Re: Licorice and milk?

I find it surprising that licorice would crash blood sugar. Did you determine that from how you felt or from glucose monitor testing? Licorice contains glycyrrhizin, which, if I remember correctly, keeps cortisol from breaking down. That means you get more cortisol hanging out in your system. And raising cortisol is one of our bodies' main ways of relieving low blood sugar, through "gluconeogenesis":

Gluconeogenesis (abbreviated GNG) is a metabolic pathway that results in the generation of glucose from non-carbohydrate carbon substrates such as lactate, glycerol, and glucogenic amino acids.

Note that "lactate" is one of the things that this process converts into blood sugar. Our bodies naturally produce lactate (though I wonder how well if our systems are unhealthy), but I'm guessing the idea behind taking milk with licorice is that the milk is believed to contain lactate and so it provides more stuff to turn into blood sugar. I don't know enough to say whether this is true.

Sometimes licorice is sold "deglycyrrhizinated", meaning that the active ingredient which affects cortisol is removed, basically turning that licorice non-medicinal. You might want to watch out for that, too.