Snacks

Food
1

Hi,

I love junk food, and I love sweets. Ever since I got diagnosed (four years ago) I actually love, crave, and die for sweets even more. I work from 9-5 and in between breakfast and lunch I get hungry, so I opt for a mini baby version of a muffin and then in between lunch and home time i will eat a bag of …CHIPS…( I KNOW SLAP ON THE WRIST) I realized how disgusting i felt when i was when i was stuffing those chips in my mouth…I decided that this is not good and I should look for a better snack…so i bought mixed nuts and personally I am getting really bored of them…what do you snack on?

2

Bran crackers with a really good brie, herbed cream cheese or port wine cheese. Sugar free jello made with some chunks of orange or apple and grated lemon rind. Apple sliced thin with almond butter. Carrots and dip.

3

Low fat popcorn in the mini bags are one of my favorite snacks right now.

4

i like the crackers with cheese that are prepackaged. or crackers with peanut butter.

5

I love chocolate. No, I really really love chocolate.

I eat a small piece of chocolate (6-10g) after every meal. I bolus for it with the meal, but wait usually until an hour after the bolus to eat it. I actually have found my post meal blood sugars to be okay with this. And I am less likely to crave something sweet then.

Low carb snacks that I eat when I am hungry between meals: plain yogurt, frozen broccoli (microwaved, of course), natural peanut butter (with a spoon), and nuts.

6

I recently discovered flavored Blue Diamond Roasted Almonds at the grocery store last week. They come dusted with flavors, Vanilla Bean and Cinnamon Brown Sugar. Not quite as boring as plain mixed nuts. I find them sooo yummy! I can’t stop eating them!

Here’s a link to more info:
http://www.bluediamond.com/shop/nuts/OvenRoasted.cfm

7

I think what is worse than eating the potato chips is demonizing yourself for eating them. People tend to crave foods more often if those foods are put “off limits.” So give into your craving for potato chips, and have something sweet now and again. I think that, like Kristin, you find you will crave things less when you allow yourself to eat them. Rachael from The F-Word, a great blogger, did a post recently about “good foods” and “bad foods.” In case you don’t want to read all of it, I think one of her best points is that “…de-personifying foods as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ as well as a refusal to measure our self-worth by the foods we eat are integral steps in developing a healthy relationship with food.” As a group of people who are pretty much forced to be aware of everything we eat, I think diabetics could benefit greatly from a better relationship with food.

8

I Just got this newsletter this morning, it might help. It comes from Accu-Check.

Meals - What’s Cooking?
THE SUGAR QUESTION (AND A BROWNIE RECIPE, TOO)

It’s been more than a year since the American Diabetes Association issued new guidelines regarding sugar and sweets—yet the confusion persists. People with diabetes and the public at large still believe that little treats (like, say, a reduced-fat brownie) are off limits.

Let’s be clear—no one is suggesting that sugary foods are suddenly good for you.

It’s just that you can allow yourself some sweets, in moderation, as long as your total carbohydrate and fat intake is under control.

Why is that important? In some ways, it’s psychological. If you’re told you can’t touch a brownie, it’s that much more appealing. So you eat the brownie. Then you feel guilty. It’s a bad cycle.

This way, you can enjoy a brownie now and then. Just make sure it’s the best-tasting, most healthful brownie you can find. And wouldn’t you know it? There’s a recipe like that right here.

This recipe makes 24. But why not cut them even smaller? Then you can have twice as many.

Here’s the recipe if anyone is interested:

PHILADELPHIA® Reduced Fat Marble Brownies

Prep Time: 20 mins
Total Time: 1 hr
Makes: 24

Ingredients
1 pkg. (20-1/2 oz.) reduced calorie brownie mix
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Fat Free Cream Cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preparation
Prepare brownie mix as directed on package. Pour into 13x9-inch baking pan sprayed with no stick cooking spray.

Beat cream cheese with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add sugar; mix until blended. Add egg and vanilla; mix just until blended. Pour cream cheese mixture over brownie batter; cut through batter with knife several times for marble effect. Sprinkle with chips.

Bake at 350°F for 35 to 40 minutes or until cream cheese mixture is lightly browned. Cool; cut into squares.

Variation
Cappuccino Brownies: Dissolve 1 Tbsp. MAXWELL HOUSE Instant Coffee in 1 Tbsp. water; stir into cream cheese mixture. Spoon over brownie batter in pan; continue as directed.

