What Candy Can People With Diabetes Eat, and How Much Is Safe?
Updated on October 20, 2026
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Candy isn’t considered a health food, but experts say that it doesn’t need to be completely off-limits if you have diabetes. Moderation is key — if you can limit your overall added sugar intake, a little candy can fit into a diabetes-friendly diet. For people with low blood sugar, it can even be an occasional medical necessity.
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If I Have Type 2 Diabetes, Can I Eat Sweets?
People with diabetes don’t need to restrict themselves from the simple pleasure of enjoying sweets entirely. Knowing which candies are best and the quantity in which they can be safely consumed can provide guilt-free freedom.
How Much Candy Can You Eat?
You can enjoy sweets and hit your nutrition goals, but only if the rest of your snacking and eating habits remain on target.
Think of candy as a dessert rather than a snack, says Rainie Robinson, RD, CDCES, director of clinical nutrition at Children’s of Alabama in Birmingham. “Changing that mentality allows people to think about eating candy in smaller portions. We are typically fuller from the meal and therefore eat less candy or sweets than we would have before,” she adds.
“Our bodies need carbohydrates throughout the day — and candy can be a delicious, festive, enjoyable source of it on occasion,” says Meg Salvia, PhD, a nutritionist and diabetes educator in private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
But several types of candy are high in added sugar, a highly processed ingredient that rapidly raises your blood sugar and can negatively affect your health. In excess, sugar can raise your risk of high blood glucose, chronic inflammation, weight gain, liver disease, and cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s current dietary guidelines recommend that adults consume no more than 10 percent of their daily calories from added sugar. For many adults, that’s about a single can of soda.
The American Heart Association sets an even stricter limit for added sugar at only 6 percent of daily calories. For a 2,000-calorie diet, that 6 percent limit allows around 30 grams of added sugar per day. For reference, a regular-sized bag of chocolate candy or chocolate bar has around 23 grams of sugar.
In other words, a candy bar will fall just under that upper limit, if you eliminate added sugar from the rest of your diet. This can be challenging, given how much hidden sugar is found even in packaged foods, such as condiments, protein bars, and energy drinks.
Can You Eat Sugar-Free Sweets?
Several sugar-free sweets and candies are sold today. These alternatively sweetened treats are unlikely to raise your blood sugar levels, and foods with artificial sweeteners may also have fewer calories than those with sugar.
Artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes are no longer considered a stand-alone solution for people with diabetes, and experts caution against relying too heavily on them. Artificial sweeteners are associated with a host of potential negative side effects, such as increased insulin resistance and an impaired gut microbiome.
Eating too much artificial sweetener can also cause uncomfortable side effects. Candies with artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols, such as xylitol and erythritol, can cause an upset stomach when eaten in large quantities. Some may also raise blood sugar.
Sugar-free sweets aren’t necessarily low in other macronutrients, like fat. These products may also contain other ingredients to enhance their flavor, which may affect your blood sugar. Always check the nutrition label before trying a new treat.
Perspectives
David Korsunsky
Founder/CEO, Heads Up Health
"It was not until many, many years later in life where I started to realize a lot of that food was having really disastrous effects on my blood sugar."
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Candy Can Help With Low Blood Sugar
If you use glucose-lowering medications that carry a risk of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), candy can actually be a helpful tool.
Insulin and sulfonylureas may cause low blood sugar, so if you take these medications, you may be instructed to keep a source of fast-acting carbohydrates on hand at all times. Generally, you can resolve hypoglycemia — which causes symptoms like shakiness, hunger, and irritability — by quickly eating or drinking something with sugar.
The American Diabetes Association recommends treating hypoglycemia with the “15-15 rule”:
- Take about 15 grams of fast-acting carbohydrates.
- Check your blood sugar after 15 minutes.
- Treat yourself with another 15 grams if your levels haven’t increased to a safer range yet.
If you don’t address it, hypoglycemia can become dangerous, eventually leading to diabetic seizures. At less severe levels, it can impair your judgment and ability to think clearly when performing tasks such as driving.
Candy is a good option to raise your blood sugar quickly, especially candies made almost entirely of sugar, such as jelly beans and gummy bears. More complex candies that contain richer ingredients, such as chocolate, caramel, or nuts, may not raise your blood sugar as quickly because of their fiber, protein, and fat content.
Tips for Eating Candy With Diabetes
“I encourage people with diabetes to remember that a diabetes diet is really just a healthier diet,” says Robinson. That means that you can incorporate sweets into your diabetes management while staying safe. Consider the following strategies:
- Make dessert a special occasion, not a daily habit.
- Choose sweets that feature nutritious ingredients, such as real fruit or dark chocolate.
- Keep portions small. “For a lot of people, measuring portions is the tricky part, so I would recommend sticking with ‘fun-size’ portions and walking away from the candy bowl after a treat,” Robinson says.
- Think of dessert as an element of your meal. If you eat something sugary for dessert, you might want to skip starches such as rice, pasta, or potatoes at dinner.
Diane Norwood, RD, CDCES, a certified dietitian in Virginia Beach, Virginia, also suggests the following blood sugar monitoring tips:
- Check your blood sugar level before eating any sweets. “If the blood sugar level is already higher than recommended, it is not a good idea to eat high-carbohydrate foods, including candy,” she says.
- Use a blood sugar meter or a continuous glucose monitor to see which candies are less likely to send your glucose out of range.
- Even if your levels are within a healthy range, it’s still a good idea to test your blood sugar right before eating the candy, then again two hours later, to see if the portion size was okay, she adds.
- If you’re insulin-dependent, your reading will help you know whether you need additional insulin to correct high blood sugar.
Resources We Trust
- Mayo Clinic: Artificial Sweeteners: Any Effect on Blood Sugar?
- American Medical Association: Foods That Spike a Patient’s Blood Glucose Are Not What You Think
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Spotting Hidden Sugars in Everyday Foods
- MedlinePlus: Diabetic Diet
- UMass Chan Medical School: Healthy Eating Tips for Diabetes to Improve Blood Sugar Control
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
- The Sweet Danger of Sugar. Harvard Health Publishing. April 6, 2026.
- Get the Facts: Added Sugar. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. April 29, 2026.
- Added Sugar. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. April 2022.
- Added Sugars. American Heart Association. August 2, 2024.
- Chocolate Candy. U.S. Department of Agriculture: FoodData Central. October 31, 2024.
- Spotting Hidden Sugars in Everyday Foods. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. February 5, 2026.
- Artificial Sweeteners: Any Effect on Blood Sugar? Mayo Clinic. February 18, 2025.
- Luck A et al. Artificial Sweeteners and Their Implications for Patients With Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. The Journal of Medicine and Life. January 2026.
- Okoro F et al. Artificial Sweeteners and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Review of Current Developments and Future Research Directions. Journal of Diabetes and Its Complications. February 2025.
- What You Should Know About Sugar Alcohols. Cleveland Clinic. June 17, 2024.
- What Are Sugar Alcohols? American Diabetes Association. January 27, 2025.
- McCallum K. Do Artificial Sweeteners Raise Your Blood Sugar? Houston Methodist. August 23, 2023.
- Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment for Hypoglycemia (Low Blood Glucose). American Diabetes Association.
- Treatment of Low Blood Sugar (Hypoglycemia). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. May 15, 2024.
- Can People With Diabetes Eat Dessert? American Diabetes Association. February 13, 2025.
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