The land of the sugar-free and the home of the morbidly obese

Zaph

Normally going on holidays presents a brother with a number of challenges. Will one pair of boxers be enough, or should I pack a second to be on the safe side? Will there be pork products available where I’m going, or should the second pair of boxers be left out in favour of another couple of packs of rashers? How much money should I set aside for bailing myself out? All these things were pondered upon, but unusually for a Brother I had one other thing to take into account – how was I going to survive two weeks in the most sugar-filled country on the planet when I’m still trying to figure out this diabetes lark? Unfortunately the life of a Brother finally caught up with me and I’m now trying to adjust to a life without Mars Bars, maple syrup and a lot less beer than I’ve become accustomed to. So, here’s what I did on my holidays...

Shocking as it is to admit it, one of the things I have to do now is exercise regularly, and the hotels where we stayed in both New York and Boston came equipped with luxuriously appointed gyms. Or so their websites say. It seems that the best way to get around both places is taking the subway to near where you want to go and wander around aimlessly for a couple of hours. A few times I did ask janeybabe to carry me, but she’s only little and only managed a half a mile or so each time. Sounds like someone needs to go to the gym for a spot of strength training.

When in the States it’s hard to ignore the portion sizes, starting with breakfast. No measly slice of toast and an anaemic sausage here. It’s plates piled high with whatever you ordered and extra bacon with everything. For this alone the efforts of the underpaid Mexican chefs must be applauded. After that you can waddle out of the diner ready to face the day. And so it was that we waddled about Manhattan taking in all the usual sights – the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Centre, the Staten Island ferry, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Grand Central Station and M and M World. Yep, a whole shop devoted to the humble M and M in just about every colour imaginable. It was feckin’ torture and throwing myself off the top of the Empire State Building was looking like a good alternative. The only thing that stopped me was the bloody queues there. An hour and a half queuing just to jump off seemed like an awful waste of time.

The big event of the week in New York was not the annual Puerto Rican Gay Pride Parade, as some locals seemed to think, but actually my birthday. For this I was presented with two tickets to see Arcade Fire in Madison Square Garden on the night in question. As my brother was 3,000 miles away and probably wouldn’t have made it over in time I brought janeybabe along with me. What a superb present, spoiled only by the incredibly crap support act, some crowd called Spoon. We weren’t the only Irish people there, a couple of rows in front of us were two Irish guys. We knew they were Irish because they were the only people in the place going out for beer every 10 minutes. The Munster jerseys were a bit of a giveaway too. I got the other part of my birthday present earlier in the day – an ice cream. Not just any old ice cream, but a Ben & Jerry’s Coconut Seven Layer Bar ice cream (Coconut Ice Cream with Coconut & Fudge Flakes, Walnuts and Swirls of Graham Cracker & Butterscotch for anyone who’s interested). In a cone! Yes, I flirted with death and indulged in the one thing I’ve missed the most since I started my new sugar-free regime, and won. So that’s Zaph 1 Death 0. In yore face Death!

So after the hectic week in New York it was off to Boston where life is a bit more civilised. So civilised in fact that I discovered that they had fully embraced a sugar-free lifestyle, for it was there that I actually found somewhere that I could have a proper dessert. So happy was I at this discovery that I eschewed the customary first two parts of the meal and just had dessert. OK, so it wasn’t the best cheesecake I’d ever had, and you’d think that a place called the Cheesecake Factory could do a bit better, but fair play to them for trying considering they only had Splenda to make it with. I was further impressed when I discovered not one, but three different chocolate emporiums selling sugar-free wares. Now I’ve had sugar-free chocolate here and quite frankly it’s muck, so I wasn’t holding out much hope for these places. Nevertheless, in the interests of research I parted with $17 for a couple of handfuls of their sweets, sorry, candies, and I was hugely impressed. So much so that I wish I had bought more. One thing that any Brother who finds himself in a similar position in the future should note is that artificial sweetener induces an effect. More specifically, a laxative effect, and considering that caramel is normally pure sugar, there is a certain amount of trepidation each time I eat one of the rather large sugar-free chocolate covered caramels. All I can say is so far, so good...

And finally to the part most Brothers will want to know about – the beer. Well as previously mentioned, my intake is somewhat limited now, so I had to choose my beverages carefully. Obviously I avoided all the usual muck that we don’t permit to be mentioned here, which did present an unusual challenge – how many pubs do you pass offering pints at $2 each before your resistance cracks? The fact that there was the word “L*t*” in the name of each made the task somewhat easier, but it is something those uninitiated into the Brotherhood must watch out for lest they fall into the trap. Fortunately there was enough decent beer to satisfy the most discerning Brother, most with funny names like Goose Island Honkers Ale, Heartland Cornhusker Lager and Yuengling. Why they only export the crap over here is anyone’s guess.

So it seems that it is possible to survive in a foreign country without sugar should a Brother find it necessary to do so. And if all else fails at least steak and bacon are sugar-free.

