By Caroline Levens

24-count Crayola? Check. Pink Pearl eraser? Check. Expo dry-erase markers? Check. There’s little doubt about it, back-to-school can take quite a lot of preparation, but back-to-school for families with children with diabetes adds an additional layer of complexity.

Wouldn’t it’s nice if prepping for a college 12 months with diabetes was as easy as the opposite line items in your back-to-school list? Unfortunately, there’s no foolproof solution to examine the box off that line item, but there are snacks that will help children maintain normal blood sugars. I’ve gathered ten great-tasting, blood sugar-friendly snacks that children of all ages are sure to enjoy, whether for snack time, as a part of their lunches, for classroom celebrations, or as after-school snacks.

Even in case your child with diabetes doesn’t follow a low-carb lifestyle, incorporating a low-carb snack here and there could make your life a complete lot easier. It may well also help give them more time running to the monkey bars and fewer visits to the nurse’s office to treat highs and lows.

1. Low Carb Oven Cakes and Cookies

Is it me, or does it look like there are more birthday celebrations than the number of youngsters within the classroom? In fact, you wish your child with diabetes to hitch within the festivities, but wouldn’t it’s nice to eliminate the headache that may include crazy blood sugars following those celebrations? Excellent news! Low Carb Oven makes homemade mini bundt cakes and cookie bars which are sugar-free, gluten-free, and positively higher tasting than whatever the varsity is serving. They freeze super well too, so you’ll be able to simply pop one out the morning of an upcoming celebration, and your child is all set!

My personal favorite cake flavor as an adult is Lemon Poppyseed, but as a child I’d probably have been crazy for the Vanilla and Triple Chocolate. The desserts are only 2-3 grams net carbs, and most of the people with diabetes find that Low Carb Oven desserts don’t affect their blood sugar much. You might not even have to bolus!

In case your school doesn’t allow peanuts, a few of their products are peanut-free. Nut-free school? Possibly use them for treats off-campus, reminiscent of at birthday parties (because let’s be honest, there also appear to be more birthday parties than kids).

2. Quest Nutrition Chips

Who doesn’t love an excellent crunch? Leading chip brands may not have a ton of carbs in comparison with other popular snacks at 15-25 g per bag, but wouldn’t a five-gram total carb chip option be nice? Quest makes chips in tons of flavors, but my personal favorite is the Nacho Cheese flavor. Consider them as blood sugar-friendly Doritos.

And one other great part? Normal bags of chips aren’t all that filling. The Quest chips have around 20 g of protein per serving or so depending on the flavour, in order that they’re sure to delay the period of time it takes before you hear “I’m ravenous.”

3. High Key Snacks Cookies

High Key Snacks makes my absolute favorite blood sugar-friendly packaged cookies. They may disguise as Mini Chips Ahoy in all features except their nutrition facts. Forget the high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients you’ll be able to’t even pronounce; these only use natural sweeteners reminiscent of stevia, erythritol, and monk fruit. They’re crunchy and just the fitting amount of sweet. At just 2 g net carbs per serving, I may even get away with no bolus for his or her cookies.

These are available chocolate chip and snickerdoodle. Each are great, but I’m definitely a fan of the chocolate chip ones.

4. Kiss My Keto Gummy Bears

Kiss My Keto has had a tricky time keeping these gummies in stock, and with good reason: They’re awesome and super easy on the blood sugars. From the label, they might look high carb, nevertheless it’s nearly all fiber and barely budged my blood sugar level with none insulin.

Plus the lovable little bears are naturally coloured. Significantly better than red 40 and sugar-laden bears! Each gummy bear pouch only has 54 calories too, so it’s an incredible snack in case your child will not be actually hungry but wants something to nibble on.

