D-Mom Blog

The sweet life with a diabetic child

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{Food & Allergies} Chocolate Chip Cookies

After Q began her complete milk elimination Thanksgiving weekend, we were craving something sweet. I hit up a natural foods store to see what they offered and found several types of candy bars and chocolate morsels all made by Enjoy Life.

I made chocolate chip cookies using the classic Nestle Tollhouse recipe substituting Earth Balance for the butter and the Enjoy Life chocolate chips for the Nestle ones. I ended up freezing half the dough, which was much appreciated a few weeks later.

The cookies turned out great with the substitutions and were enjoyed by all!

Carb count? I don’t know. I didn’t have it in me at the time to figure it out and I made an educated guess that, if I recall, was pretty close. The Nestle recipe says 15 carbs for 1/60th of the batch.

Chocolate Chip CookiesChocolate Chip CookiesChocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve since found out that Baker’s and Ghiradhelli make semi-sweet chocolate without milk. Both brands are much cheaper than Enjoy Life. But the good thing about Enjoy Life is that all of their products are free of the 8 most common allergens. If anyone knows of a source of the Enjoy Life chips on the cheap, please let me know!

Always read labels of individual products as ingredients and manufacturing may change. Any allergy information provided on D-Mom Blog does not constitute medical advice. Please read the disclaimer and consult your physician for any questions you may have.

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{Snack Find} Popcorners

PopCorners SnackPopCorners Snack

The grocery store had these out as a sample. Since Q liked them and they are milk-free, I threw some in our cart and have been putting them in her lunch all week.

It’s 22 carbs for a 1-oz serving, but half a serving is more than enough for the lunchbox.

  • Ingredients: yellow corn, sunflower oil, sea salt.
  • Gluten-free
  • Milk-free

They come in several flavors, which you can see on the Popcorners website.

All images are copyright D-Mom Blog and D-Mom Media and may not be copied or reproduced without express written permission.

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{Our Story} My Mind Went THERE

My kids have always been milk drinkers. So much so that we got delivery of milk in glass bottles on a weekly basis.

This fall they seemed to ease up a little on their milk consumption. Then at Thanksgiving we completely eliminated milk from Q’s diet after skin tests revealed the allergy.

My five-year-old son has declared that water is healthy and no longer wants milk at school lunch (Darned if I didn’t prepay enough to get milk at lunch every day this year!), at snacks, or at bedtime.

This weekend he drank water like it was going out of style. He drank like a fish. He filled cup after cup. He asked me to grab him refills as he built the last of the new Lego sets from Christmas (we’ve been slowly doling them out). At bedtime he filled the Dixie cup three times at the bathroom sink.

And of course my mind went THERE.

If you have more than one child and you are reading this blog, chances are you know the deep, dark place that is THERE.

I debated checking his blood sugar in the night, but decided to check him in the morning.

One by one, oldest to youngest, we checked our blood sugars.

It’s bad enough in those five seconds that we are waiting for my daughter’s BG to show up, but what about for three people who do not have diabetes? What if one of us had a fasting blood sugar that was high?

Fasting Blood SugarFasting Blood SugarFasting Blood SugarFasting Blood Sugar

Phew, nothing to worry about.

Don’t we encourage kids to make healthy drink choices and fill their glasses with water? Of course.

But when your child without type 1 diabetes is on his 8th glass, your mind goes THERE.

Signs and Symptoms of Type 1 Diabetes

(Taken from my book Kids First, Diabetes Second)

  • Higher frequency of urination (including bedwetting in potty-trained children)
  • Extreme thirst
  • Increased hunger
  • Unexplained weight loss
  • Irritability or overly emotional reactions
  • Fatigue
  • Fruity smelling breath
  • Sugar in urine (determined by a lab test)
  • High blood sugar (determined by finger stick or blood draw)

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{Our Story} What A D-Mom Won’t Do

Snacks

Sunday night I started readying the kids backpacks for the week. I knew I had several things I needed to remember before we left the house Monday morning.

Snack for my son’s class (frozen yogurt tubes).

Small cooler by the garage door so I wouldn’t forget said yogurt tubes.

