Since living with diabetes is all about struggling to eat like a normal human being, I bring to you what I am calling my BOB/BOW post in honor of Diabetes Awareness Month: In my quest to be a better snacker, and a less guilt-ridden PWD, I have queried the diabetes community about their “Best of the Best / Best of the Worst” snack choices. Essentially, using Twitter and the DBMine Facebook page, I asked you all to share your favorite healthy snacks, and those you found irresistibly “bolus-worthy.”
The main trends I discovered in healthy snacks are nuts and vegetables. Darn it, I have trouble with both! Nuts are just so full of fat, and I find it next to impossible to restrict myself to that modest little handful that’s supposed to suffice. Vegetables can be yummy, but only when covered with just the right, tasty and not-too-fatty dip. Ask my friends: I’m on a Holy Mission to find the perfect veggie dip. Recommendations welcome!
Bolus-worthy trends seem to lean toward ice cream and treats of the chocolate variety. Oh, how I concur! Why bother with anything else sugary, if you can have chocolate? But WHY does it have to be so difficult to dose for? Who else often uses extended bolus to cover the fat content, but overcompensates and ends up low at 2am? What, just me?
In any case, here’s a quick run-down of input. Thank you, my food-challenged Friends!
BOB
P. Reilly: dehydrated flax chips w/ raw almond butter.
Cara: Almonds. I LOVE almonds.
Claire: addicted to baby carrots and TLC crackers together.
Laura Brandes: Carrots are up there. Celery with PB or cream cheese (is cream cheese healthy?). Almonds.
Anne: Hummus and veggies. It’s addicting.
Duncan Roberts: Probably cheese or peanuts. I love both and don’t need extra insulin but you… do walk a fine line between healthy and unhealthy when you love them as much as I do. Portion control is key!
Anne Findlay: Dried fruit… Especially mangoes. (Wait, isn’t that totally high-carb?)
Jenny Y: Duncan, I have to agree with your healthy snack and add in pumpkin seeds. I could eat bags of them, although I know the sodium content is not any better for me!
Annie Millar Auerbach: Healthy snack = nuts! And I mean that….
Stacey D: I like Yoplait Delights + Kozy Shack tapioca.
Lisa B: I used to live on string cheese and Greek yogurt. Since I can’t have dairy, now I eat fiber bars and PB on celery.
Karen Goldstein: cucumber slices and homemade salsa – OK, it doesn’t need to be homemade but that way you can control the salt, and it’s so easy to make up a batch.
BOW
P. Reilly: organic dates stuffed with Wasabi almonds.
Cara: A Snickers or Oreo Cheesecake Blizzard from Dairy Queen
Bernard: Butterscotch pudding or apple pie. Of course apple pie is really a complete meal 
Jaimie: a Cliff Kids brownie Zbar! =)
Laura Brandes: I definitely have a weak spot for cookies. I think popcorn is a pretty healthy snack. However, it does require a bolus and, more often than not, melted butter. This makes its categorization a bit muddled. Wherever it falls though, popcorn is good.
Anne Evans: Bolus-worthy? Donuts! And I have Celiac, so I have to eat gluten-free donuts! Still worth it. (Really Anne? I haven’t met one yet)
Duncan Roberts: It has to be brownies. As chocolatey as they can be, a little bit crunchy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside.
Jenny Y: I’m going with caramel corn or candy apples – carnival treats are my weakness!
Annie Millar Auerbach: Bolus-worthy would absolutely hands-down have to be homemade chocolate chip cookies followed by a close second of ice cream.
Cherise: chips, ice cream and cupcakes
Karen Goldstein: Dulce de Leche ice cream. Haven’t had it in about a year. Thanks for the reminder!! Just kidding, love all the comments.
Fantastic input, thanks again. Me? I try to be “good” by snacking on lite cheese sticks and turkey bologna. But when I am “bad,” I am very, very bad with too many tortilla chips and too much of a good thing. Yum.
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Pecan Pie flavored pecans…… I know you said nuts can be a problem for you but these are bolus-worthy. Crush and put over butter pecan vanilla or any caramel type icecream…….. 70/30 combo bolus over 1.5 hours works for us. Whip cream too, it’s almost free.
