The Corner Booth

Maple syrup is an American favorite, given its North American origins and delectable sweetness, and many find it to be the perfect complement to holiday feasts. But if you live with diabetes, maple may seem taboo. Thankfully, 20-something Darren Celley in Vermont is working to challenge that notion. Embracing his family heritage in the maple syrup business, he is fundraising to launch a new product geared specifically toward people with diabetes (PWDs): Maple Rise , a spreadable maple butter that can raise low blood sugars quickly and more pleasantly than powdery glucose tabs, juice, or large mouthfuls of candy. Diagnosed at age 12 in 2008, Celley is proud to be bringing a diabetes twist to the traditional concept of maple syrup and its spreadable offspring, maple cream. What is maple cream? Maple cream is simply whipped maple syrup , that turns out more condensed than syrup in the production process. It is heated, cooled, and then mixed until a "rich, creamy ...

You may remember her as the Miss America beauty pageant contestant famous for wearing an insulin pump on national TV during the swimsuit competition, but fellow type 1 Sierra Sandison is so much more than that. The Idaho-based 20-something is now finishing her degree in mechanical and biomedical engineering and has been a force behind diabetes advocacy lobbying to lower insulin pricing in the United States. Years after her 2014 Miss America run, she recently put her name back into the beauty pageant arena with the aim of empowering women who might want to enter the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) . We talked with Sierra recently about all that she's accomplishing these days, and where her advocacy is leading. Who is Sierra Sandison? Sierra Sandison Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) at age 18, Sandison struggled at first and even pretended she didn't have it in hopes that "it would just disappear," she told Diabet...