“I was 13 years old when I fell ‘diabetic’. I use this expression to explain what I felt, like falling from a height, because it was brutal. Indeed, no one in my family I am diabetic. At that time, I was not particularly tempted by pastries. At snack time, I was rather cheese and garlic sausage, but from deprivation to frustration, I ended up obsessed with cakes. This pleasure forbidden was the temptation of the devil. I dreamed of it, while I bowed to the constraints of my type 1 diabetes, a autoimmune disease where the pancreas no longer secretes the insulin essential for regulating blood sugar levels. For eighteen years I measure my blood sugar six times a day to adjust the doses of insulin I inject myself to balance my sugar level. That didn’t stop me from studying law and then starting to work in human resources. But, in 2014, an encounter revolutionized my life, that of a type 2 diabetic who launched a bakery whose products contain less sugar. It’s the click! I am going to become an entrepreneur and concoct pastries and chocolates as tasty as they are beautiful, which do not raise blood sugar, or very little, so that diabetics – and me first! – can taste them without putting themselves in danger.
My pastry shop opens in 2016
The challenge implies that my sweets have a glycemic index (GI) very low, less than 30, the equivalent of a raw carrot or vegetables. Knowing that the GI evaluates the rise in blood sugar levels after the absorption of a food containing it. Classic pastries have a GI above 70, which is more than not recommended for a diabetic person. To meet my challenge, I developed each recipe with a Compagnon du Devoir pastry chef and a diabetologist. Their impact on blood sugar was then tested on several volunteers.
Result: in 2016, I opened my first pastry shop, Les belles envies, in Paris, with GI fluctuating between 17 and 30 for chocolate éclairs, lemon tarts and other plain flans… A first! I replaced the sucrose with coconut blossom sugar, whose GI is 35 (70 for white sugar) and I don’t use any refined white flour, but lupine flour (GI 15), coconut and oat bran, whose fibers delay the passage of sugar into the blood. For chocolate, a natural sweetener, maltitol, replaces sugar with a GI ten times lower. My frustrations melted away. I feel like I’ve found a magic potion when I taste my pastry.
revenge on disease
These rediscovered flavors are a revenge on the disease, as if I had defeated it with a “It’s not you who sets the law, it’s me who decides!”. At the table, they say we save the best for the end but, before, I was never entitled to the best, just a fromage blanc with sweetener or an apple. Now I can enjoy the same sweets as everyone else. This is essential, because eating represents the pleasure of sharing and conviviality. Nevertheless, I still do not accept the disease. I even hate her! And more and more because hyperglycaemia become more resounding. I help spare energy and courage, but sometimes I have to lie down and I feel things I didn’t feel before. I have a blocked carpal tunnel, for example, one of the consequences of diabetes. The fear of complications increases over time. I feel like I have a mission. The fact remains that my happiness, when I go to bed, is to have managed to cheer up people who sometimes haven’t eaten cake for years.
One evening, I received an email from the father of little Lise, who had been deprived of sugar for two years because of an orphan disease: “You gave her back her smile”. When I see so many eyes shining, I want to conquer the world, I dream of settling in Los Angeles, in Asia, in the Middle East. I would also like to have children. A pregnancy remains a risky project and I don’t know if I will transmit my pathology to my baby. Facing this question will be a first step in accepting the disease. For the time being, I’m still Alixe twirling around, unable to settle down, totally invested in her business.
Leading a somewhat bohemian life probably reassures me about the constraints of diabetes. In any case, I transformed my childhood trauma into vital momentum. And I want to tell everyone that it is possible! “
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