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Vegetarian hypo treatments

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Flower

Flower

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I had a hypo this morning at the bus stop and the only thing I had in my bag was some unopened jelly babies. As my blood sugar was 2.6 I had to eat some and whilst sitting waiting for my blood sugar to rise I read the ingredients. I've been vegetarian for 35 years and know I have eaten gelatine before in fruit pastilles etc but sort of dismissed it as it didn't mention the source. This packet specified bovine gelatine. I felt as if I was eating a piece of cow 😱 One of the other ingredients was stinging nettle extract 😱 I suppose at least that is vegetarian.

I find it easier to not overtreat hypos if I eat pastilles etc in a measured amount rather than drinking glucose drinks. Whilst in town I found some Butter Tablet which is high in sugar content but doesn't involve gelatine.

Do you know of any other efficient hypo stopping, glucose rich sweets that I can try that don't involve animal products or stinging nettles for that matter?
 
Skittles looks to be OK at a quick glance. See 'Nutrition Information': http://www.wrigley.com/uk/brands/skittles.aspx

There seems to be some confusion online (red colouring from Chochineal in some countries but not others?). Not sure if the pack would have a logo/flag on it?

Might be worth your while looking at Gluco/Dextro Tabs too. They feel too chalky to have anything gelatine-y in them.

Also - Coke is available in miniature 'mixer' sized cans if that helps?
 
Many baby food fruit puree pouches are veggie / vegan. Depending on ingredients, 8 to 20g CHO per 80 to 100g pouch. Higher with banana, rice; lower with berries. Screw caps, so can seal if you don't use all.
 
Thanks Mike, I'll look out for small cans of sugary coke as I didn't know they existed and won't be too heavy to carry around. Chalky gluco tabs are pretty grim but I do usually carry them, my tube was helpfully empty this morning 🙄

Cochineal is E120 and Skittles do list this. I'll try to find out if any other makes of jelly babies are vegetarian friendly, probably all chewy, squidgy sweets will have gelatine in them. I wish I hadn't read the ingredients and stayed in blissful ignorance.
 
M&S do veggie sweets Flower Colin the caterpillar, Percy pigs and fruit pastilles at last look and they mostly list carb per sweet, I use their jelly babies because they're not as disgusting to my sweet averse taste buds but I don't think they do a veggie version of those anymore. They use pea protein instead of gelatine so worth a look 🙂
 
How about dried fruit? The sugar in that is so conctrated it would surely do the job and no gelatine involved.
 
Thanks for the ideas, vegetarian Colin the Caterpillars sound appealing. I've not ever looked at the sweets in M&S but will do so.

I used to have dried apricots, thanks for the reminder 🙂 I've never thought about pureed fruit in pouches. Lots of new ideas to try and no animal/beetle products involved.
 
Colin & caterpillars sound good to me too 😉 (for the big kids 😉)
 
Flower, you need to google the Vegan society. Most sweets contain either gelatine from ground up animal bones, or shellac from crushed insect exoskeletons! One of my son's friends is vegan and he can safely eat Haribos - these can be bought in small treat size packs suitable for treating mild hypos - however we find them (and jelly babies) a little slow acting compared to 100% glucose sweets such as dextrose. Coke works best for my son for bad hypos.
 
It's worth looking in the free from section of super markets, also H & B have sweets suitable for vegetarians. I did a shop around for a friend who is vegetarian.
 
Stinging nettles are OK to eat, once they're cooked cos the 'hairs' go floppy. Some of the River Cottage recipes have nettles in em. I shouldn't think you could get anything MORE vegan than a nettle!

What would you have done up to the 1980's had you been T1 when us T1s only managed to stay alive with porcine or bovine insulin? Insisted on being left to die, or what?

I'd love to know. How strong exactly are vegetarians principles?
 
I don't eat meat and fish because I don't like the taste and texture and I don't wish to eat lard and bone gelatine, no other reasons.

I used porcine insulin from the 70's to 80's but didn't want to eat the rest of the pig and I carry my hopefully vegetarian hypo treatments around in a leather bag but don't fancy eating the rest of the cow. Just my assorted choices 🙂
 
Conversely I love nearly all parts of a piggy whether running across the field to greet me at the gate or served up in numerous dishes. LOL

I don't have a problem with your statement - if I don't like stuff I don't eat it either. One of our granddaughters has a prob with food textures too.

I'm always interested though cos it was only by courtesy of the pigs and cows being slaughtered for meat that I and many others - didn't realise this included yourself! - are alive.

Unfortunately some vegetarians bang on overmuch about cruelty to animals and get all the other veggies a really bad press. I don't see that its cruel to eat something that's already dead anyway, and wouldn't even have been born in the first place if the farmer didn't have a market for the animal. I abhor cruelty full stop. I think most people would agree.

Just nutters some of them.
 
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