Category Archives: A Year of No Sugar

A Year Of No Sugar: Post 43

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So yesterday it finally happened, My older daughter called me on it.

She had been complaining about how most of the kids in fifth grade get school lunch and today that meant sugar cookies. I was startled to learn that out of a class of about twenty-four children, Greta is one of only three who bring home lunch. “I know it’s hard honey,” I said feeling genuinely sad. I know that A Year of No Sugar means one thing to a forty-year old, and quite another to a nearly eleven year old.

“Mom,” she said, suddenly, “What do I get out of it? What’s good about it for me?”

“Well, it’s our family project,” I said, a little uncertainly. “We’re doing it together.”

“Yeah I know, but you’re going to get a book out of it. So it’s really for you. Right?”

Whoa.

“Well, yeah,” I said, thinking: and that would be the best case scenario. Right now, having something so concrete as a published book to prove what we’ve done here meant anything isn’t guaranteed. “But you can be part of the book too,” I reminded her, referring to her journal entries and Smoothie recipes she’s been compiling, “if you want to.”

“I know,” she said, reasserting “But it’s really for you.”

“Well, sort of,” I said lamely. “I am sorry it’s so hard.” And after a pause, “That doesn’t make it any easier, does it?”

“No.” she said.

“Well then how about I make it up to you by… buying you a fancy new pair of shoes?!” I exclaimed. Parent tip #24: when all else fails resort to outright bribery. (I should point out that we had just arrived in the parking lot of the shoe shop in order to find her a pair of “fancy” shoes for her upcoming birthday. We looked all afternoon and never did find any- this being Vermont where patent leather shoes are in significantly lower demand than muck boots- so we bought bagels with cream cheese instead.)

“Okay” she said laughing.

Phew. That was a close one. The worst part about this exchange is that she’s got a valid point. I mean, I could pull out some charts and graphs explaining the growth of sugar consumption in the US and how it mirrors lovely things like incidence of pancreatic cancer and metabolic syndrome… but she’s about to be eleven. I’m pretty sure, in the war between pie graphs and pie, I’d lose.

So the health argument is pretty much out; the “you can help” argument is marginally persuasive, but not a surefire winner. And of course, there’s the fact that I’m still searching my soul for the real Why of this project: I mean, you can have a blog or a book about anything… why this? As someone recently asked me point blank: what’s the payoff?

I’m not trying to lose weight. Certainly, I’m trying to be healthier, which, by subjective standards the whole family does seem to be. But to effectively separate me from my Reese’s Peanut Butter cups there would have to be more to it than that… What seems to be stoking the fire of my resolve is the fact that I have been convinced by intelligent, thoughtful people like Dr. Robert Lustig (The Bitter Truth), like David Gillespie (Sweet Poison), who connect the dots in such a convincing way as to make you feel as if a veil has finally been lifted from your eyes and suddenly it all makes sense.

Like any new convert, I have developed a fervor about this knew revelatory knowledge and I feel people should know about it and shouldn’t be afraid to find out- if true- what it might all mean. Like I’ve reported on other posts, the hardest part for me in our Year of No Sugar isn’t resisting temptation, it’s dealing with the conspiring societal norms which come together in a tsunami-fashion to break down the walls of our better judgement. With this project I figured that if we could just show in a dramatic way what was possible, and consequently bringing a greater public awareness to the issue, that might be enough for others to follow in a more moderate fashion.

How to explain this to my near-eleven year old? How about: “We’re just trying to change the world, honey.” I’ll try that next time, and let you know how it goes.

A Year Of No Sugar: Post 42

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I know it might be a little odd, but I place a tremendous amount of importance on how I, as a parent, deal with holidays. If I have somehow failed to measure up to the idea in my head of how nice I’d like say, Easter to be, I will suffer some pretty severe self-recriminations.

I remember last Easter, for example, we happened to be traveling. Our transatlantic flight was scheduled to land the day before Easter, and so Mommy-the-Easter-Bunny spent a superhuman amount of time worrying about portable easter baskets, and trying to find suitably non-fragile, Easter-y items that would fit in her carry-on (can you imagine if Easter didn’t come because American Airlines LOST IT??)

After all my agonizing I was proud of the modest arrangement I managed to concoct on the run and while suffering from a truly harrowing case of jet lag. My ten year old Greta hopped out of bed, surveyed the tiny festive scene, and immediately summed up the situation: “That’s it?”

Oh well.

