Diabetic alternatives for Easter

Give us your best tips to deal with holidays, celebrations and festivities that are choc-full of problems for diabetics.

Happy Easter!

Of all the holidays, celebrations, and festivities of the Western World, perhaps the most dreaded of all for diabetics is Easter. Although Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving have their fair share of traditions which involve copious quantities of unhealthy food consumption, nothing says "chocolate" better than Easter.

Things are improving on this front, however. With the arrival of sweeteners such as those produced from extracts of the Monkfruit and Stevia plants, there are more commercial products being made containing these natural sweeteners, as well. "Diabetic chocolate" used to be an oxymoron, like an "accurate estimate", or to "grow smaller". These days, however, there are many such varieties of diabetic chocolate on our supermarket shelves. While they may still be harder to find, and are more likely to be in the "speciality foods" aisle, along with the vegan; organic and gluten-free options, at least there are some options available now to diabetics. Just be careful in your selections though, as not all such "speciality foods" are "sugar-free" foods. Also, as with many such products, the sugar content may be reduced, but the taste is boosted with additional salt of fat being added, which are also enemies of diabetics.

Healthy celebrating.

While food and celebrating often go hand-in-hand, there are many other ways to celebrate Easter. Some may choose to focus on the religious origins of the tradition. I'm pretty sure that the table of the Passover Feast which the Christian Bible says was being celebrated that very first Easter — as depicted in the famous fresco of the "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci — didn't have any chocolate eggs on it.

There are also many ways to celebrate Easter which don't require eating chocolate at all. One favourite pastime at Easter is the painting and decorating of egg shells. The height of this art form is expressed in the world famous Imperial Eggs, which were "manufactured under the supervision of Peter Carl Fabergé between 1885 and 1917"¹, and are now more commonly known of as Fabergé eggs. This can be a fun, family activity for all ages. Once you have expelled the contents of your egg to get at the shell for painting and decorating it, don't forget that eggs are a good, low carbohydrate, high protein food source that should not overly raise your blood sugar. A nice egg salad, with plenty of leafy vegetables and tomatoes is quite pleasant.

Give us your tips.

We are running a new competition for the Hive Diabetes Peer Support (HDPS) Community. We want to see your tips for surviving Easter as a diabetic. What do you say or do when your well-meaning work mates, friends, or relatives give you the biggest, get-out-of-here chocolate Easter bunny that you have ever seen in your life? As a diabetic, how do you react to that, even? This is something that I struggle with often, as, even re-gifting isn't really appropriate, because I'd feel like I am giving someone diabetes!

What are your best tips for surviving Easter? Write a blog post on the HIVE social blockchain which tells us your tips and coping mechanisms for dealing with the sugar-rush that is called Easter. What are your favourite go-to alternatives to feasting on sugary, chocolatey treats at this time? Where do you buy them, or do you make them yourself? Add the tags #diabetes and #diabetic-easter to your post, and don't forget to cite all of the sources for images that you use in the post, to avoid accusations of plagiarism.

There are going to be no "winners" as such for this competition, but we will have some spot prizes to give away for everyone who contributes a "quality" blog post, using the tags mentioned above. We still have lots of nice prizes left over from our recent Launch Party, including some Hive Pizza; Ecency Points; Actifit tokens; LUV tokens, and more. There are even some Splinterlands prizes yet to give away!

References

1. Wikipedia contributors. (2022, April 15). Fabergé egg. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10:48, April 16, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Faberg%C3%A9_egg&oldid=1082769025.