I’m actually a pretty lucky person. I like most fruits and vegetables and “healthy” things. I have a few things I don’t eat (bananas, fish), but in general I’m not too picky. I haven’t drank soda since college, just tea, coffee, the occasional lemonade, and (something I’m so glad is “in” right now) sparkling water. Pre-pregnancy, I would very rarely indulge in a “craft soda” made with cane sugar, but after so long without soda, it’s usually a little too sweet for me. So, mostly just the basics to drink, the biggest carb drinks being sugar or flavor in my coffee and the occasional fruit juice (I’m a sucker for orange-mango or orange-pineapple), plus a selection of adult beverages when I’m not percolating a little one inside me.
I have never liked the taste of artificial sweeteners. When I was little I first noticed aspartame, but even as I was older and tried things like Stevia, which I’m told technically isn’t “artificial”, I can always tell when there’s something weird sweetening my food and I don’t like it. The recipes I share here may occasionally use honey, pure maple syrup, or fruit to sweeten, but will generally be regular sugar (or brown sugar, or powdered sugar!). Of course, there will be savory recipes, too, but all with “real” ingredients.
My goal with my diabetes diet hasn’t been to take something I love and substitute ingredients to make it “better for me” until I no longer like it, it has been finding new recipes, and learning portion control on the old favorites that I can’t do without. I was considered pre-diabetic before pregnancy, and with how early my gestational diabetes manifested, I’m more likely to keep the diabetes after pregnancy. Even if I’m okay immediately after, I’m at a higher risk for Type 2 diabetes in the future, which is one of many reasons to find better recipes and habits now that I can continue later.
I actually thought that bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes would be the hardest things to be without during this time, but sugar and sweets have been a bigger challenge than I anticipated, especially being diagnosed in October and working in an office with Halloween candy at every desk.
Shortly after my gestational diabetes diagnosis, one of my aunts sent me an instant pot (favorite appliance!) diabetes cookbook and the first section I flipped to was desserts. I was disenheartened to find most of the desserts too high in carbs for my strict diet, but got so excited as I flipped to a very low carb key lime tart recipe!
…Well, long story short, I still don’t know what erythritol is and if it’s safe for pregnant ladies, I just went ahead and figured it would be one of those things that rubbed my taste buds wrong and skipped that dessert. So, instead of key lime tarts, today I’m going to share with you my go-to instant pot creme brulee recipe, one I loved pre-diabetes and was overjoyed to find out was already low enough in carbs for me.
Before we get to the recipe, first the answer to your burning question (if the above wasn’t enough): why did a diabetic name their blog “Better with Sugar”?
I instantly switched to decaf coffee once I saw that positive pregnancy test. I’ve had the “full octane” brew a few times since, but generally just skip it instead of worrying about too much caffeine if I get a chance to have some chocolate or something else you don’t normally think of as caffeinated. But, until GD, I continued my cream and sugar habit (specifically, Dunkin Donuts Extra Extra creamer). Even after the first GD changes, I was trying to keep my Extra Extra, but when I read the label and realized 2 T was the serving size and started using that, my morning coffee wasn’t nearly as tasty. I tried brewing a smaller cup of coffee each morning, and switching to regular cream and sugar, but even though I could get it a bit sweeter for the same carbs, it still wasn’t how I wanted it. A few weeks in, I switched to cream only. In the past, I’d only drink coffee this way with dessert, but I decided I’d rather have the right amount of cream and no sugar each day instead of a smidgen of sugar and cream that didn’t satisfy.
The other weekend, as I drank my coffee over breakfast with my husband, I sighed and said “it’s better with sugar,” and my husband, without skipping a beat, and as only a couple can do when they’ve been together over a dozen years and have many inside jokes asked me, “is that your new stage name?”. And I laughed and agreed (as one must), but then thought about it and felt it would be a much more appropriate blog name, and Better with Sugar was born. I hope my anecdotes can help you in some way with your own personal challenges and that this won’t be a boring ride. Good luck to both of us on that count!
Now, on to the recipe….and since I always dislike the blogs where I have to scroll through the whole narrative to find the recipe I’ve bookmarked, it can be found as a separate post right here. Enjoy!
Better with Sugar 