Key takeaways:

• If you think you must gift chocolate to your significant other on Valentine’s Day, choose dark chocolate. It’s generally lower in added sugars than milk or white chocolate.

• Other diabetes-friendly gifts include chocolate-dipped fruits and nuts, plus home-baked treats (with a few recipe tweaks, e.g., cutting back on the sugar).

• On the non-edible side of things, you could also consider gifting flowers, jewelry, and experiences.

Difficult and exasperating.

Does that sum up your experience looking for diabetes-friendly Valentine’s Day gifts for your special someone? Help is here.

Below, find seven gift ideas that’ll express your love without taking your lover’s blood glucose levels on a punishing rollercoaster ride.

Let’s first talk about chocolates

Ever since Richard Cadbury started packaging his company’s confections in heart-shaped boxes in 1868, the ideas of sweetened cacao and love have become so closely intertwined.

But you know chocolates. They’re laden with:

• Added sugars: These will not only spike your significant other’s blood glucose levels (because of how rapidly the body absorbs them) but could also set the scene for obesity, which contributes to type 2 diabetes progression and cardiovascular complications.

• Fat: That silky-smooth, luxurious mouthfeel? It’s a consequence of chocolate’s fat content, which, unfortunately, delivers a staggering nine calories per gram. And, worse, the issue isn’t just the obesity-promoting calories. It’s also that saturated fat —shown to worsen type 2 diabetes in animal models — often makes up the bulk of chocolate’s total fat content.

For reference, one serving of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Chocolate bar (six chunks or 27.5 grams) contains 15 grams of added sugars and 5.1 grams of saturated fat. Assuming your significant other needs about 2,000 calories daily, that’s roughly 30% and 40% of their recommended daily added sugar and saturated fat limit already!

Right. So, does that mean you’ll have to accept letting your special one have a chocolate-less Valentine's Day? And pray that you don’t get arrested by the “love police”? Uh, no.

Diabetes-friendly chocolate

Because diabetes-friendly chocolate exists. More specifically, dark chocolate exists. For context, there are three main types of chocolate:

1. White chocolate: Typically made by combining sugar, cocoa butter, milk, vanilla, and lecithin. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for something to be considered white chocolate, it must contain at least 20% cocoa butter, 14% milk, and no more than 55% sugar.

2. Milk chocolate: Typically made by combining chocolate liquor (cocoa solids and cocoa butter) with sugar and milk. According to the FDA, milk chocolate must contain at least 10% chocolate liquor and 12% milk.

3. Dark chocolate: Typically made from just two ingredients, cocoa liquor and sugar. While the FDA has not set a standard for what constitutes dark chocolate, it’s widely agreed that, in general, dark chocolate contains less sugar and more cacao solids than white and milk chocolate.

Does this mean dark chocolate is “healthier” than milk chocolate?

Well, let’s look at the nutritional facts for one serving of Cadbury’s Old Gold Dark Chocolate — 70% cocoa* (four squares or 25 grams): 7.2 grams of added sugars and 6.0 grams of saturated fat.

We’ll cover what cocoa percentage means in a bit.

As you can tell, it’s not an easy question to answer — sure, dark chocolate contains approximately half the added sugars of milk chocolate, but it also packs more HDL-lowering and LDL-increasing saturated fat.

In a pinch, it’s probably reasonable to say that dark chocolate is generally healthier than milk or white chocolate for people with diabetes.

When an equivalent amount is eaten, dark chocolate’s lower added sugar content will have a less pronounced negative impact on your loved one’s blood glucose levels than milk or white chocolate.

Choosing the best diabetes-friendly dark chocolate

Still feeling uneasy about dark chocolate’s saturated fat content?

Here’s some heartening news. Every dark chocolate bar’s formulation is different — even within a certain cocoa percentage. FYI, here’s what a 70% cocoa bar means. It’s made up of:

• 70% refined cocoa bean (cocoa solids and cocoa butter)

• 30% other ingredients (as mentioned earlier, typically sugar)

This means you can usually find dark chocolate bars with lower saturated fat content by simply doing some quick scanning in the grocery store.

Take THEO’s Dark Chocolate Bar — 70% cocoa, for instance. One serving (28 grams) contains 5 grams of saturated fat, a whole gram less than Cadbury’s Old Gold Dark Chocolate.