This year, I’ve been equally worried about what the Easter Bunny may have in store for us, and how it will measure up. After all, what is an Easter basket without CANDY? I keep thinking to myself, wait! Didn’t we just do this? At Valentine’s Day? At Christmas? I was shocked by the not-inconsiderable amount of treats which came home accompanying both my daughters’ brown bags of Valentines this year- and of course we’re not talking Grandma’s brownies here, we’re talking crappy pink lollipops in the shape of Tinkerbell; essentially a chemical oddity on a stick. Since when, I thought, did every Valentine have to come with an ad for the sugar industry- and Disney- attached? Probably it was only a matter of time. I’m fairly certain St.Patrick’s Day Pixie Sticks and Groundhog’s Day gummies will be next.

But after assembling their baskets this evening and putting them out I am cautiously optimistic. No, there are no jellybeans, chocolate bunnies, or Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs (my personal favorite). Not a Peep. In fact, there’s not an edible thing in them, although I briefly toyed with the thought of putting some carrots with the green tops hanging down in, just for fun, but thought better of it.

Instead, I have Easter-themed videos, some small, amorphous, but very Springy-looking stuffed animals, sparkly egg ornaments, some pretty Easter Mardi Gras necklaces (thank you Easter Grandma), and a hangman game for them to share. I put all the things out and stood back, almost afraid to look- would it be, somehow, lacking? Would the sugar-less-ness of it all just be too, too obvious, and slightly sad?

But I didn’t think that. The baskets looked perfectly festive and Easter-like, I realized . Thank God.

So I’ve at least passed my own test this No Sugar Easter… I wonder what the kids’ verdict will be.

A Year Of No Sugar: Post 41

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Yeah. But what about…?

There are LOTS of “but what about…?”s that have cropped up over the last three-plus months of the No Sugar Project that I keep meaning to address, so here we go…

Medicine: as an obsessive and over-protective mom, medicine is off the table, as far as I’m concerned. Sugar Project or no, if my child is sick I am not, repeat NOT going to quibble about trying to find no-sugar Tylenol to quell their fever or some effective alternative to a tablespoon or two of canned fruit syrup to quiet a seriously upset tummy (did you know about that one? It works.) Nope. Medicine is not food, it’s a whole other category. However, as I’ve mentioned before, we have enjoyed remarkable health these past three months, given the time of year and the fact that we have not one but two children in elementary school, which as we all know is Club Med for germs.

All that being said, I’m still fully prepared to bitch about it. Do you remember the days when taking medicine was just awful? Like, gag-reflex-inducing-awful? I’m not saying we should bring back the bad-old-days, but it is troubling to notice that standard medicine cabinet items such as Children’s Tylenol and cough drops have truly been transformed into candy by the addition of HFCS. Ask any mom: it’s to the point where kids beg to have additional unnecessary doses. Now that kind of scares me.

(Thank you to Kate for bringing up this important subject! PS: Hope you are feeling much better.)

Lastly: what about vitamins? Thank you to Katrina- I think- for pointing out that the children’s chewable vitamins prescribed by our pediatrician almost certainly have sugar in them to make them palatable. This is a tougher one: are vitamins “medicine” or “food”?

Lemon and Lime Juice: Also tricky. Technically, we’re not drinking fruit juice, or consuming anything sweetened with fruit juice. However, what about when you aren’t sweetening, such as when you add lemon or lime juice? Technically, there’s still fructose involved, and technically, as fruit juice, that amount is going to be concentrated and minus the fiber and other micronutrients we’d be getting if we were eating the whole fruit, right?

Currently, I use lemon juice quite a bit: in salad dressing, hummus, and several pasta and vegetable recipes. Because of the lack of sweetness, it took a while for me to remember that it is still “fruit juice,” nonetheless. But can this fruit juice be justified on the No Sugar Project?

So I did some research. According to the handy dandy nutrient calculator found on the USDA National Nutrient Database, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/index.html) there is 0.53 grams of fructose in the 48 grams of juice in an average lemon, and 0.27 grams fructose for 48 grams of lime juice.

So if we try to compare apples to apples (ha ha), by using that same amount (48 grams) how do other fruits measure up? If I am using this nutrient calculator right- of which there is absolutely no guarantee- unsweetened apple juice comes in at 2.75 grams of fructose. For unsweetened grape juice you get a whopping 3.53 grams of fructose. Orange juice, for some reason on this website only lists “sugars” (rather than breaking that down into separate components of fructose, lactose, glucose and so on.) Still, at 4.03 grams “sugars” per 48 grams raw orange juice… wow!

