One of the things I've missed the most after being diagnosed with the 'beetus is a good old-fashioned Orange Julius! I used to love these things - Orange Julius, Strawberry Julius, of course with a banana in it. For years I've wondered how I could get one without spiking my blood sugar, and that, of course, led me to develop a sugar-free recipe. I'm 99% sure this is accurate in terms of flavor and texture.  Note that this recipe contains a raw egg. If you are concerned about consuming raw eggs, you can substitute  pasteurized egg whites or egg beaters  instead. Also, it does contain milk so it's not completely sugar-free (a cup of 2% milk has about 12g of sugar from the lactose).  I expect substituting 2 packets of  strawberry drink mix  would work to create a functional strawberry Julius, but it might taste more "artificial" than actual strawberry puree would. Likewise, you can add a half banana to it if you like but that will certainly up the carb ...

I don't care what anyone says, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears was a damn great fantasy cartoon back in the day, and it deserves a D&D treatment. If you've never heard of it, here it is on YouTube for free, or you can watch it in a less clumsy format on Disney+ www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcdHhJ83WveO5S9AeAeDKD-qQrsfB4dpw Also, the theme song is one of the catchiest cartoon themes ever. Okay, so...   Source:  https://www.deviantart.com/tomarmstrong20/art/Adventures-of-the-Gummi-Bears-1985-1991-566374688 GUMMI BEARS (Stats for Original, Basic, Advanced and most OSR games) No. Appearing: 1-8 Hit Dice: 1-5 Armor Class: 7 (2 with gummi berry juice) / 13/18 high AC Attack: By weapon or bounce slam (1d6) Special: Gummi Berry Juice, Stealth Move: 12 (18 with gummi berry juice) / 30ft/45ft Modern games Size: Small % in Lair: 60% Alignment: Lawful Treasure: C XP: Varies by hit dice Primes (for Castles & Crusades): P,M Description...

I'm putting this recipe here because I keep losing it. Also, it's another easy diabetic-friendly recipe that people might enjoy having. Who doesn't love chocolate? It's delicious and in the right quantities it's very healthy for you. While they say dark chocolate is better, I'm a fan of milk chocolate. They do make sugar free chocolate, but it's usually loaded up with sugar alcohols, and we all know what those do to your intestinal tract. So I started researching recipes for how to make chocolate at home, wondering if it was feasible. It is. I'm a fan of Splenda (sucralose) as it's just sugar with an extra atom bonded to the molecule so you won't digest it. Also, every single study out there decrying its health risks...was created with an agenda. There's a war on artificial sweeteners, which extends to a war on diabetics, telling us we shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the things that other people do. There's nothing wrong with artifi...

Here we go again, gamer friends. It's time for another easy recipe you can make at home and share at the gaming table, which is far more healthy than what you get in the store. Today we're going to talk peanut butter. Peanut butter is a great protein-filled snack which is filling, delicious, and is great to share around the gaming table. You can dip pretzels in it (or better, whole-grain crackers filled with fiber), it goes great on apples, on sugar-free dark chocolate, or even just by the spoonful! Unfortunately, while you may not have noticed this (many haven't), almost all the peanut butter you buy in the store has added sugar in it. Sometimes it doesn't seem like much--what's an extra 6 grams of carbs, after all? But for those with sugar sensitivity, that can be more than enough to cause problems. Added Sugar is Bad Added sugar is the demon of our diets. We don't need it, and it's in everything. I'm not even talking the demon of high fru...

"What's with all the recipies?" I can almost hear people saying. "Isn't this supposed to be a gaming blog?" Yes. Yes, it is. But here's the thing. A few years ago I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. It's not something I asked for, and it's not something I did wrong. Am I overweight? Yeah, but not nearly as badly as a number of people I've known who didn't get diabetes. For many people, it's just the bad luck of the draw. I got the 2 of clubs in the Action Deck. Okay, maybe not that low, but you get the idea. Also, see what I did there? Gaming! When you get diagnosed with diabetes, it's like a punch in the gut. Your entire life changes overnight. Suddenly you're looking at, "you know all those things you love? You're done." As time goes on, it turns out that it's not that way, and it doesn't have to be that way. First, the new medications are outstanding. I'm managing mine and I'm not eve...

I'm back again, folks, with another diabeetus-friendly recipe for the holidays. If you're like me, you love eggnog, and it was a kick in the gut the first time you realized you couldn't buy it anymore because frankly, it's loaded up with sugar. Once again, Splenda (or Stevia, if you prefer) comes to the rescue. Eggnog is so crazy easy to make, I find myself wondering why I ever paid for it to begin with. Before I jump into this recipe, a necessary disclaimer: I use raw eggs in my eggnog. Yes, just about everyone has heard that you can get Salmonella from raw eggs. It's true, and I include this disclaimer by way of an "at your own risk" thing. That being said, a recent study found that the actual odds of getting sick from raw eggs is astoundingly low. First, many eggs these days are pasteurized. Second, only about 1 in every 30,000 eggs has a Salmonella contaimination inside. Contamination is much higher on the shells, but we're not eating the ...

It's time for another diabetes-friendly recipe! This time it's apple pie. Now, let's be fair right out of the gate. There is  no such thing as sugar-free apple pie.  Apples have sugar in them. Period. This is no-sugar  added  apple pie, meaning you don't add extra sugar. I am not 100% certain what the exact carb count for a slice would be. However, my guess is that there's probably about 30g of carbs in a single slice, about 19 of which would be sugars from the apple, the rest from the pie crust. So you'll want to account for that. It's likely that there's between 5 and 7g of fiber from the apples and the crust and the corn starch. So this isn't a "free food," or something you want to just go overboard chowing down on. Still, it's something you can enjoy on a cheat day, or at the holidays, without worrying about a full cup of added sugar. If you're looking for a treat the next time it's your turn to cook for the gaming gro...

UPDATE 12/18/2021 I am always tweaking these recipes. The one here now more closely resembles a classic chocolate chip cookie and makes use of Carbquik, which is an outstanding baking mix that behaves much like flour. I have also moved to using Erythritol and Monkfruit sweeteners as they are closer to normal sugar, and you can get Swerve (Erythritol) in a brown version that works just like brown sugar and still has a GI of zero.  Back in September I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. It was, as it is for many people, a devastating discovery and it's been a hard road. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm learning to manage it. Of course, this means finding substitutions for a lot of carb-y treats I used to love (I'll be revisiting my lembas recipe to work on how to make that more Type 2 friendly soon as well). One of my favorite things in the world is chocolate chip cookies. How could I live without them? Well, fortunately, I don't have to. Here's a recipe I'...

Here's a recipe I put together for Lembas bread. Didn't know I could bake, did you? Well, I can, and I'm pretty durned good at it when I want to be. Note: Okay, this isn't exactly directly related to OD&D, but we all know that there is a relationship between OD&D and Middle Earth, and this makes for a good holiday treat, or a nice, filling and fairly healthy snack at the gaming table. Here's how it came about: we were doing a Lord of the Rings marathon at my buddy Mike's house when the RotK extended edition came out. Mike has a 42" widescreen and a really kick ass surround sound system, so we got together at 9:00 AM on Saturday and watched all twelve-plus hours of the epic trilogy back to back. It was awesome. Anyway, I wanted to contribute something so I started searching for recipes for Lembas bread. My efforts that year were futile, but flash forward to last Christmas. I got the hankering to try again, so I looked up some recipes onli...