My current workplace is great for trying new things to be healthier, and most of all our staff canteen chef. When I started at my temporary job I was delighted that the staff canteen was serving in-house homemade baked goods. I’m partial to a wholemeal scone and these ones were modest in size so reduced guilt for extra calorie intake and less impact on glucose levels. However, it did take me about a month to tweak my insulin dosing to accommodate my new working life routine as well as the “foreign” food intake.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my weekly brown scone treat didn’t have that hint of sweetness anymore and definitely didn’t taste as nice. Oh, and my glucose levels went through the roof! I figured that our Chef had just removed the sugar ingredient and hoped it wouldn’t be a permanent change. In the meantime, I was doing my best to re-tweak my insulin doses.

I don’t know how it happened to come up in conversation, maybe it was something to do with the mention of “so-and-so has just been diagnosed with diabetes” and me replying “you know I have diabetes too”, that I discovered that the sugar ingredient was substituted with an artificial sweetener. Our esteemed Chef automatically assumed, as one would, that removing the sugar ingredient would make them healthier. And maybe they are, I’m definitely not a registered dietitian so I can’t be the judge of that. I wasn’t about to let an opportunity pass where I could raise an issue that I feel strongly about which is, that what’s healthy for everybody isn’t always healthy for people with diabetes.

What’s healthy for everybody isn’t always healthy for people with diabetes!

At the same time, I was having one of those tough weeks and decided that my comfort was going to be a scone for break three days in a row. The above conversation took place on day 2 of 3 in a row where I was losing it trying to match my insulin doses to reduce the impact of the No Added Sugar Scone on my glucose levels. So, I shared how I was having difficulty managing my levels with the No Added Sugar Scone.

Here are photos of my glucose monitor trend lines from day 1 and day 2. You can see where the line goes above my upper target range and stays there for hours even though I keep adding more correction doses of insulin. Day 2 was way worse because I was already creeping up before I even thought about having my scone.

I offered to go on a fact-finding mission to see if there was any science to support how much healthier reducing added sugar to foods might be and if the quantities we’re talking about really matter. Yo-Twitter!

I was still crowd-sourcing information on Day 3 while sitting to my next scone which to my joy was a regular one and my levels were so different. Here are the pictures of day 3 which as you can see, my levels barely went above my upper target range at all! Oh, Sweet Joy!!!

Back to Twitter, the consensus of the few is don’t mess with the taste unless it's to improve it, portion sizes are incredibly important, and people with diabetes frequently have to trade what’s healthy with reducing the impact said healthy food has on glucose levels. I haven’t even touched on insulin timing in this post which may have been another layer but I’m happy enough to live with my personal consensus that the onset, peak and duration of my insulin works better on regular scones than on No Added Sugar scones.