Random D thoughts

You know you love your FreeStyle Libre when you dream you are sick in the hospital, the sensor dies, and you leave the hospital (without anyone knowing) for a few hours to go find and buy a new one. :laughing:

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That was one amazing dream!

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Unimportant thought of the day:

What do Swedes call Swedish Fish Candy?

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I am still laughing…

I can only tell you that the French do NOT call French fries “frites francaises”…

In fact, the general belief in France is that French fries were invented in Belgium :slight_smile:

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An unrelated thought

Why do we drive on the parkway and park in the driveway. Seems backwards to me.

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"In Sweden, the fish-shaped wine gums are called pastellfiskar (“pale-colored fishes") and are distributed by Malaco”

“they also come in salmiak, a black salty licorice flavor that is evidently hugely popular in Sweden because it’s everywhere.”

I want to try the black ones! Maybe I’ll order those for my next low blood sugar :wink:

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Have you ever had salty licorice? It’s definitely an acquired taste… I thought I’d like it, because I like salty sweet things, but it’s not normal salt, it’s ammonium chloride, which I think most people need to grow up eating to not find gross.

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It’s the first thing my partner heads for when the Swedish Christmas Market comes to town. Bags of “Saltlakrits” in the shape of little cars – and there it is in the ingredients, your “ammoniumklorid (=salmiak).” But this is a guy who used to lick cows’ salt blocks when he was a kid.

It’s already been answered, but I wondered if it was something like the cockroach, i.e., named after your irksome neighbour. Linnaeus, who was Swedish, gave the cockroach its species name, Blattella germanica, or German cockroach (supposedly because of hostilities between the two countries at the time). The West Germans call it a French cockroach and the East Germans call it a Russian cockroach. The Russians call it either a Prussian or a Polish cockroach, and in Poland they call it a French or a Prussian cockroach. (Seems the Prussians couldn’t win … ba-da-boom.) But then the Swedes have no enemies, so of course they’d settle for “pastel fish.”

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Good to know! I think I’ll pass on buying some now. I looked up ammonium chloride in licorice and read that it tastes like ammonia :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

If I see some on my trip to Europe, maybe I’ll give it a try there.

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It doesn’t taste like ammonia to me, it tastes like low sugar salted black licorice. It is definitely an acquired taste, but I like it a couple of times a year.

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On your trip you’ll be able to find lots of candy that you could use to treat lows! One problem, EH can never figure out how much sugar is in them – we thought the licorice would work, and it was really hard to predict. :slight_smile: still fun! Also I agree with the acquired taste thought. We like licorice but treating a low with the black salty one might mean not enjoying it anymore. Lol!

@Beacher your reply is one of my favorite posts! I had no idea!!!

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@Beacher, I am with @TravelingOn, what a cool post!

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8 posts were split to a new topic: Ideas: how to protect and store insulin vials

Salty licorice is great!

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Based on real life experience…

OK, you’re in Japan on a business trip. You feel your BG going low and you’re out of the glucose you carry around, so you duck into a food shop to get some quick carb. None of the candy is what you’re used to (no Smarties or Reese Peanut Butter cup or …), so you pick one at random and try to figure out how much to eat based on carb content. But this is the label - OK quick, how much should you eat?

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what do the candies look like inside?

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@jag1 Let’s just hope that insulin syringes are not labeled in Japanese for when you have to take more insulin because you overcorrected from not being able to figure out the candy label :joy:

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The gummy candy I had in the UK didn’t digest as quickly as the gummy candy in the U.S., so it took a bit longer to correct a low. I think they have different rules about high fructose corn syrup in the EU.

Based on this, I’d eat a few gummies, wait for a bit, then eat a few more if I’m still low. Same rule as in the U.S., but maybe give it a bit more time in case it doesn’t kick in as fast as you’d normally expect. Maybe it’ll even kick in faster in some places??

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I think you’re right!

Also: someone brought some EU produced wine gummies to a party I threw in the US, and they had been made with a wheat based glucose syrup. GF folks beware.

And if you have to pop into a store in Japan, why not buy a juice?! Although that recently backfired on us. Went in to buy OJ in a little glass bottle. The lady at the checkstand tried to tell us something repeatedly and kept pointing at the juice. We couldn’t figure it out. Then another customer reminded us that there was a ban on selling anything glass during New Years! Oooops! Swapped it out for a juice box. Should’ve picked the candy I guess! Or learned Russian. :smile:

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What an interesting ban! You could buy tons of glass items the day before I bet, but not the day of New Years.

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