I’m looking for sugar-free candy recipes that I can give to two grandmas at Christmas. Both are diabetic so any kind of sugar or sugar alcohol is not an option. They are both widowed so it needs to be something that will last a while.
In the absence of candy, what other ideas do you have for filling their Christmas tins?
I don’t have any suggestions as to the candy, but for non-candy things:
nuts. Perfect holiday gift, totally good for diabetics to eat
You can make meringues with Splenda instead of sugar. Because they contain no flour, just egg whites, they are no-carb.
Cheesecake can also be made with Splenda. Make a nut-based crust, and you have very low carbs.
And keep in mind that it’s not just sugar that diabetics have a hard time with. It’s ALL carbs. A slice of bread is worse than a small candy, even if it contains no sugar, simply because it’s bigger and thus more carb-y. Same thing with cookies or cake made with Splenda - no sugar, but that flour is just as bad.
Splenda has dextrose and maltodextrin, so it certainly contains carbohydrates. The thing on the label that says “Contains zero calories”? Yeah, it’s about 3 calories in a packet, but thanks to labeling standards, they can lie.
Not according to my blood glucose meter it doesn’t. Maybe if you eat a ton of it, but in the quantities found in a typical serving, I don’t think it’s enough to matter (and I watch every single carb that goes into my mouth). At least, I’ve yet to hear of a diabetic who worries about Splenda.
I was hoping to find something a little less “fresh” so I could make it ahead of time and they wouldn’t have to eat it right away.
Gah, I think I may have to resort to bath salts. <grump grump grump>
Check out this diabetes recipe forum. Maybe you’ll find something that fits?
We have some diabetic-friendly cookbooks; I’ll see if they have anything that meets this requirement.
I’ve looked into making no-sugar treats for a diabetic friend in the past, and didn’t find much. What baked goods recipes I found were made with Splenda, and they were awful. (All that sugar-free stuff, made at home or commercially prepared, isn’t good for anyone, anyway. Have to face it - there is candy, or there is no-sugar candy stuff with sorbitol or whatever that will send you into the bathroom for a good long time.)
Or you go to sweetzfree.com and buy liquid splenda, it is just the chemical, no binders or fillers, no carbs. I use it for any sweetening need where the sugar is not needed for the texturizing property [or carmelization process]
Here’s recipes from DaVinci, who makes syrups sweetened with Splenda. Their entire line is NOT sugar-free, so their recipes are not inherently sugar free - unless you substitute the suggested flavor with the sugar-free version.
They’ve got some truffles on there, which might work with sugar-free syrup. I’m not sure how it will work out, chemically, but you could try.
Some oral antidiabetics (Glucophage in particular) are notorious for causing explosive diarrhea. If a diabetic is taking that sort of medicine, s/he probably doesn’t want to aggravate the problem. I know that I avoid it.
A lot of diabetics just eat a small amount of sugar each day, and budget for it, rather than eat the stuff with sugar substitute in it.
Nuts are quite acceptable, usually, unless the recipient is allergic to them. Dried fruit is nice, but it DOES contain a lot of carbs. The upside is that it’s tasty enough that a little bit of it will usually be enough. I usually get my mother one of these for one of her Christmas gifts, and my father a tin of cashews. I also usually get half a ham or half a turkey or one of each. This means that they don’t have to cook for a couple of meals, and that they have something to offer if someone drops in. They also love the pepperoni sticks. You might consider getting a meat and/or cheese sampler. While these tend to be high in sodium, diabetics can usually eat these without raising the blood sugar. If you live close by, you can go to a deli and pick out things that the grandmas would like.
I was trying to keep the thread on the OP’s topic, but now that you two have brought it up, I have to agree. There’s very few Splenda-sweetened things I like - diet soda, and I’ll occasionally use the Splenda syrups to flavor coffee or some other beverage. But overall, I find the taste of Splenda in most things off-putting, and go with small servings of real-sugar treats. But I’m Type 1, and use Insulin to cover any carbs I eat (within reason; you don’t see me eating giant slices of cake or even big glasses of orange juice anymore); Type 2s usually aren’t on insulin, and watch what they eat a little closer.
That said, many Type 2s can tolerate the occasional treat. Every diabetic is different, and it’s really hard to say what one diabetic can tolerate without talking to them.
I found LorAnn Hard Candy Mix. Anyone know anything about beet sugar?
Beet sugar is just one form of normal granulated sugar (the other form being cane sugar).
Isomalt - the stuff your link talks about - might be made from beet sugar, but it’s a sugar alcohol, not what we normally consider sugar. It’s not digested the same way as sugar, so the net calories are lower. Unfortunately, despite the marketing, it raises blood sugar for many diabetics, me included. Once again, this is something that varies from person to person, so you’d have to ask your grandmas specifically about it, but the diabetic community in general is pretty wary of sugar alcohols as it’s the rare person that can eat them and not experience a rise in blood sugar.
On the other hand, if someonecan eat them, there’s a ton of stuff sweetened with sugar alcohols that taste pretty good. Target (at least the one in my town) has a whole row of sugar-free stuff that contain sugar alcohols.
(Sorry to be such a downer on your thread. The unfortunate reality is that just about every carb raises blood sugar, and there’s few short cuts. Diabetics just learn what they can/can’t eat, and it varies from person to person, depending on the medications/Insulin they use, their target blood glucose/A1c numbers, exercise or lack thereof, the phase of the moon, and just how crafty the gods feel like being on a particular day.)
It’s not home-made, but Harry and David make the best sugar-free chocolates I’ve tried. They make bars and also delicious truffles. I get them at a H&D outlet store but don;t seem to see them on their main website. I’ll keep looking…
I make cheesecake using splenda and nuts for the “crust” in cupcake tins and then freeze them. If I use ziplock bags and get most of the air out they’re perfectly good for 6 months. One normal cheesecake recipe lasts me ~4 months this way and I always know there is something sweet in the house I can eat.
That sounds great! Can you post or PM me the recipe?
They have recipes for cakes, cookies, and other sweets but no candies. There is one for fudge but it’s like 430g sugar per tray.
Thanks, everyone. I think the moral of this story is to always have a Plan B. I think I will look over some of these recipes to see if I can make something into bite-size diabetic-friendly treats. They may have to keep them in the freezer but I think they can deal with it.
It is possible to make a low-carb version of Velveeta fudge by using a sugar substitute for the powdered sugar. I tried one of these recipes once with Splenda substituting for the powder and it tasted great, once the level of cocoa powder wasn’t overwhelmed by the cheese, but it needed to be refrigerated.