HOLD MY CARROTS

Taste the rainbow and diabetes bitchswitch, flipped.

I don’t know why some people are obsessed with carrots and diabetes - but get a fucking clue, learn the facts about diabetes, and leave carrots alone - and leave me alone when I eat or buy them - because I LOVE CARROTS. 
This happened right before Christmas.

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I stood there in the veggie aisle, enthralled by the display of 2 lb bags of large and organic rainbow carrots - guys, they were seriously gorgeous, dare I say stunning?  
A literal rainbow of colors - purple, orange, beige - and I couldn’t wait to embrace the rainbow of carrots, chop them up and get them in my belly!

Bonus, they were only 50 cents more than the freakish large and weirdly uniform looking Frankenstein carrots  - and I knew they were tastier, because no chemicals. 

I’d planned on making an amazing carrot ginger soup I’d recently perfected when I got home, these carrots would be perfect. I grabbed two, 2 lb bags and walked towards the produce scale a few feet away. 

 Side bar: Bagged produce doesn’t always weigh the same, so take a beat and weigh them. 

In this case, one bag weighed a 1/2 a pound more than the other - and that would be the one I placed in my cart with the other ingredients. 

As I turned to put the other bag of carrots back, I heard someone say, “You’ll get diabetes if you eat all those carrots.” 

I looked over towards the apple bins and saw a woman standing in that aisle and with what seemed to be an inordinate amount of kale in her basket, but that's besides the point. 
She stood catty-corner to the isle, looking at me and shaking her head. 

I silently uttered ”fuck,” looked at her and said, “I don’t know anyone who eats two pounds of carrots at once and that’s not how diabetes works." 

Then I did my best to extricate myself from the lecture I knew was headed my way.

It was like the baby carrot bbq incident of 2011 all over again - but different. 

Nine times out of ten, I try and educate about diabetes every chance I get - that's what most of us do. But not this time.

This time - on a rainy and damn near freezing night, all I wanted to do was get home, put on my PJs and create the fabulous carrot ginger soup I’d been craving and which ironically, always seemed to be followed by post meal unicorn blood sugars, every time I made it. 

Which when you think about it makes perfect sense because It’s all veggies - it’s like drinking a liquid warm salad, except that sounds gross and this soup is anything but!

I started wheeling my cart back towards the carrot wall, but Apple Annie followed my over. 

Apple Annie: Carrots are loaded with sugar - they're like donuts. 

Me: Ginger Donut soup doesn’t sound like it would be appetizing. 

Apple Annie: Carrots are loaded with sugar - they do more harm than good and mess with your insulin levels. 

And in my head, I panned left to the imaginary camera and said: HOLD MY CARROTS.

In real time and standing in front of the rainbow of veggies, I stepped on my diabetes soapbox and stated: I already have diabetes - I’ve had diabetes since I was a little girl - and not because my mom fed me carrots... or donuts... or donuts laced with carrots. 

I have diabetes because my pancreas crapped out and destroyed the part of my pancreas that makes insulin - STOP BLAMING PEOPLE WITH DIABETES AND STOP BLAMING CARROTS.

And instead of putting the second bag of rainbow carrots back, I tossed them in my cart in defiance and walked past her.

And Apple Annie just stared at me like I had three-heads, all of which were happily munching away on rainbow carrots. 

Taste the rainbow, and diabetes bitch-switch, flipped and dialed up to 11.