Easter dinner this year, like all years, is a banquet and celebration. Easter day marks the end of Lent, a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance. The last week of the Lent is called Holy Week, and it contains Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Easter is followed by fifty-day period called Eastertide or the Easter Season, ending with Pentecost Sunday.
Customs include lots of fun for youngsters in regard to the Easter bunny. Decorating Easter eggs and egg hunting. For most families, Easter means good and yummy food from candied ham to sweet potatoes to fruit salads swimming in whipped cream. It's a day to celebrate. A day to indulge.
A day to cover the family table from edge to edge with plates and bowls of pure delight. Cooking pleasures. Food for smiles. Aromas from heaven. It's day to eat and eat up. But for a diabetic meal, the menu could be a problem since Easter is so synonymous with sweet treats. Desserts. Cake, pie, pudding, ice cream and candy. It's cookies and pastry and bonne bouche.
All this could literally be a killer for diabetics. I am a diabetic and I do tend to overindulge now and then, but I mostly have sugarplums dancing around in my head flashing photos of what sugary food can do to my body and my life. [Yikes]
How do I enjoy Easter dinner without ignoring my diabetic condition? Hmmm, that sounds backwards. It's not really about not ignoring being a diabetic. Just the opposite. It's accepting that I am a diabetic, and putting the best eating recipes into my good life. It is keeping the tasty in food. It's making yummy. Eat and eat well. But eat to live, not to die. Worse. Eat recklessly and end up with parts amputee, brain bewildered or mobility hindered.
The best recipe to enjoy Easter dinner for a diabetic is simply to scoop food on your plate that removes temptation. Then, pick up your fork and clean your plate saying to yourself, "I want to live the good life. I do not want to become incapacitated so someone else controls my life."
For a diabetic, reckless indulgence is life without good. But [hey!] Isn't this true for everyone? Everything? About life? Behavior?
Eating right can be a chore, for sure. It is for me. It's difficult to remember the reality, because I can't see it right now. It's too easy to say "this one time" and forget all the other "one more times" that preceded it. Living the good life is a commitment. It's a choice. A half choice doesn't count. You can make good choices and you can make it easier to make good choices. It's up to you. It's up to me. I can actually make myself better being a diabetic.
That's it for today, blog. Have a happy Easter.
What do you think?
