Cocomel "Caramels"

 Coconut milk "caramels" sweetened with allulose and monk fruit. 0 net carbs if you deduct fiber and the allulose. Samuel's only had 1 at a time, but no BG rise. Slight coconut taste, but awesome caramelly chew. Found at a local health food store.

Zevia Tea & Zero Carb Ketchup

Sharing some new (to us) low carb finds. Zevia tea and 0 carb individual ketchup packets. This ketchup isn't Samuel's favorite (although I like it), but I often forget to bring along our little bottle of No Sugar Added Heinz. I can keep these packets in his to-go bag so we always have an option with us. 

For locals, I found these at Earth Mother Health Foods in Farmington, MO.

Spicy Buffalo Grilled Sandwich

Oh. My. Goodness. This spicy buffalo grilled sandwich was awesome!

I made air-fried chicken wings for lunch and coated them in buffalo sauce (melted butter and hot sauce of your choice). I made more buffalo sauce than we needed and as it cooled it solidified in the pan. I hated to waste perfectly good butter, so I saved it. I decided to make grilled sandwiches for dinner, so instead of coating with plain butter, I used the solidified buffalo sauce to grill the bread. I used a SmartBun so this was a 0 net carb, high protein sandwich!

I plan to keep some buffalo sauce in the fridge to use in place of butter when the mood strikes!

Double Everything Breakfast Sandwich

Double Everything Breakfast Sandwiches. For dinner. Lots of protein and about 8 net carbs.

2 sausage patties, 2 Canadian bacon, 2 eggs, 2 cheese on Outer Aisle Cauliflower sandwich thins.

Sides of cheesy Pomodoro cauliflower rice (Wal-mart brand; frozen veggie section) and raw red bell pepper.

Individual Whisps

Small individual packets of Whisps. Kinda pricey, but great for on-the-go days. Found in the cracker aisle at Wal-Mart. 0 carbs.

Sugar-free Chai Tea Latte

This pre-made chai tea is in the tea/coffee section at Wal-Mart (and other places, I'm sure). A serving is ½ a cup which is 1 carb. Add a ½ cup+ of unsweetened vanilla almond milk and you have really awesome tasting drink under 2 carbs.

I think this tastes similar Panera Bread's (aka St. Louis Bread Co) chai tea latte, except theirs has about 42 carbs!

Both of my kiddos came down sick hard yesterday and neither want to eat, so we're alternating liquids. This was a nice warm treat for them on a yucky day.

Sir Kensington Dressing/ Dips

We really like these Sir Kensington's dressings. They're thick enough to be used as dip also. And they're dairy-free so Samuel can have them too.

The classic ranch and buffalo ranch are our favorites. The pizza is ok, but not really "pizza-y".

These are 0 carbs. The ingredients essentially make these flavored mayo, but they don't taste cloying like some mayo-based dressings.

We get these at Wal-Mart.

Lily's Chocolate Chips @ Wal-Mart

I used to have to go an hour away to the city to get sugar-free chocolate chips that don't spike Samuel's blood sugar.  Or order KNOW chips online, which isn't a great option in the summer.  But now, in small-town USA, I can now get Lily's chocolate chips!!

We seriously have the smallest Wal-Mart known to man, so I imagine if my Wal-Mart has these, yours will too.

Lily's is sweetened with stevia and erythritol (a sugar alcohol that has little-to-no blood sugar impact for many T1's). As with anything T1, test to ensure it works for you.

As an FYI, Hershey's and other brands make sugar-free chips too, but I don't recommend them for T1's.  Most of them are sweetened with malitol. Malitol is also a sugar alcohol, but for most people,it responds in our body very differently than erythritol does. It is often very spikey to a T1 - very similar to sugar.  Malitol can cause bloating, gas, and even a laxative effect too - probably not what you were going for when you ate that chocolate chip cookie. 😉

Dairy & Sugar-Free Ranch Dressing

I recently found this dressing that is dairy-free and has 0 carbs.  It's by far our favorite store-bought dairy-free ranch dressing! 

So far, I've found it at Wal-Mart and Whole Foods.

Low Carb Spaghetti Noodles!... Sort Of

In all fairness, my kids don't know what pasta tastes like.  But they've seen spaghetti and think it looks good.  Wheat is a non-negotiable for us, so when I started seeing these veggie noodles, I figured I'd give them a try.  These are 4 total carbs, 2 net carbs per serving.  About 4 servings per box.

