Welcome to type 1 diabetes: where you should know how much you will be eating, when, and what it’s made of— it’s like having a meeting to plan a meeting for the meeting.

Our son’s blessing (and curse) is that he loves food. Two weeks after his diagnosis at three-years-old, we started pre-bolusing because we knew he’d eat the food on his plate and probably ask for more.

In our house, no food is off-limits, but we try to eat locally and responsibly: a little bit of all things. We’ve observed vegetarian diets, belonged to a CSA, garden, and eat fast food on a bi-annual 1,700 mile road trip.

A little bit of all things. All this is to say, in general, we read nutrition labels, understand them, and conduct a quick benefit analysis for the food and occasion. If you read nutrition labels, you’ve probably figured out that about half of the shelf-stable food sold in the typical American grocery store should be a rare treat instead of a staple.

No food is off-limits for our child with T1D, but we’re using our insight of carbs and insulin (that we can see with a Dexcom) to inform more of our family meal and food decisions. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with a few substitutions: almond milk (1 carb per cup, instead of cow’s milk, 12 carbs per cup), applesauce and ripe bananas as a sweetener, almond meal and coconut flour, and chia seeds. We rocked a post breakfast BG with these Paleo banana chia bites.

An ounce of chia seeds contains 12g carbs, 11g fiber, and 4g of protein. I was fairly certain we’d come across a diabetes superfood. Then I made this chocolate pudding, that uses dates as a sweetener, almond milk, cocoa powder, and chia seeds.

WTF chia seeds? We had something special, then you had to go and ruin it with an overly sweet date.