sweets.

And be aware of "no sugar" or "low sugar" items. For example the Oppo ice cream mentioned above still has a fair bit of carbs in, so requires insulin. Count the carbs, not the sugars for dosing.
 
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