I often let John have ice cream for his treat of the day. I hoped the milk would help counteract some of the sugar. However, we have a real problem with the slippery slope. Each day he makes himself a larger and larger bowl, until the symptoms return with a vengence.
On Sunday I joined him in some ice cream, and both of our bowls were larger than prudence would dictate. Still, I love ice cream, and so does he. Maybe we'd get away with it. Well - we didn't. Monday was horrible, and despite eating no sugar on that day, Tuesday was only a little better. By Wednesday John was almost back to normal.
Now fast forward a week. We are out running errands and the girls want to stop at Dario. Can John have a cone from Dario? I have reason to fear, but I authorize a small cone, and I pick one up for myself. "That's a lot of ice cream." I remark as I take my first bite. "Maybe he should have ordered the baby cone." But I stop and hold it in my hand. It's light. If I filled the same cone with Breyers, it would be heavy. All the books say to eat natural, and avoid artificials. If this is your prescription, Breyers is your best bet. It's unusual to see a Breyers container with more than five ingredients, and the stuff is darn good! But that's not John. He doesn't react to the artificials. Gums, oils, dyes, fillers; they don't bother him, at least not in moderation. Sugar is the problem, and perhaps starch, because it feeds the bad bacteria. Natural ice cream is dense, and has twice as much sugar (by volume) as soft serve.
I went home and did some math. The last bowl that put John over the top had 80 carbs. That's the equivalent of drinking three cans of coke. No wonder he was a wreck the next day! There are some things that milk and fiber just can't fix. I explained this to him, and not for the first time, I had to recant an earlier position. When he eats ice cream, which would not be very often, it will be soft serve, with half the sugar. That's the prescription for John.