5. Magic Spoon Cereal

Are you doing a double-take on the word “cereal”? Don’t worry, this cereal isn’t the nightmare cereal you’re probably used to. Even for one of the best sugar surfers amongst us, cereal is notorious within the diabetes community as one among the toughest foods to bolus for. Magic really is an appropriate adjective for the cereal; it’s ridiculously easy to cover with insulin. Each serving has only 3g of carbs but packs in 12g of protein. It’s also gluten-free and has no artificial ingredients.

There are eight yummy flavors to select from, including cinnamon, fruity, frosted, and cocoa. They sell a spread pack, too, if you need to offer your child some variety, or higher yet, mix the flavors together.

6. Lily’s Sweets Peanut Butter Cups

You is likely to be accustomed to Lily’s for his or her chocolate bars, but many persons are less accustomed to their more recently launched peanut butter cups. In case your child with diabetes loves Reese’s as a sweet treat, these are definitely an awesome substitute. They’re super convenient to send off to high school too because each peanut butter cup comes individually wrapped.

The peanut butter cups are available milk and dark chocolate flavors. I’ve been a milk chocolate girl since childhood and all the time can be, but I can assure you each are great.

7. Notty Protein Chocolate

Yes, one other chocolate advice right after Lily’s, because I consider them to be quite different (in actual fact, the most important similarity is that they’re each delicious). Notty is high-protein chocolate with no added sugar. It’s more bark-like than bar-like. Except whereas Bark Thins have 21 g net carbs and 11 g of sugar per serving, Notty has only 3 g net carbs and 1 g of sugar. Notty packs in 11 g protein per serving too, so it’s not only empty calories.

They’ve so many fun flavors. Fluffernutter is my personal favorite, and if I needed to guess, I’d say it’d probably be the primary hit amongst kids too. Other flavors include peppermint bark, cold brew, lemon berry, and salted almond.

8. Curly Girlz Candy

Like the thought of a blood sugar-friendly candy alternative but need something nut-free? Curly Girlz Candy makes some awesome sugar-free hemp brittle that doesn’t contain nuts. The brittle comprises super low glycemic plant-based sweeteners. Now I do know hemp brittle may not sound like essentially the most kid-friendly option, nevertheless it’s buttery, crunchy, and has a cinnamon flavor. They even sell “Snacker 2 oz” bags of candy on their site which are perfect for back-to-school.

Other sugar-free candy offerings on their site include pecan brittle, caramels, coffee toffee, almond toffee, pecan clusters, and coconut macadamia bites.

9. Smart Baking Company Smart Cakes

Smart Cakes are light, fluffy cakes that I personally don’t need any insulin for. They’ve 0 g net carbs. The carb count on the label all comes from fiber and erythritol, which is a non-glycemic sweetener.

Each individual cake is just 38 calories! One other cool thing about these for college is they’ll stay at room temperature for 120 days, in order that they can easily be stashed in a classroom cubby and brought out as needed.

Flavors include cinnamon, lemon, chocolate, raspberry cream, and orange. Lemon and cinnamon are my favorites. I’ll say that the feel and consistency of those will not be like birthday cake, and nor do these cakes have icing. The feel and taste are really good, nonetheless, nevertheless it’s more snack-like and even breakfast-like than dessert-like for my part.

10. Keto Krate

Hopefully, this suggestion isn’t considered cheating because it’s not a snack itself–but quite a snack subscription. I absolutely love Keto Krate because I get to find recent blood sugar-friendly snacks every month. Low-carb snacks might be very expensive to purchase, and Keto Krate allows me to sample every little thing before I commit to a bulk order of a selected product. Plus, you should use code KRATE15 for 15% off your subscription!

Their boxes are all the time aspartame-free and maltitol-free. As a heads up, I’ll say not 100% of their snacks are grab-and-go; occasionally there’s a mixture, or something that needs cooking/preparation. But many of the snacks come able to stuff in your child’s backpack.

Hopefully, this list makes back-to-school diabetes management a bit easier for you and your child. And who I’m kidding, these snacks are only as yummy for adults, so no judgment here in the event you eat some before they make it to the lunchbox!