Diabetic Recipes
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Olivia is planning on going trick-or-treating tonight. She's 13, so a bit old to be doing it, but she's using her little sister as an excuse. Who am I to knock that? I did the same thing all the way thru high school - hey, someone had to take my sister out. My parents were more than happy to let me do it.
Olivia is a candy freak. I have to take her bag away from her or she'll just eat and eat and eat and SWAG bolus , which either sends her skyrocketing high or plummeting low. Last year I didn't take the bag away until the next morning and by then, she'd put a pretty good dent in her stash.
So this year, I'm going to take it right away. I'll do the carb counts on it and dole it out a few pieces at a time. I hate to have to crack down on her like that, but really, who needs to eat all that candy? Not anyone, whether they have diabetes or not.
Thank goodness Calorie King has such a vast database. Did you know that candy corn has 36g of carbs per serving? A serving is 22 pieces. I don't quite know how anyone could eat 22 pieces of candy corn, but there you go, now you have the carb count. For a candy that real people actually eat, a snack-size Kit Kat (yummmm) has a mere 9g of carbs. I'd rather eat one Kit Kat than even one piece of candy corn, lemme tell you.
That's our plan for Halloween this year. How are you going to handle it with your kids? Do you take away the candy and give something else? Do you dole it out over the next few weeks? Or do you bother with trick-or-treating at all?
Now that Brendon is pumping, it makes it more convenient to give him candy. BUT, because I dole it out, they harass me constantly and it takes way too long to get through their stash.
This year I'm going to let them pick out a few of their favorite pieces and then trade the rest for a small toy. Or in Brendon's case, maybe let choose something that has to do with his baseball card collection.
Even if diabetes wasn't a factor in our house, I'd still put a big kabosh on the candy.
Ooooh, that's a good idea! She's always wanting something at Claire's. What do you set for a limit? $10?
I think $10 is plenty. You figure, a big bag of assorted candy costs less than that and that's about how much she'd collect door to door anyway.
"Last year I didn't take the bag away until the next morning and by then, she'd put a pretty good dent in her stash."
I don't mean to be harsh, but do you think that is in any way related to the fact that you control what she eats and in fact take the candy away?
My mother used to do this and the net effect was not that we ate better things, we just figured out how to do it behind her back. And when we got our hands on candy we devoured it. I am extraordinarily fond of sweet foods largely, I think, because I was denied them and therefore associated more value with them.
Clearly, you can do what you please for the next 5 years, but at some point Olivia will need to fend for herself and start making her own food decisions. Why not work with her instead of controlling her and let her take responsibility for her own health and control? Reward responsibility, a good A1c and help her work through food choices and the highs and lows.
My two cents.
Anne