Bonus: a lower saturated fat content isn’t just good in and of itself. It’s also an indicator that the dark chocolate bar contains a higher concentration of cocoa solids (instead of cocoa butter), the health-beneficial component found in cocoa beans linked to improvements in:

• Blood pressure

• Blood cholesterol

• Cardiovascular disease risk

• Insulin sensitivity

Fruits and nuts dipped in chocolate

Of course, we’re talking about Valentine’s Day gifts here. As “healthy” as dark chocolate may be for your special someone with diabetes, all is for naught if they don’t enjoy it or can’t stomach the bitterness.

So, here’s a tip: go for chocolate-covered fruits and nuts.

In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, they’ll also cut down on the total amount of white or milk chocolate your S.O. consumes (since fiber-rich fruits and nuts are satiating and usually challenging to overeat), plus give an extra boost of nutrients:

• Fruits (e.g., strawberries and orange slices): Contain many health-beneficial nutrients, like vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Fruits’ fiber content also helps slow down the breakdown and absorption of sugars into the bloodstream, resulting in a gentler effect on your loved one’s blood glucose levels.

• Nuts (e.g., almonds and macadamias): Typically contain relatively high amounts of vitamin E, magnesium, selenium, and heart-health-supporting unsaturated fats. In fact, multiple studies have linked the nutrients found in nuts to improvements in glycemic control in individuals with type 2 diabetes.

Make baked treats from scratch

If you want to skip the chocolate entirely but still want to gift something sweet (literally and figuratively), why not bake from scratch?

Here are a few tips that’ll help make your bakes more diabetes-friendly:

• Cut down on the sugar: At this point, you should be familiar with the dangers of mixing excess added sugar and type 2 diabetes. So, try your best to use less sugar; note that this doesn’t just mean cutting down on white sugar — but honey, brown sugar, maple syrup, molasses, and agave syrup, too. You could also consider sweetening naturally with bananas, unsweetened apple sauce, or dates. These also add fiber, which slows the glucose uptake rate into the bloodstream. 

• Use alternative flours: Replace refined white flour with more wholesome options, such as almond flour, quinoa flour, buckwheat flour, and wholewheat flour.

• Swap butter out: Do you know how much saturated fat is in a tablespoon of butter? Seven grams. Or more than half your significant other’s recommended daily saturated fat limit (based on a 2,000-calorie diet). To indulge your significant other’s cravings for baked treats while showing their heart health some tender, loving care, try substituting the butter with pumpkin puree, apple sauce, and Greek yogurt.

Note: obviously, these tweaks may change the taste and texture of your recipe, so do expect a bit of trial and error before you get it right. In other words, there’s probably no better time to preheat the oven than now.

Moderation is key, regardless

Dark chocolate. Chocolate-dipped fruits and nuts. Diabetes-friendly home-baked goods. While these are healthier than your typical Valentine’s Day treats (sugar cookies, candy, and store-bought cakes), they’re not, strictly speaking, healthy.

This means you should encourage your loved one to indulge in moderation.

Non-edible gifts

Also, let’s not forget the real diabetes-friendly Valentine’s Day gifts. The non-edible ones. With zero impact on your S.O.’s blood glucose levels. Here are a few ideas:

• Flowers: It doesn’t have to be a bouquet of roses, by the way. Feel free to customize according to your loved one’s preferences — other romantic blooms to gift include fluffy peonies, elegant orchids, dainty gardenias, and playful daisies. Or get the florist to design the perfect bouquet for your S.O.!

• Jewelry: Does your date have a piece of jewelry (or pieces of jewelry?) that has been sitting in their online shopping carts since … forever? This Valentine’s Day is the perfect opportunity to finally cart it out and surprise them.  

• Activities: What about activities? Has your S.O. mentioned anything about wanting to try something different? Tufting? Pottery? A holiday in Japan? Whatever you decide, make sure it’s something your loved one would enjoy.

If you’ve made it all the way down here, searching for a diabetes-friendly Valentine’s Day gift, you must really care about your significant other. *cue, collective aww* And that’s why we’d like to present another gift idea different from the usual, run-of-the-mill: NOVI Magnum.

Starting from just S$5 daily, you’d be giving your loved one the gift of better diabetes care with:

• Personalized treatment plans and

• Ongoing support from specialist doctors, dietitians, and fitness coaches

Help your S.O. take control of their blood glucose levels.