UrbanSea

Post of the year,it's like a novel.
And sorry sir,but the Cheesecake Factory's cheesecakes are some of the best creations I have ever tasted. The menu alone reads like a magazine,and the food induces some form of cardiac seizure that only men with the F.A.T could enjoy.

Toto Wolfcastle

greetings wrote: »

Post of the year,it's like a novel.
And sorry sir,but the Cheesecake Factory's cheesecakes are some of the best creations I have ever tasted. The menu alone reads like a magazine,and the food induces some form of cardiac seizure that only men with the F.A.T could enjoy.

I completely agree with you. I had some 7 layer chocolate creation. Zaph, however, had a small piece of cheesecake make with Splenda. Even the waiter said that mine looked much better.

UrbanSea

Aw yes.
Please tell me you swapped the whipped cream for two large scoops of Haagen Dasz at an extra cost?

Toto Wolfcastle

You can do that? Pack your bags, greetings, we're going to find a Cheesecake Factory.

UrbanSea

You can,and if you're nice enough to the waiter they'll give you both.
Yes please,no Splenda for me.

CiDeRmAn

Nice to see you found life as a diabetic so compatible with life as a glutton in the land that, while didn't come up with the word, now defines it!

I was over there back in 1990 as a whipper snapper of 18, I had a very hard time getting fed, as I am a coeliac and so require gluten free food.
As a result I lost quite a bit of weight on that trip, what with the lesser meal choices and the bouts of diarrhoea after getting caught by something that only had to lay next to something made with flour!

But, happily, bacon is gluten free, good times....

The Recliner

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

But, happily, bacon is gluten free, good times....

And this is why we worship it

There is nothing it cannot do

Toto Wolfcastle

We're going back for this.

Obviously, as a diabetic, you'd have to ask them to get rid of one of the buns and maybe add more meat and a bit of bacon in its place.

cyberwolf77

Thank goodness you didn't venture south and discover the LutherBurger.


(yes, that's a doughnut for a bun)

UrbanSea

Yes,I did just ejaculate at above post.

cyberwolf77

greetings wrote: »

Yes,I did just ejaculate at above post.

Dude, they're not that good really. Unless they grill the donut in the bacon grease first.

CiDeRmAn

I can see it with a nice Bagel alright, but the doughnut is too light, it'd fall apart.

UrbanSea

But these are American doughnuts,not the ****e ones we get over here,I gaurantee they have been adapted to absorb the stress that the patty places on it

cyberwolf77

greetings wrote: »

But these are American doughnuts,not the ****e ones we get over here,I gaurantee they have been adapted to absorb the stress that the patty places on it

The best ones use Krispy Kreme I'm told.

CiDeRmAn

I can see teams of doughnut engineer, all looking like Homer, studying the doughnut, preforming experiments, computer modelling, using all the tech known to man, to develop a doughnut capable of surviving the sheer mass of the fry-up, not to mention the sausage fingery-ness of the regular eater of such confections!

cyberwolf77

Speaking as a maker of donuts I can assure you, we look nothing like Homer.

CiDeRmAn

I'll have to take your word for it,
No "getting high on your own supply" then?

Never trust a skinny cook, that's what I say!

cyberwolf77

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I'll have to take your word for it,
No "getting high on your own supply" then?

Never trust a skinny cook, that's what I say!

I dislike donuts. I prefer other sweets.

Toto Wolfcastle

How did a thread about coping as a diabetic in America turn into a thread about donuts? :eek: I like it!

I'm not a fan of the glazed donut. I prefer a chocolate frosted donut from Dunkin' Donuts. Stick a burger in between one of those and I'll give it a go.

Tom Dunne

Boston Creme - there is no better.

Although I am partial to the ones with apple and cinnamon in them.

Oooh, and the ones sprinkled with sugar.

Not chocolate, though.

Toto Wolfcastle

Could you sprinkle a donut with Splenda? Or rather, would it be any good?

cyberwolf77

janeybabe wrote: »

Could you sprinkle a donut with Splenda? Or rather, would it be any good?

Think that would rather depend on Splenda's melting point as in order for it to stick the donut has to be warm.
/donut baker

trout

janeybabe wrote: »

Could you sprinkle a donut with Splenda? Or rather, would it be any good?

Well ... off to the kitchen with you, and experiment away.

If it works out well, you'll make a fortune ... if it turns out badly ... you've still got a donut.

Win-win

Toto Wolfcastle

Hmmm I should go buy a donut so. Unfortunately I have plenty of Splenda.

trout

janeybabe wrote: »

Hmmm I should go buy a donut so. Unfortunately I have plenty of Splenda.

One can never have too many donuts

</wisdom>

CiDeRmAn

Sadly Gluten Free doughnuts are but a dream, but I'd say the special diet magicians in Tesco's have a plan, those guys are geniuses one and all!

Zaph

There mightn't be gluten-free doughnuts, but you'd do an awful lot better than you did before if you went over now. Just about every menu we saw over there mentioned gluten-free bread, bagels, etc. We could get a doughnut between us, you could have the icing or whatever it's filled with and I could have the cake part.