P.S. Sorry misread post and omitted the “healthy” part,LOL. How about spicy black beans (recipe on back of Goya dried black beans package) only add two Jalapenos when you fry onion and omit some of the water and add diced tomatoes in puree). Put these over low carb or otherwise tortilla chips, top with Montery Jack (spicy jack best) or cheddar and melt under the broiler. Top with fixings, salsa, diced red onion and sour cream. High in fat, possibly, depending on he chips and type of cheese (you can use reduced fat cheddar for this), but healthy and low in carbs.
Yes, dried mango has a lot of carbs but if you get the kind without any sugar, it is much less. (And I think the mango quality is better because they just use the sugar to make the bad stuff palatable, in my opinion.) And for some inexplicable reason, it really doesn’t hammer my BG. The same goes for most dried fruits (no sugar added) for me. Of course it depends on how much of it you eat!
The best dried mango I have found is at Whole Foods, but Trader Joes also sells it. Rainbow Grocery (local store) also has it but it is actually more expensive than WF.
Favorite chocolate is Lindt extra Dark 85% cocoa bar. Only 2 carbs, 1 protein per square (10 squares in large bar). I take 1 or 2 squares each day as my chocolate vitamin! Does have 4.5 gr fat per square, but so worth it in small quantities! [Other % Lindt bars have much more carbs - only 85% is low-carb.]
I just love vegetables all by themselves
BOB: Guacamole with celery sticks or toasted low-carb tortillas. I also had some baba ganoush today (like a hummus, but made with eggplant instead of chickpeas) that was amazing. Cherry tomatoes. Packaged kale chips – they just don’t work well made at home for me. Dry roasted wasabi edamame. One site that has recipes I enjoy is askGeorgie.com, a lot of her recipes are pretty carb-friendly and healthy. I like her roasted bean recipes for snacking. I’m also a total nut fiend.
BOW: Green & Blacks 70% dark chocolate, hands down. 17 grams (half of their mini bar) is about 8.5 grams of carb, and it’s a pretty satisfying amount. I also like Clemmy’s ice cream – it’s sugar-free (sweetened with xylitol and maltitol), but rather heavy on the fat content. My daughter likes it, and she usually doesn’t like my sugar-free dessert options.
Here’s an easy dip for vegetables: Add some dill weed to plain Greek yogurt. You can put in a crushed garlic clove or two if you like.
Amy,
When I was diagnosed (way back in 1972) we Type I’s were given strict Food Exchange diets. I was allowed 6 cashews, I recall, as one “fat exchange.” When I got on Humalog and Lantus and did the whole “carb counting” thing rather than the strict Food Exchange diet, I decided to go to town with nuts. Now, EVERY DAY, almost 365 days a year, my lunch includes a 6-ounce container of yogurt, 3 ounces – you got that right – 3 OUNCES of nuts, carrot sticks and water. I am slender and happy as a clam since I always craved nuts and could not eat them. I’ve been eating them at lunch for at least 10 years now! For reasons I cannot explain, the fat in the nuts does not raise my BG. Give me pizza, and it’s a whole other story!
I know it shouldn’t maybe be a snack, but sometimes I eat it between my meals. It’s my favourite diabetic friendly low carb bread from Josephs Bakery. You can use it to prepare a healthy meal with chicken and vegetables, but you can also eat a piece of it with a slice of tomato. Always works for me.
Has anyone tried Clemmy’s Ice Cream? It is a REAL Sugar Free Ice Cream. It is also lactose free and gleuten free and really tastes great. They had six flavors at the Ralphs I go to and their Ice Cream O’s and I got the Coffee and a box of the O’s and it was great. Diabetics have no problem eathing this! Look at Clemmysicecream.com or go to their FB page and try it! I’ve missed ice cream!
I found the deserts made to go with the low carb diets pretty good, and at least they were low in the bad sugars, but when I left that diet, I found that as a diabetic nuts and yogurt – in portion – were the BOB, and the BOW for me were bagels, breads and cakes (not whole grain, but I find it hard to get single serving who grain foods, and have no time to bake).