If you have diabetes, the holiday season can be a time of great trepidation. If I eat cake, what will happen to my blood sugar? Will I gain weight? Can I eat just one piece of sweet potato pie and stop? Totally exacerbated, you throw your hands up and decide, “I just won’t eat anything!”
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Having diabetes doesn’t mean you have to deprive yourself of taste and flavor. There are plenty of sweet foods out there that don’t actually have sugar in them. These are foods made with low or zero-calorie sweeteners—also known as nonnutritive sweeteners.
They provide practically no calories and won’t increase your blood sugar levels. There are lots of them on the market these days—in prepared foods, in food and drink mixes, and packaged to be added to food like sugar.
The FDA and other health-related organizations agree low or zero-calorie sweeteners are safe for people with diabetes.
“The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics [the Academy] position paper on sweeteners advises people can safely