Dear LPG, 

Have you got an aversion to being jabbed? 

I am an oldie who hates any Jab, although I had one recently, and it was not as bad as I had spent the whole of the previous day imagining it would be. I am lucky because I have many friends in their early seventies who spend a lot more time being jabbed and on the phone with their doctors.  I am one of the few people that I know who still does not need to make contact with mine very often at all. 

As we get older, those ailments that old age brings with it can gradually make all that early morning waiting at the other end of the phone while listening to the recording that tells you how important your call is to your GP, and where you are in the queue, become more of a habit as opposed to an occasional task. At the same time, you don’t even notice what is going on.  

I can’t say that absolutely nothing is medically wrong with me, so the GP does get in touch from time to time.   I do get those texts about the ‘flu jab each winter and, of course, the annual blood test.  

For some years now, the resulting analysis of my red stuff has left the surgery letting me know that I am on the borderline diabetes radar.  I remember the first time I got that news.  My reaction has always been to cut out all the sugar from my diet, and I know my brain should be able to make sure I follow such advice, but soon after the initial shock of those medical warnings, it is as if I can’t help myself.  I would revert to my good old-fashioned ways.  

But this year was different!  My latest blood test states that I am now a fully-fledged diabetic.  I know that the news should have got me thinking about what I must do not to have a stroke or some of the other truly horrible things that can result from not allowing my taste buds to expect less sweetness, but I also know about my past attempts at curbing my sweet cravings. 

I am not the thinnest person in the world either (something else I have been trying to fix for a few years now) so, while I find myself being forced to acknowledge the more serious consequences and the realisation that my usual sugar limitation regime will not enhance my current situation, I am finding it really hard to tell myself that I need to give up every sweet thing for ever.

Now that it’s official, I plan to follow all the advice that comes with that diagnosis, but I also hope to find just a few sweet things I can still safely eat now and then.   After my first look at what the internet has to say about this, I found a few ideas that I feel could add a little sparkle to my new sugar-restricted lifestyle. I hope that those readers whose tongues have already travelled the hard culinary road I find myself at the start of. might also find it occasionally uplifting. 

GI, Grove Park.

GI offers a couple of ideas from the internet that might soften this bitter blow for anyone who has received this bad news lately… 

While LPG reminds readers that many of the ideas the internet offers come with sales pitches that need to be taken with a pinch of salt… 

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