Calories 140 Total Fat 3 g
Saturated Fat 1 g Cholesterol 10 mg
Sodium 135 mg Carbohydrate 25 g
Dietary Fiber 1 g Sugars 19 g
Protein 3 g Vitamin A 4% DV
Vitamin C 0% DV Calcium 2% DV
Iron 4% DV

Diet Exchange
1-1/2 Carbohydrate, 1/2 Fat

Exchange calculations based on Exchange List for Meal Planning *1995, by The American Diabetes Association, Inc. and the American Dietetic Association.

9

Hi, Loren,
I don’t know about you, but I can’t have a snack with 25g carbs and keep my BG under control. And as for cutting them in half, that kind of defeats the purpose. 12 1/2g carbs for a tiny piece of brownie just isn’t worth it for me.

10

Carrot sticks, celery and fresh vegetables. Fiber is a good choice.
Granola bars and fresh fruit are always better than that bag of chips, no matter how much you crave those things.
Celery and peanut butter are good. But Cheese is also a great choice because there are virtually no CARBs.
Morning snack can be Fiber One Cereal without the milk but in yogurt.
Give it a try. It may not satisfy the chip craving, but you will feel better during and after your snack!

11

Thank you All!! You guys are all awesome! HOnestly ever since I found this community I have actually been trying to be a better diabetic! :slight_smile: By the way I want everyone to check this video on artifical sweetners my doctor fwd this like to me…

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=6393070

by the way is anyone adicted to diet coke or Pepsi?..I am BIG TIME

12

I’m with Kristin on this one! Every day I try to put a little chocolate in my lunch, such as a Hershey Kiss (leave the bag at home in the freezer!). This way you get just enough chocolate to satisfy your craving, but don’t have the temptation staring you in the face. If you really want to feel better about it, by the dark chocolate kind:)

As for my current fav snack, it’s anything (or nothing) and peanut butter. I especially like a crunchy carrot with it or a graham cracker. Hmmm…I’m getting hungry!

13

I read labels obsessively (although this doesn’t apply to baked goods that don’t come in a package, which I eat with abandon) and so I’ve picked out a few snack bars that are a good balance of carbs, protein, and fat – with not so many carbs that I have to take a bunch of insulin for a snack. My favorite bars are ZonePerfect and Luna Bars, both of which are very sweet and chocolatey and only have 21-23 grams of carbs. Good stuff. Oh, and a bag of SunChips isn’t bad, it is 29 or 30 g carbs and not too much fat, so you’ll feel healthier than eating chips. I hope they have some of these brands in Canada!!

(Oh, and by the way, there is a site called insulinpumpforums.com that I belong to that has a lot of Canadians on it – they are a GREAT resource for diabetes info, and they use the metric system :wink:

14

I love the 100 cal packs - most are under 20g of carbs… my personal favorites are the mini fudge stripe cookies, sandies & the cheetos cheese balls… I keep them at my desk at work & usually have something in the afternoon to get me thru to dinner…
I have also done the small piece of chocolate - that seems to work pretty well for me too.
Jen

15

I love the mini fudge stripe cookies!

16

GUESS WHAT!! I tried something new …I bought almonds from Costco for $9.65 coated them in olive oil and a wee bit of salt and then…i toasted them in a 350 degree oven for about 10 mins and then once they were cooled off i put them in my snazzy little snack Ziploc bags… and today was the first day I started snacking on them and before I knew it…they were all gone…not bad for a snack annnnnnd I heard that almonds make you smarter ( HMMMM…OLD WIVES TALE? PERHAPS…) :slight_smile:

–

17

Why can’t 25g of carbs be handled? I take 5 u of insulin for that and have no problem?

18

As much as I can tell sugar and fake sugar cause you to crave sugar, so people and rats gain weight because they eat more. If you are serious about your diet coke, and say no to other sweets, no big deal. Personally however, the less fake sweets you eat, the sweeter non-sweet foods, like corn, veggies, fruits, pasta taste. I quit all refined and fake sugars and dropped my body fat 6%

19

try cayenne pepper and a little season salt is good too, or use worchester sauce instead of olive oil

20

I try to keep me BG completely normal which for me means staying between 80 and 120 all the time, and an A1C in the 5s. If I eat 25g of fast acting carbs (baked goods, potatoes, rice etc.) I can very rarely get a perfect response from the insulin shot. I tend to go up to 200 just briefly but since I am LADA and still have a 2nd phase, my own insulin, in combination with the injection sends me crashing down to 60. I hate the rollercoaster. I do eat 25-30g per meal but they are complex carbs, mostly veggies, with some fruit and dairy. I don’t want to do a shot for every snack, so I stick with lower carb snacks.