Okay, so I’m not sure how to handle this one. Do we have a “fructose threshold”? I don’t know. I don’t want to give up my hummus, so help me out here people. Comments? Rationalizations? Anyone?

Coconut Water: Just the other day I was in the health food store and picked up a bottle of coconut water to drink. Remember how very many drinks are verboten on No Added Sugar? Practically all of them… we can drink water, milk, and for the grown-ups: coffee and (our no added sugar exception) wine. Hmmmm…. I thought. Does “coconut water” count as “fruit juice?” After doing some research the answer seems to be yes. According to Livestrong.com, a serving of coconut water has 5.4 grams of combined simple sugars: glucose and fructose. No matter how you slice it, that’s got to be quite a bit of fructose. Too bad.

Dextrose: Remember my “ose” debate? I consulted with Dr. Robert Lustig, who kindly responded that “dextrose is glucose,” and therefore for our fructose-free purposes, fine. It was nice to have at least one “what about?” question end with a “why, yes, you can have that!” even if it was dextrose and not hot fudge sundaes.

Brown Rice Syrup: I have yet to encounter this ingredient, but I have found some recipes calling for it online, so it seems worth investigating. According to Wikipedia, it is “a sweetener derived by culturing cooked rice with enzymes” which is composed of maltose, glucose and maltotriose. Woo-hoo! No fructose in sight!

On the other hand, my friend Katrina weighed in: “Yeah, too bad it tastes like dog poo.” Oh. Well, then again she also thought our beloved GoRaw raisin granola bars tasted like “bird seed” (like that’s a bad thing!?) so who knows? She’s going to give me some to try out- stay tuned.

Malted Barley: My dear friend Wikipedia informs me that “barley malt syrup” is “produced from sprouted barley” and is made up of maltose, complex carbohydrate and protein. It is described as roughly half as sweet as refined sugar, but with a “malty” taste, “best used in combination with other natural sweeteners.” Yeah, well, so much for that part.

Now I must take a moment to once more explain how NOT SAVVY I am with regard to nutritional matters: full disclosure… science and my brain don’t like one another much. So, honestly, I had to read further to realize why “complex carbohydrate” couldn’t mean “fructose” in disguise. Well, you probably paid attention in health class and already know the answer: fructose is a “simple sugar” aka “monosaccharide,” which is to say not complex. Complex carbohydrates are chains of three or more sugar molecules linked together, which apparently makes all the difference.

Which brings us back to the “-ose” question. The suffix “-ose” refers to simple sugar, again according to Wikipedia: “For example, blood sugar is the monosaccharide glucose, table sugar is the disaccharide sucrose, and milk sugar is the disaccharide lactose.”

So complex carbohydrates are fine. Simple carbohydrates, aka simple sugars, aka mono- and di-saccharides are also fine, as long as we avoid that one nasty, bad seed mono-saccharide: fructose. Well when we put it that way, it doesn’t sound so very hard, does it?

Agave: I had been wondering about agave/ agave nectar/ agave syrup… first of all, what is it? Thanks to Wikipedia I now know that it is a Mexican perennial succulent, similar to ornamental Yucca plants. Yum.

Second of all, terms like “nectar” and “syrup” would seem to indicate the extraction of the sweet “juice” of the plant, leaving behind the fiber and any other beneficial micronutrients. So I wondered- is there a a form of agave which includes the plant fiber? Turns out no, unless you consider razor strops or hand soap (two of the uses for the non-sap parts of the plant) edible. Oh well.

“Contains Less Than 2 percent Of The Following”: A friend of ours who is a doctor recently pointed out, and rightly so, that abstaining from products with a vanishingly small amount of sugar doesn’t really do anything nutritionally… meanwhile we are still having wine (my and my husband’s one “exception” item) which has comparatively significant amounts of fructose, being fermented fruit juice, of course. (According to the USDA website listed above an average 5 oz glass of red wine contains .91 grams of total sugars- it is not broken down further into glucose and fructose.)

Well, true. I suppose, in the alternative we could say that we could eat any food for which the sugar falls in the “less than 2 percent” category, and have that be our exception, except that that sounds awfully clinical to me. Plus, I’d sorely miss my nightly glass of wine, and feeling more deprived than I already do now is not very high on my list of things to do. I don’t know. What do you think?