Eating dessert is on a roll

You learn a lot about nutrition after being diagnosed. Life is a day-to-day, minute-to-minute grind of what you can and can’t eat and drink. It becomes almost immediately apparent, which brands and food categories have gotten the sugar free thing right. By and large, the food industry has done a good job. The beverage industry hasn’t come as close. There is still lots of aspartame in things which tastes bad when you drink it and leaves you with an aftertaste reminder for 3 or 4 hours.

Then there’s dessert. Of the categories of food, drink, and dessert, the last of the 3 is the farthest behind in not killing me yet being tasty. I first tried to overcome the ice cream dilemma. Wink Frozen Desserts promised to be the answer to my problems as a purveyor of clean ingredient, keto friendly, plant based ice cream. Unfortunately for me when they printed Sugar Free, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Egg Free, Nut Free, Soy Free, Peanut Free, and Tree Nut Free they ran out of room to print “and looks like dirty snow but tastes like shit.

Meanwhile this brown slush has the nerve to come out looking so happy.

Stop smiling, you tasteless bastard.

If there’s anything sure to remedy this experience, it’s chocolate syrup! And it’s Hershey’s so there’s no way it can be bad, right? Right? RIGHT?!? To give you some understanding, think of syrup poured onto a spoon. It’s viscous but quickly spreads because, after all, it’s a liquid. The sugar free version coils on itself and sits there like every poop emoji you’ve ever seen… and doesn’t taste much different (I’m assuming). Maybe 2 pieces of shit cancel each other out when mixed. Hint: they don’t.

2 wrongs make a wronger wrong

I was determined to get to the bottom of this. I ordered a book called Keto Sweet Treats. With upwards of 60 recipes, surely one got it right. I’ll go page-by-page and spend the time, energy, and GDP of Bolivia to feed my sweet tooth. First things first - where can I get almond flour and what the hell is monk fruit?

Dessert making take 1 - a giant swiss roll. With 10 servings and only 7 net carbs per serving, half of this giant thing is a meal. I mixed the cake ingredients that smelled just like the Betty Crocker variant and looked close enough. Then bake it into a sheet like this

You better be a fudgey as you look

Then you make what is effectively the filling of a cheesecake. How could that ever be bad?

Then you spread the above onto that chocolate cake slab and roll. Protip: let it cool enough that it doesn’t melt the mixture but not so much that it cracks. Mine cooled just a little too much but here’s the finished product.

I’ve had the same conversation with everyone I’ve spoken to about this.

“Me: It was good
Them: *side eye*
Me: Ok so if I could eat sugar, I wouldn’t eat this. But in the context of sugar free desserts, it’s actually really good.”

Page 1 of the book was a success. I plan to go page by page through the book testing each one. I’ll share the successes here and if you want the recipe, just ask. People I speak with tell me just to skip dessert. Health is more important. Not everyone has a sweet tooth. For those that do, ignoring it isn’t healthy. Physical health and mental health must be in sync. Finding alternatives and giving yourself what you crave is important. There always must be balance. I’m fortunate enough to have the means to search until I find it.