By Loraine Fick

I love sugar, just love it, but I try not to eat sugar. For one thing, my blood sugar is a tad out of whack, most likely a combination of advancing age and eating a zillion refined carbs over the years. You might be surprised that almost everyone over 45 or so has at least slightly wacky blood sugar. And you know what I don’t want to get? Diabetes. Wacky blood sugar is like going up the ladder rungs to the top of the slide, and diabetes is the slide. Luckily you can back down the ladder, which is what I’m trying to do.

Anyway, I still love sweetened, carb-loaded food, but my sweet/carb tooth can be satisfied with healthier options that don’t take much fuss or time. Like these protein balls. I’d been looking forward to making these because (1) I like small, cute food and (2) they’re healthy and tasty and I can just grab one or two (or a bagful …) and go.

Coconut flour holds everything together, but I promise these don’t taste like coconut. I happened to find vanilla bean paste on Amazon really cheap, but you can use regular vanilla and add a tiny bit more coconut flour. Just a tiny bit though, like a half a teaspoon. That stuff sucks up liquid like nobody’s business. You can use regular sugar; it only amounts to a ½ teaspoon per ball, so that won’t send anyone’s blood sugar soaring. For a no-sugar option, I’ve been using monk fruit sweetener (not easy to find in stores but Amazon has it), but it’s expensive and some folks say it has an aftertaste. You could use granulated stevia too. I’m not a fan so I don’t use it much in recipes where there’s any chance I might taste it.

Without further ado …