Bitter without the Sweets
Ah yes, Christmas is coming with lots of goodies that I can't eat because I'm diabetic.
Can you hear the squelching sound of someone wallowing in self-pity?
Anyway, I'm mostly used to it. I don't drink alcohol - oh, all right then, there was that night in Italy when I had two beers and got really rather tipsy - but haven't drunk any at all in the two months since we got back.
I don't eat cakes or desserts much at all - - just the occasional small portion, perhaps once a week, of something fairly plain. Chocolate cake, for example, has not passed my lips for about five years. I expect I'll have Christmas pudding on Christmas day but at no other time.
Occasionally I eat a few squares of dark chocolate and even more occasionally I eat a whole bar of milk chocolate - - usually the kind made by the monks of Caldey Island near Tenby, as actually that isn't too sweet.
But, in the supermarket today - and this was Tescos - I looked at all the cakes on the cake aisle and the chocolates on the chocolate aisle and the sweets on the sweet aisle and I thought - - blimey, there are a lot of things that I don't eat these days.
But then I remembered that previously, in the sweets aisle, there was a little section of sugar-free sweets. When I was in Italy I found lots of really good sugar-free sweets and enjoyed sitting in the back of the car surrounded by sweet wrappers.
In Tescos there weren't any. I searched and searched but all I could find was a multi-pack of sugar-free Polos and I'd got some of those anyway.
So what had happened to the sugar-free-sweets section?
I found Well-Meaning Sales Assistant and asked him.
He was a bit embarrassed.
"Ah, well, in the run up to Christmas, we put lots of other things out, and the things that have the smallest sales - er - won't be on sale until after Christmas."
"So that includes sugar-free sweets, does it?"
"Er - - yes."
So not only can I not eat all the Christmas goodies, I can't even get the very few things that I can eat! Am I the only diabetic in Roundhay, I wonder? And in that store there are foods for every minority group in Leeds - - kosher, halal, Polish specialities, for example - - and quite right too! But what about diabetics?
I said to Well-Meaning Sales Assistant that I knew it wasn't his fault, but that I feel a letter to the manager coming on. I'll be interested to see if I get a reply.
Can you hear the squelching sound of someone wallowing in self-pity?
Anyway, I'm mostly used to it. I don't drink alcohol - oh, all right then, there was that night in Italy when I had two beers and got really rather tipsy - but haven't drunk any at all in the two months since we got back.
I don't eat cakes or desserts much at all - - just the occasional small portion, perhaps once a week, of something fairly plain. Chocolate cake, for example, has not passed my lips for about five years. I expect I'll have Christmas pudding on Christmas day but at no other time.
Occasionally I eat a few squares of dark chocolate and even more occasionally I eat a whole bar of milk chocolate - - usually the kind made by the monks of Caldey Island near Tenby, as actually that isn't too sweet.
But, in the supermarket today - and this was Tescos - I looked at all the cakes on the cake aisle and the chocolates on the chocolate aisle and the sweets on the sweet aisle and I thought - - blimey, there are a lot of things that I don't eat these days.
But then I remembered that previously, in the sweets aisle, there was a little section of sugar-free sweets. When I was in Italy I found lots of really good sugar-free sweets and enjoyed sitting in the back of the car surrounded by sweet wrappers.
In Tescos there weren't any. I searched and searched but all I could find was a multi-pack of sugar-free Polos and I'd got some of those anyway.
So what had happened to the sugar-free-sweets section?
I found Well-Meaning Sales Assistant and asked him.
He was a bit embarrassed.
"Ah, well, in the run up to Christmas, we put lots of other things out, and the things that have the smallest sales - er - won't be on sale until after Christmas."
"So that includes sugar-free sweets, does it?"
"Er - - yes."
So not only can I not eat all the Christmas goodies, I can't even get the very few things that I can eat! Am I the only diabetic in Roundhay, I wonder? And in that store there are foods for every minority group in Leeds - - kosher, halal, Polish specialities, for example - - and quite right too! But what about diabetics?
I said to Well-Meaning Sales Assistant that I knew it wasn't his fault, but that I feel a letter to the manager coming on. I'll be interested to see if I get a reply.
posted by Daphne at 3:06 pm
8 Comments:
Yes those Italian sweeties WERE good and of course had the double benefit of (almost) keeping you quiet in the back seat.
I'm sure other supermarkets would have them even at this time of year as remember, a diabetic isn't just for Christmas !
Vegetarians probably feel the same way about meat markets. Not a good example, I know, but I felt compelled to say something.
As Madame Somebody-or-other once said, "If I had had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter."
Being made too aware of the perils in life is now actually stopping us enjoying ourselves.
I personally don’t want my enjoyment of food to be spoilt by continually being made to feel guilty, nor do I want it tainted by constant references to medical journals and doctors opinions
It's a kind of discrimination... but what do you expect from a profit-crazed brontosaurus of a corporation like Tesco whose aim seems to be world domination? Judging from the way you write and live your life, I'd say you are sweet enough anyway!
I know a superstore that should be right up your street and sells sugar free sweets - sugarfreesuperstore.co.uk
Good thing you're sweet enough already!
Oh the misery that is a commercial Christmas!!
Had the thought of making something yummy crossed your busy mind?
I'm with Bernard,as usual and refuse to be bowed by talk of what's good and bad,soon it will be unhealthy to breathe,actually it is already isn't it?
I eat butter, real cheese, country meat and pickled onions made by real hands in a kitchen not far away.Long live real food and the occassional really excellent treat like chocolate cake, tiramisu and lemon meringue pie made with real eggs from happy hens.Go the guilt free foodies!
Silverback - yes, you and Stephen were very fortunate that I still managed to talk as well as eating those sweets - it was quite an achievement, obviously.
RWP - I like Madame Somebody's quotation, I'll remember that one!
YP, Ruth and Debby - - many thanks! And I'll be looking at that online superstore.
Bernard and Goosebreeder - I'm totally with you in principle and hurrah for home-made chocolate cake! But a glance round any diabetes ward would show why I can't eat it - limb amputations and blindness do put you off rather. But to everyone who's not diabetic - - do go for the occasional properly-made rich treat!
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