Two bricks of juice boxes in Q’s backpack because the teacher mentioned on Friday that they were running low. (Oh, just made a pun!)

Library books in each kids’ backpack because heaven forbid they not get to check out a new one.

And there were a couple of the things on the list for myself.

What I completely forgot until we got to school was the Scooby lunchbox that we send in each week with about a dozen snacks portioned out into 15 carbs each. She grabs one on the way to PE and it’s there in case the daily morning snack has tree nuts (despite the fact that it’s a NUT FREE classroom…parents never care unless it’s their child!).

I didn’t want to go all the way back home so I thought I would pop in the small grocery store near the school. My choices were so limited. Mind you, I have the following requirements:

  • Convenient
  • About 15 carbs
  • Tree nut-free
  • Milk-free

And my choices?

Uh, nothing really. They didn’t even have applesauce pouches. I bought a six pack of applesauce cups (not really conducive to eating on the way to PE), a bag of pretzel twists, and a box of snack size baggies.

And I sat in my car, did some math, and portioned out the stupid pretzels.

Surprisingly, Q was excited for those pretzels. She said “Thanks, Mom.” and hugged me before carrying the bag back to her classroom.

Further Reading

More posts about snacks

More Diabetes at School Posts

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{Food} Cereal Portions

One thing that has been evident to us since beginning the continuous glucose monitor (CGM) is that Q has big post-breakfast blood sugar spikes. Sometimes she’ll go up to 300! We’ve done a few things to try to offset it, such as pre-bolusing for a portion of her breakfast up front, following up with a bolus for any carbs she ate over that amount (this is made super easy with an insulin pump).

Many breakfast foods are high in carbs and I began noticing that for her it wasn’t necessarily what she ate, but how many carbs there were. So I’ve begun limiting the number of morning carbs somewhat.

Cereal, no matter which kind you buy, is pretty high carb.

Q was really bummed when we learned of her tree nut allergy that she couldn’t eat her two favorite cereals, one of which had walnuts and the other had almonds. So I bought a few different cereals at the store which I thought she might like.

Our mornings run more smoothly if carb counting is easy. When I looked at the label of this new cereal, I decided that the standard serving size was too many carbs. I figured out the weight of a 30 carb portion and divided it up right upon opening the box. (I do this with most of our snack foods, tubs of yogurt, etc.)

I divided 30 carbs (the carbs I wanted) by 46 carbs (the carbs in a serving) and then multiplied by the serving size 55 g wt to find out how much my 30 carb portion would weigh: 36 g wt.

30/45=0.667

(0.667)(55)=36.66

I weighed out individual portions into small bowls that have lids and then used a dry erase marker to write the carbs for that serving. No thinking in the morning!

Another trick if you don’t want to portion it out is to write the serving size and number of carbs right on the box.

The box says it has five servings, but I was able to get eight.* Money savings, FTW!

CerealCerealCerealCerealCereal

*I did get eight servings, but the kids each wanted a bowl right then because the dried strawberries looked so yummy.

Further Reading

More posts about food

More posts about carb counting

More posts about allergies

All images are copyright D-Mom Blog and D-Mom Media and may not be copied or reproduced without express written permission.

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{Allergies} Julie Bowen on The Doctors

Don’t worry, D-Mom Blog hasn’t turned into an allergy blog. Though I do know that many families are also dealing with food allergies, whether it’s in their d-kid, other children, or themselves. I have a very fascinating story to share about how a particular food allergy is affecting Q’s diabetes. I’m floored by it and gathering my thoughts to share in a post (with lots of photographic evidence!).

Now we are not only carrying diabetes supplies and glucagon, but also epipens. Our d-bag is SO heavy!

Here’s a video of Julie Bowen (of Lost and Modern Family fame) talking about her son’s life-threatening allergies.

Video from The Doctors:

(E-mail and feed subscribers click here for embedded video.)

Further Reading

More posts about allergies

Disclaimer (none of this is medical advice!)

Diabetes Awareness Month: Day 27

“When a child’s blood sugar is low it’s difficult for them to think. During a low blood sugar, the brain literally doesn’t have the fuel it needs to function properly.”