Mallowed Out

While I have never been a home blood sugar tester and have no intention of ever becoming one, I have always paid attention to what excesses and cheats of the diabetic diet that disagreed with me or caused unanticipated problems. I don’t eat those things that are so disagreeable.
There’s some surprising things can eat, in moderation or on occasion. Jellies and jams are the most surprising thing, but eating such things several days in a row will make a cumulative effect that will have me feeling poorly before long. I limit myself in such things. While can eat almost anything in moderation, there are things I just accept as inedible.
The first is marshmallows. They are high in raw sugar, which should pass through the system quickly as if eating raw table sugar or Skittles or other hard candy.
The other ingredients prevent this.
The effect of marshmallows, wither in packaged form or the dehydrated varieties found in cocoa or cereal, gum up my system. I’m not talking in a bad bathroom sense, but in my body’s overall capacity to process or metabolize food. The sugar in the marshmallows will stay with me longer, and in an effect that can last for several days, anything else I eat will remain in the system and keep my sugar elevated. This effect can last for several days.
This is easily enough avoided for me. No fluff on a peanut butter sandwich, no Lucky Charms or Boo-Berry cereals, no raw marshmallows, no Rice Krispies Treats. The last mistake along these lines was a variety pack of chewy granola bars that had S’mores varieties in the mix. Just one of those granola bars had the sugar feeling high for a few days. Eating it was not a willful disregard for my own health, but something I couldn’t tell due to blindness. I am typically careful about what foods I bring into the house.
Gelatin-based foods can also have this effect, but, judging from my experience, not as reaction to small quantities as marshmallows. I can cheat or use gummy bears medicinally, but in trace amounts. Fruit roll-ups and similar snacks will also gum me up inn excess. I’ve stopped giving in to the temptation of Jello at Chinese buffets and actually find the sugar free varieties to be just-fine alternatives. That’s far preferable to overdoing the traditional sugar version. I found the moderation of jello to be a sometimes difficult control as the problem is with the gelatin and not the sugar. The gelatin in even a sugar free dessert can react to the other sugars eaten, and stay in the system for a couple days and cause problems with foods eaten later.
An advantage to having developed diabetes at the age of four is that I am fairly accepting of the foods I just can’t eat. While I can handle occasional moderate amount of gelatins, my body can’t handle marshmallows in any quantity.