Disclaimer:  if you are a pasta/noodle connoisseur, you will probably have an issue with these.  They are a veggie - Hearts of Palm to be exact, that are in spaghetti shape.  Alone, they have a veggie taste and even smell veggie-like.  But cook them a bit and serve with meat sauce or a cream sauce and the noodles fade to the background.  However, the texture is definitely more fiberous than pasta.  Texture aside, I was pretty surprised.

A package is 9oz, but it's wet, so I used that to feed our family of 4 and it was PLENTY.  Very filling stuff.  So we had our spaghetti with meat sauce, green beans, and sauteed artichoke hearts, peppers and capers (the kids didn't love this last edition, but hey, I tried 😉).

The downsides to these noodles are...

1) the cost... $36 for a box of 6 on Amazon, so these will be used sparingly.

2) it seemed everyone was, uh, how shall I say, a bit gassy the rest of the day. No discomfort or pain though. It could be the high fiber or a coincidence... we shall see.

Cheeseburger on a 0 net carb SmartBun

Cheeseburger on a 0 net carb SmartBun, peas and coleslaw. 6 net carbs.

The "flour" used to make SmartBun's are actually fibers and the sweetener is erythritol, so it is 0 net carbs. After a few tests I've learned I don't need to bolus Samuel at all for any carbs. But the bun does have 10g of protein which I take into count when bolusing. 

 

https://smartbakingco.com/

Skinny Girl Dressing

Low carb, sugar-free Balsamic vinaigrette dressing. I found it at Walmart.

Virgil's Zero Soda

Virgil's 0 carb/calorie soda. Stevia sweetened. Several flavors.

 

 

Olive Snack Packs

These little olive packs make great on-the-go snacks for the kids and help develop their palattes for non-sweet things.

KNOW Foods

Low carb pre-made foods are a rare find. I recently ordered a variety of things from KNOW foods to try. KNOW foods are non-GMO and FREE of grains, wheat, gluten, dairy, peanuts and soy. They're made from things like almonds, coconut, eggs whites, flaxseed and chia. The sweetener is allulose which isn't supposed to be digestible. I bolus for the net carbs and have had no spike.
Here's my thoughts on what we've tried:

Vanilla marshmallows - not much flavor and weird texture. Kids like though. I keep in freezer and cut into 8 mini marshmallows for hot cocoa.

Cracker thins - at first thought they tasted burnt, but decided it's actually a nutty almost gingery taste. We like with ranch dip or a sweetened cream cheese dip.

Cookies - 4 flavors - not sure why they're called cookies - they're really like muffin tops. Not a ton of flavor. The kids like these, but hubby and I don't at all. These are HUGE - kids have only had a 1/4 if one.

Mini Chocolate Chips - really good. I like these way better than Lily's chips!

Wraps - good texture and feel. Minimal taste, but that's to be expected so you taste what's inside. These don't really "wrap" or they break. More like a folded pita.

"Maple" syrup - No one likes this, not even the kids. And my kids like almost everything!

The biggest issue is price - $10 for each of these small bags, but I had a 20% off coupon and got free shipping so look for deals! https://knowfoods.com/

Seasoning

Really good all purpose seasoning with no added sugar! 

Pub Cheese

Found this delicious pub cheese at Trader Joes. No sugar or starches added.

Chomps Beef Sticks

Chomps Beef Sticks. 0 carbs and no sugar added. Found at Trader Joe's. A bit on the spicy side, but both kids liked them.

Semi-Homemade Dessert

There used to be a show on the Food Network called Semi Homemade which was a mix of store-bought and homemade items. This dessert is kind of like that.

At 11am today I realized I never made a dessert for "Dessert Day". I threw together the fastest cookie recipe I have (Coconut Butter cookies, you can search the blog for it) and stuck them in the freezer as soon as they were done to cool.
I pulled out my emergency stash of Enlightened Butter Pecan Ice Cream to soften.
I put squares of plastic wrap on the counter, add the cookie bottoms, add the ice cream, then the cookie top and wrap tightly in the plastic wrap. Put back in the freezer.

5 net carbs and ready by lunch. Whew!

Avocado & Guacamole

Recent find from Wal-Mart! Plain, mashed avocado and guacamole - mild and spicy.

I gave up whole avocados a while back... such a waste buying them just to cut it open and find brown yuckiness! I switched to Wholly Guacamole, but it's a bit expensive. This Wal-Mart brand is less expensive and I've been REALLY impressed with the quality. NO bizzare ingredients! 1 net carb per serving. On a shelf in the Produce section. Great 4-person family size - it doesn't save well since there's no preservatives, so be prepared to use the whole container.